Lakewood audiobook

reading vlog https://youtu.be/M2VrTcGOkX8

This book is creepy, gripping, thought-provoking, atmospheric. Honestly, if Jordan Peele wrote a movie about Henrietta Lacks, it would be something like this. While reading, there is such a sense of dread mounting up until the end. I was so engrossed with this.When Lena Johnson's beloved grandmother dies, Lena is left with a huge amount of family debt. Lena then drops out of college and sign up to do this medical experiment in Lakewood, Michigan to earn good money to pay off the family debt and assist her mother who needs medical expenses. As Lena spends more and more time at this facility, more and more strange discoveries come up and as the truths of the program reveal themselves, Lena learns how much she's willing to sacrifice for the sake of her family.This book is about the horror that has been forced on Black bodies in the name of science for hundreds of years. I've come across a lot of reviews saying this book is not horror and that it's unrealistic and that's very frustrating since there is a long and documented history of forced and coerced experimentation on Black bodies dating back to slavery. It is clearly documented. And to say that this book is unrealistic - and therefore not a thriller/horror and not as good of a book because of that - feels very ignorant and lowkey racist. Loved this book!

27/1/20This was a great book! What interested me was the way Giddings managed to explore how the society fails to protect the most vulnerable and instead result uses their weakness to exploit them for their own benefit. Crazy!29/11/19A huge thank you Amistad for gifting me a copy of this book! Like for realsYou can find me onYoutube | Instagram | Twitter | Tumblr | Website

Such a strange, unnerving reading experience! It kinda reminded me of the game Control in a few ways, in the same way that Authority by Jeff Vandermeer did. I really did love it, but I wanted more!!! Ahhhhhhhhh 😅 The ending was so good, but it was also rushed and just left me wishing there was more craziness.**Also, I’ve also seen quite a few reviews claim this was YA? It’s not.

Lakewood is a disturbing tale of classism, racism, and desperation and those who take advantage of others because they can and for their own gain. It’s horrifying on so many levels and definitely worth reading.Lena is a young woman grieving the loss of her grandmother when the story opens. Her grandma took care of them all but especially Lena’s mother who suffers from a brain malady. Now Lena and her mother are left alone with their grief and the mounting bills in the aftermath. It soon becomes overwhelming and when Lena receives a strange letter from The Lakewood Project offering her a huge stipend, lodging, and full medical coverage for her family in exchange for research studies into her mind, memory, personality, and perception, she’s more than a little curious as well as a bit skeptical because if it sounds too good to be true, well, you know the rest. It feels like a scam. The interview makes her uncomfortable but ultimately she agrees to basically become part of an experiment and from there the most terrible things happen, as they will, and that’s all I’ll say about that.Much of this book reads a little like a fever dream as Lena and her fellow test subjects are exposed to tests and drugs and various appalling and chilling things. Despite this, I never felt too off-kilter. Lena is doing her best to keep it all together and the situation is depressingly oppressive and sad and 100% believable. My only complaint, and it is a bit of a big one, is that this book is a super slow burn (this isn’t the complaint) and the last few pages throw SO much backstory and reveals at the reader that it’s a little mind-numbing. I wasn’t quite ready to be hit with all of that in such a brutal manner! I wish more time had been given to some of those reveals and that a few more questions had been answered with some clarity and in all honestly I would’ve liked to see it all unpacked a bit more slowly. There’s a lot to think about in this book and it’s not a light and easy read but I think it’s worth your time if you know what you’re getting into before you begin.

OKAY OKAY OKAY so in the month of December I have read and identified my favorite book of the year! There are like maybe 1 or 2 books I can think of that I would’ve liked to be longer, and this is one of them, clocking in at about 270 pages. I was okay with the ending, but I wished there was a little more about the aftermath of the experiments and the exposure of the dangerous water in Lakewood. I feel like it’s best going into this book w/o the expectation that it’ll be a combo of Handmaid’s Tale and Get Out, as advertised. I feel like the paranoia and dystopian feelings throughout maybe give those vibes, but this story is an important one on its own. I’m glad I decided to pick it up despite the somewhat low GR rating (cough RACISM cough). This book absolutely falls under the genres of thriller and horror. I was TERRIFIED reading this. Shaking and sweating and everything. The apathy on the part of the researchers really got me. Underneath the obvious plot of experimentation on Black and poor people is a bigger story about generational trauma and strong familial bonds and friendship and grief. My only complaint is about Lena’s willingness to comply in the study even knowing the history of experimentation on Black people...but that spoke to her desperation, I guess. Also anyone who has taken a college level science class knows that “study” was absolutely unethical and wouldn’t have passed and IRB and therefore the NDA would’ve been null and void!! But I digress :) I will be thinking about this book for a LONG time. ——————I really need to breathe into a paper bag before I review this. Good gawd.

Lakewood is a chilling debut about the horrors of medical experimentation on Black people and the desperation of losing parts of yourself in order to care for someone else. It's a slow burn horror novel that becomes increasingly disturbing and hearkens to the horrific real-world history of unethical experimentation such as the Tuskegee Project.When Lena's grandmother dies, she becomes the only means of support for her mother who regularly struggles with her health and mental health. So when Lena is offered a spot in an unorthodox medical study that could solve all her financial problems and provide good health insurance, she jumps at the opportunity. She will live in Lakewood with a fake cover story while undergoing experiments that become increasingly invasive and disturbing, alongside other text subjects of color under the watch of all white teams who sometimes say and do deeply racist things. It is a stunning debut that shines a light on important topics. Do note that there are graphic depictions of body horror, medical horror, drug use and others.

FOUR STARSHOLY FUCKING FUCKS!!!!!!review to come

This book gave me Get Out mixed with Stranger Things vibes and if that isn’t perfection then I don’t know what it! I was instantly captivated and couldn’t stop reading once I started, just turning the pages absolutely fascinated. The story is just SO damn good, the way it unrolls slowly at first and then keeps gaining speed as it goes along until it comes to a wonderful glorious crash at the end. It is haunting and mesmerizing and horrifying all in one package and it just checked all my boxes. The way Eddings explores racism in such a quiet yet loud way is just beyond stunning, I don’t think I’ll ever get over it. This book is just so damn good, it sneaks up on you quietly and then just creeps itself under your skin and suddenly it’s forever a part of you.

My heart is in my throat, my pulse racing. Lakewood is an exploration of medical experimentation and exploitation of those in marginalized communities - of Black people, especially. And it is absolutely gut wrenching. Lena’s grandmother has passed leaving her to care for her mysteriously ill mother and to deal with a mountain of debt. When Lena is offered a large sum of money to take part in a secretive sequence of experimental medical trials she drops out of college and moves to the small town of Lakewood, signing an NDA and keeping her friends and family in the dark. What starts out as a series of mild assessments quickly snowballs into terrifying scenarios, lost days in a fog of amnesia, painful side effects, and fellow test subjects dropping like flies. Why are (almost) all of Lena’s colleagues people of colour, while the observers are all white? What do the townspeople know? Why does the water taste wrong? What is Lakewood’s true purpose? Will Lena be able to survive the tests that get stranger and bloodier with every passing day? And if she makes it through, will she ever be the same?What a fascinating, thought-provoking, horrifying, stomach churning, creeping dread-full read. This is a horror novel firmly grounded in the real, long-standing history of unethical experimentation on Black people since the time of slavery in America. And I don’t think I’ll be able to stop playing it over and over in my mind gaping in terror any time soon. TW: death, murder, gore & body horror, unethical medical experimentation, racism.VIDEO REVIEW: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8Tbcj...You can find me on...Youtube | Instagram | Twitter

A well executed medical horror books that draws from history and leaves you feeling angry and ashamed. After her grandmother dies, Lena accepts a job being a medical guinea peg for the elusive Lakewood institute. As we learn from her time there through memories and letters to her young sister; we are else into an unravelling psyche trying to grapple with the truth around her.The audiobook was brilliant. I was gripped and invested the entire time.The plot was intriguing and kept you engaged and happy to be lead wherever the author chose.A brilliant horror-esque book that is less jump scare scary but more steadily horrifying in its reality.

This fiction title coming out in 2020 was perfect timing. The author writing about how the government preys on low income black areas. Really interesting read!

What a confusing, frustrating, meandering, plotless, overlong pile of . . . brilliance.Ms. Giddings has added to the ever-growing list of novels about women who put themselves in dangerous situations for personal gain. But to compare "Lakewood" to "Lock Every Door" is like comparing "The Great Gatsby" to "The Amityville Horror" because both take place on Long Island. Ms. Giddings puts her heroine, Lena, in a personal situation desperate enough to justify signing up for a hyper-secretive behavioral experiment without asking too many questions. She also makes Lena smart enough that the reader knows she's in willful denial about the way she's being manipulated, a choice which elevates "Lakewood" from thriller to literary fiction. And finally, Ms. Giddings trusts her readers enough to let them draw their own conclusions about what's happening to Lena and her fellow guinea pigs in the small town of Lakewood, MI. Fans of dystopian fiction and "Girl" books will resent the lack of exposition, but to me it was like a bucket of ice water being dumped over my head - shocking, bracing, and refreshing.

Lakewood is exceptional horror speculative fiction—and a debut to boot! For fans of Get Out, Black Mirror and The Handmaids Tale, Lakewood explores systemic violence and ‘legal’ loophole slavery against BIPOC (a la Tuskegee Experiment). This book is fucked and incredible and I can’t wait to read more from Megan Giddings in the future.