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    Lakewood: A Novel
    Lakewood: A Novel
    Lakewood: A Novel
    Audiobook8 hours

    Lakewood: A Novel

    Written by Megan Giddings

    Narrated by Adenrele Ojo

    4/5

    ()

    About this audiobook

    A startling debut about class and race, Lakewood evokes a terrifying world of medical experimentation—part The Handmaid’s Tale, part The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks.

    One of The Millions’ Most Anticipated Reads (The Great First Half 2020 Books)

    When Lena Johnson’s beloved grandmother dies, and the full extent of the family debt is revealed, the black millennial drops out of college to support her family and takes a job in the mysterious and remote town of Lakewood, Michigan. 

    On paper, her new job is too good to be true. High paying. No out of pocket medical expenses. A free place to live. All Lena has to do is participate in a secret program—and lie to her friends and family about the research being done in Lakewood. An eye drop that makes brown eyes blue, a medication that could be a cure for dementia, golden pills promised to make all bad thoughts go away.

    The discoveries made in Lakewood, Lena is told, will change the world—but the consequences for the subjects involved could be devastating. As the truths of the program reveal themselves, Lena learns how much she’s willing to sacrifice for the sake of her family.

    Provocative and thrilling, Lakewood is a breathtaking novel that takes an unflinching look at the moral dilemmas many working-class families face, and the horror that has been forced on black bodies in the name of science.

    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherHarperAudio
    Release dateMar 24, 2020
    ISBN9780062990334
    Lakewood: A Novel
    Author

    Megan Giddings

    Megan Giddings is an assistant professor at the University of Minnesota. Her first novel, Lakewood, was one of New York Magazine's top ten books of 2020, an NPR Best Book of 2020, a Michigan Notable book for 2021, a finalist for two NAACP Image Awards, and was a finalist for an L.A. Times Book Prize in the Ray Bradbury Science Fiction, Fantasy, and Speculative category. Megan's writing has received funding and support from the Barbara Deming Foundation and Hedgebrook. She lives in the Midwest.

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    Reviews for Lakewood

    4/5

    419 ratings21 reviews

    What did you think?

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    Review must be at least 10 words

    • 4/5
      Very creepy, and such realistic medical horror. If body horror gets you, be careful reading this one - I'm so horrified by tooth related body horror and I was cringing and holding my own mouth in parts because I was so freaked out. I almost wish it was a little longer, I thought the end was good but a little abrupt.

      1 person found this helpful

    • 5/5
      Wow, just . . . Wow. My brain can’t quite formulate coherent thoughts when it comes to this book and what it did, the chills it left me with, and the heartbreaking connections I was able to draw to the real world it exists in. This was the first audiobook I’ve listened to in its entirety and I absolutely fell in love with the narrator, the visuals she was able to bring to life with her voice. I’m so glad I had the privilege of reading this book and understanding the message it conveyed about race in America.

      1 person found this helpful

    • 3/5
      Although threaded with commentaries that sift through issues bordering on class, race, and sexism, the evident drive that Megan Giddings retained began to fade as the extent of the novel diminished in figures. Even with the fact that it is essentially built on a plot reminiscent of a Jordan Peele film, it left much to be desired. The ambiguous nature of the narrative had reduced it to a meager composition with its bones slightly peeking through. I felt that Giddings was rather relentless in pivoting her work on one portion of the entire picture, and it left a lot of parts that needed securing. Nevertheless, the way that the tone was set throughout the course of the novel was carried out pretty well, and I found it to be a very interesting read. Lakewood had a lot of potential. Once I had read the story that it promised from the summary, I thought that it was going to be a new favorite of mine. Too bad. :(

      1 person found this helpful

    • 2/5
      This booked literally dragged it out. I didn’t really become interested until chapter 20 out of the 34.

      1 person found this helpful

    • 4/5
      The narrator seemed to have the same intonation throughout, not my favorite, but the story was great

      1 person found this helpful

    • 4/5
      Bone-chilling horror story about a young Black woman joining a “memory experiment” and how things go wrong and how things have been wrong for generations.
    • 4/5
      This story is like a fever dream. What's real and what isn't can begin to blur and make you feel as if you are going crazy trying to figure out what is happening in the study.
    • 4/5
      If you love Sci Fi and suspense, this is your book. I was engrossed in the novel from the start. It's a page turner with a beautiful, poignant dialogue. Lena's character was written beautifully. It was refreshing to read a Sci Fi novel with a Black main characters and the nuances of classism and racism. I am now a Megan Giddings fan!
    • 3/5
      I enjoyed the narrator but the book was ok. I wanted it to end a little twistier or something more dramatic than just it happened or did it?
    • 4/5
      Really good, great commentary on scientific racism, ending not as satisfying but that’s not the point, still give it a listen
    • 5/5
      Absolutely haunting read, the events of this book will stay with me forever. Giddings did a superb job capturing the realities of being Black in America, and the horrors that accompany it.
    • 3/5
      Hard to follow at times. Story was a bit long winded
    • 3/5
      Very interesting. Don't expect a overly melodramatic ending but it is quite realistic which makes it quite scary. It's more 3 1/2 stars.
    • 3/5
      Very slow start. I only kept reading to find out what would happen and was somewhat disappointed.
    • 4/5
      Thought provoking, disturbing, overt and covert social commentary about experimentation.
    • 2/5
      Pass on this book. Not what you think. Boo hiss.
    • 5/5
      She’s so brave, even when she’s hurt for some foggy good thing. She’s got her grandma inside for wisdom and is giving her mom a shot at being ordinary instead of sick. I wanted someone to say ‘Hon, are you ok? Tell me how it really is.’ But that never happened. Maybe it will. People forget they are human and without this feeling, become heartless. Heartless people can do the cruelest things to other people as part of a procedure. Nobody knows why these things are done to them.

      I feel now, after finishing this book, as if I doubt my own reality. Am I doing horrible things too?
    • 5/5
      This was excellent, equal parts creepy and haunting. I'm impressed this is a debut.
    • 4/5
      Earnest and chilling, Lakewood is a cautionary and thought-provoking critique on race and class disguised as body horror but succeeds at both.
    • 4/5
      One of those books that you should understand better but don't. The protagonist is a Black college student who is in a big financial bind and finds rescue by enrolling in a research study with completely disturbing, violent, and abusive components. By joining, Lena gets a large salary and, most importantly, health insurance for herself and for her ailing mother. She stays despite the strange physical and psychological damage, most of which take place in a bland Midwestern town's office park but also, terrifyingly, in an isolated rural cabin. Lena can't tell if the tests and challenges she's undergoing are specifically designed for her as a Black woman, as all Black people suffer under the misbelief that they are able to bear physical pain more readily than other races. The problem is that the reader doesn't know either. There's a bit of a reveal at the end as regards Lena's mother's experiences, and a small public protest against the experimentation, but not many clues beyond that. The novel is a combination of horror story and sociological narrative that left me feeling like I was too dumb to get in on the true story.
    • 3/5
      3.5 stars--I wonder if this would have been 4 if I read it on paper/or screen? The narration is totally fine, it is just that I am not the greatest listener, and the sometimes unreliable narrator had me confused more than once.This is one of the books I missed last year due to Covid--it was on my radar, but then whe. it came out the libraries were closed, and I kind of forgot about it. It came up on the Reading Engvy podcast right as I needed a new audiobook on hoopla, and it was there. Perfect timing.This book addresses the US history of running medical experiments on black people, largely without consent (or without informed consent). Many have heard of the Tuskegee studies, but there were others. In this novel, Lena is invited to join a medical study that will pay very, very, very well. She and her mother need the money and insurance, so she drops out of school to go. It is all very hush hush with intense backstories. The pay and insurance is real--the informed consent is not. And to story goes even deeper.I'm not even sure how to classify this novel. Is it speculative fiction? Dystopian? In the past, similar events have occurred--which makes it seem not so speculative. But still dystopian, I guess.