The Nice House on the Lake, Vol. 2 James Tynion IV

 
The Nice House on the Lake, Vol. 2 James Tynion IV

My Rating: ★★★★★

Just when the survivors trapped at the lake house thought the floor under their feet was done falling, they quickly learn that is not the case. Walter is trying different ways to make his friends happy by erasing their memories and trying to guide them. Instead, they are worried, frustrated, and occasionally a little suspicious. It’s okay, since Walter finally got the puzzle pieces in place… or did he?

I was so excited that the second volume was available because the opening volume was spectacular. It took a few seconds to realize that Walter had played with everyone’s memories again, which is when I settled in and followed along. This time around, we watch as Walter tries to manipulate everyone into settling down in their new reality now that they think they’re just trapped at the lake house. The only problem is that no one wants to settle in long-term because they think there’s a world that still exists outside of the lake house. However, it is going much smoother since they’re no longer angry and upset knowing what happened to everyone they’ve ever known.

It was great to see more of the character’s personalities come out. However, we continued to mainly view them through Walter, who is desperately trying to make things work. As the volume continues, we also learn more about Walter, and I think that he really does care about and love each of his friends in his own way. He’s not human, so he doesn’t exactly understand why everyone is so obsessed with making contact with their friends and family outside of the lake house, especially when he knows they’re all dead. We also see him trying extremely hard with Norah, who is the person he cares about most and the only one able to remember the recent events he erased from everyone else’s memories. We learn a lot about Norah as well as see how she continues to struggle with what he’s done and the reality of this new world and prison that’s been created for them all.

The reactions of the characters could be seen as a little bit of a study on human nature, which makes it even more interesting. It was a truly wild read and I honestly don’t know what I would do or how I would react if I found myself in the shoes of any one of Walter’s friends stuck at the lake house. What I do know is that I’d like to know more about Walter and his people, like where they came from and what the point of these experiments are since they’ve destroyed everything on our planet in this fictional story. I would be very upset and blindsided of course, but I would want to know more about the reality of this situation and whose hands my life was in as well as what their plans were since they decided we were going to survive as part of an experiment.

The ending appears to both wrap up the series while clearly not being the end, so I’m a little confused about whether or not this is indeed where it ends. If it does continue, I’d love to learn more about the other characters outside of how Walter views and experiences them. Since we learned a little more about how the lake house works and the “controls” of its ecosystem, which reminds me of The Sims in a way, it’ll be interesting to see how much of it is truly as it seems. It’ll also be interesting to see where the story would go from this point on, especially after the ominous ending that sets up the future of the series, assuming it continues.