The Roanoke Girls by Amy Engel

 

When Heather told me about how amazing this book was and that I needed to read it, asap, I popped that sucker on my to-read list immediately. That's why I was so excited when she agreed to a re-read with me. THE ROANOKE GIRLS is an ambitious, brave, love-it or hate it sort of book that, in many ways, is kind of a throwback to the big, bloated Gothic novels of the 60s and 70s. While reading this book, I kept thinking back to other Gothic favorites of mine, like V.C. Andrews's MY SWEET AUDRINA, or Stephen King's DOLORES CLAIBORNE (arguably my favorite of his books).

One caveat. While reading reviews for this book, be VERY careful. A lot of them contain untagged spoilers. One person spoiled a major twist in the first sentence of their review. While I understand the reasoning-- this book has triggers for basically everything-- I do think that TWs should be opt-in, so people who need/want them can have them properly tagged, without spoiling the book for others who either feel confident enough that they can read without feeling anxious or who have a psychological "stomach" of steel.

THE ROANOKE GIRLS is a dual timeline story that features several of my favorite tropes: messed-up families, tortured FMC, toxic romance, and dark secrets. When Lane's cousin Allegra goes missing, she goes back to the one place she swore she would never return: Roanoke, Kansas; her family's crumbling estate in America's heartlands. And just like she feared, her return brings back all these memories to surface that she would rather stay buried: memories about the summer that nearly broke her, and what it means to be a Roanoke girl, and the price that some people are willing to pay for love.

I really think that, unless you have specific TWs that you need to have addressed, less is more going into this book. It's so densely atmospheric and beautifully written, and despite the ugly subject matter, I felt like the author handled it all with grace, not giving too much details, and taking what could have been sensationalized and tawdry and, frankly, crude, and turning it into a brilliant psychological Petri dish of dysfunctionality. After I finished, the moody atmosphere clung to me like swamp water. This would make an amazing TV series in the vein of SHARP OBJECTS.

Also, one more side note: the cover makes this book look kind of YA and this author previously published some YA, but this book is NOT YA. I did not realize that going into this book so I was like, wow this sure is explicit for YA. But it is NOT YA.

5 out of 5 stars