The Roanoke Girls by Amy Engel Review

WARNING: THERE MAY BE SPOILERS BELOW

“No one had to explain to me the power our childhoods had over us, even when we fought like hell against them.” - The Roanoke Girls, Amy Engel

Roanoke girls never last long around here. In the end, we either run or we die.

After her mother's suicide, fifteen year-old Lane Roanoke came to live with her grandparents and fireball cousin, Allegra, on their vast estate in rural Kansas. Lane knew little of her mother's mysterious family, but she quickly embraced life as one of the rich and beautiful Roanoke girls. But when she discovered the dark truth at the heart of the family, she ran fast and far away.

Eleven years later, Lane is adrift in Los Angeles when her grandfather calls to tell her Allegra has gone missing. Did she run too? Or something worse? Unable to resist his pleas, Lane returns to help search, and to ease her guilt at having left Allegra behind. Her homecoming may mean a second chance with the boyfriend whose heart she broke that long ago summer. But it also means facing the devastating secret that made her flee, one she may not be strong enough to run from again.

As it weaves between Lane's first Roanoke summer and her return, The Roanoke Girls shocks and tantalizes, twisting its way through revelation after mesmerizing revelation, exploring the secrets families keep and the fierce and terrible love that both binds them together and rips them apart.

No, this book is not about Roanoke colony. Which is kind of like the literary equivalent of click bait because when I saw the cover I thought it would be about that, and maybe something to do with Virginia, the first baby born in America and her descendants being discovered or something like that. Which is actually a good idea for story and one I now need to write before anyone else does. Still, Engel or her publishers probably figured that putting Roanoke in the title would get all the American Horror Story fans flocking, just like how some many historical fiction writers are writing books about Hamilton.

But anyway, this book is more along the same lines, albeit a tamer, more domestic version, as possibly the most infamous episode of the X Files of all time. In fact, if this book was nonfiction and as a result had to have a long ass subtitle, I like to think that it would be called The Roanoke Girls: Come On, Granddad, Let's Make Some More!

Also, the Nabokov quote was good to start off with, because it reminded me of that one part in Lolita when Humbert Humbert fantastizes about starting a whole line of Lolitas. That part managed to creep me out more than this entire book did.

Let's start with my least favorite part of the book- the writing. Now, usually when I hate a book, I hate the plot, characters, etc, but not the writing. Lately though, I've been lucky enough to read some badly written books. While the writing isn't as offensive to my eyes as the writing in The Rattled Bones, it still is pretty bad. YA cash grab bad. You can tell the writer is used to writing books that don't take much effort to be considered good. And when I looked up Engel's other book series, really a duology, I wasn't surprised at all to find out it was YA dystopian. Look okay, one of my favorite book series of all time is YA dystopian, but just by looking at the synopsis on Goodreads I can tell that it was published in 2014, thus it was part of the dystopian craze during which publishers put out anything that could even remotely be considered dystopian, rushing all of it just so they could strike while the iron's hot. That kind of shit is all over her writing, with her main character being the kind of impossibly gorgeous men drool over, with her "long, coltish legs" "willowy frame" and, of course, big boobies. This is despite the fact that big boobies and willowy frame are two descriptions that do not usually go together. She also has naturally highlighted dark hair and eyes that are a color rarely seen outside of fantasy novels "ice blue... with starbursts of green around the pupil". Wow, so special. Wow, so unique. 

But of course, to balance out this beauty, she needs a tragic past. She has to be tough, no nonsense, the kind of girl with street smarts, who makes bad decision and treats people like shit because she has to hurt people, you see, she can't let anyone into her heart. But she'll make an exception for the beautiful bad boy love interest with the shitty daddy. It's almost painful how much Engel is trying to channel Gillian Flynn's typical unlikable female protagonists. The whole "beautiful but broken" thing comes across as trying too hard and something that can only be gotten away with in YA cash grabs.

There's something so soap opera-y about this book that just drives me up a wall. Everything is so dramatic, every little thing is vital to the plot, the characters point things out that should be obvious and the author acts like that's okay as long as she disguises it with a pretty quote. Problem is, that quote never says anything new or important or not melodramatic. And the dialogue is particularly horrible, filled with loaded statements and out pours of the heart to complete strangers. Of course, I am from chilly, reserved New England, maybe people really do tell barely more than acquaintances that their husband never loved them, who knows? I've never been to Kansas. I think my favorite part is when Allegra has an emotional breakdown on top of a carousel horse after getting drunk because of what's going on in the plot. This is treated as some big moment, when anyone who has ever been around drunk people for more than three minutes knows that drunk people, especially drunk girls, burst in to tears for things as little as a broken nail. 

And of course, can't forget the teenspeak. Engel seems to be convinced that in order to sound convincingly like a teenager, you must insert as many swear words in your dialogue as possible. Needless to say, the teenagers got basically insufferable after a while.

As a whole, this book was surprisingly boring for a book about incest. Once I guessed the whole plot about twenty pages in, it became almost unbearable to read. So much relationship drama, so much going on that had no place in the plot and shouldn't be in the book, so much of Engel trying to build atmosphere and add drama and suspense to a book that had plenty in it without the forced love story and flashbacks of then vs now that had surprisingly less to do with the plot than it should have. I mean, Engel didn't get at all that she should have focused on the granddad, Allerga, and the rest of the Roanoke girls as opposed to Lane and Cooper and Tommy and Allegra and all that nothing. 

Which is a shame, because in the hands of a much better writer, this book could have been something really great and dark and twisted and American Gothic. Instead, no, we got this 274 page soap opera in book form. Engel is what I like to think of as a plot thief, along the same lines as an oxygen thief in that she has taken an idea and made bad an idea that I could have loved if another, better writer got to write it. No writers come to mind at the moment, but in this case I think anyone would have been better than Engel.

So those are my thoughts on The Roanoke Girls. I'm off to read something far, far better. I haven't decided on what yet, but I have a feeling it will be good!

4 out of 10