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The Roanoke Girls A Novel Amy Engel 9781101906668 Books

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NATIONAL BESTSELLER

“With more twists than a bag of pretzels, this compelling family saga may make you question what you think you know about your own relatives.”
– Cosmopolitan 

“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.

The Roanoke Girls A Novel Amy Engel 9781101906668 Books

Flowers in the Attic for a entirely new generation. While I'd love to be able to say that my snobby, higher-literature self didn't care for this new novel, the fact that I plowed through it in two days with only a short sleeping break belies that assertion. It is a good novel. It's definitely NOT a spoiler to give the Flowers in the Attic reference (you know the entire premise is based on incest by chapter 2 or 3) so I'll feel free to talk about it here.

The novel's protagonist is Lane, a young woman who has returned to the familial estate, Roanoke, she fled from as a teen in the middle of nowhere Kansas to help search for her missing "cousin" Allegra. Lane's grandparents still reign supreme at Roanoke and through chapters that jump around in time and from different viewpoints we quickly learn that this home is not a good place for young girls to grow up. Multiple generations of girls have suffered the repercussions of living (not just the physical but more important the psychological) here. While the mystery of what happened to Allegra is compelling, what keeps the pages turning are the revelations of the scope of the abuse.

For those who inherently shy away of graphic sex or violence, rest assured there is none here. Instead the author chooses to focus on the psychological damage that results. It's a well told story and if you're looking for a read to take on that upcoming long flight, this is it.


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The Roanoke Girls A Novel Amy Engel 9781101906668 Books Reviews

This book is dark, twisted, and more than messed up. I was moved by the struggle the main character, Lane, suffered. The writing style was poetic and flawless. I can't think of another book that pulls of a mutiple-timeline story the way Amy Engle succeeds to do in The Roanoke Girls. I will probably still be squirming for days after reading this, but I am glad I read this moving story all the same. In the end, I could not put the book down. A sequel would not be able to come close to the first, but I would love to know what happens now.
A dark and gritty novel about secrets, lies, and the twisted relationships that bind the Roanoke family together.  My book club is small, but has a perfect mash-up of reading tastes – we have contemporary fiction lovers, chick lit lovers, thriller/psychological suspense lovers, and classics lovers.  The Roanoke Girls was a nod to our thriller mavens, and boy, was it a ride!  There is a creepy house, full of secret rooms and jumbled additions, creepy grandparents, and creepy teenage girls.  The limits of believability (is that even a word?) were stretched at times….especially toward the end when you realize the true extent of what has been going on in this family.  I think I would have found it easier to swallow if the family had been more isolated/removed from reality and other people -- a situation where you could see someone getting really good and brainwashed. 😊 I have to say that I think most people will figure out the majority of what happened, and who with, pretty early on in the book, but I’ll tell you, there was a ‘catch you out of nowhere’ character that came out of the woodwork at the end that made my eyes bug out!  Quick summer thriller!
I simply cannot understand how anybody could enjoy this book. There is not a scrap of literature in any of the chapters it's simply sick. It really depicts women as pathetic individuals and one can only assume that none of the women in the book had any IQ. How anybody could ind this book entertaining, I honestly don't know, personally thought it was rubbish. No I am not a prude, nor do I complain over the odd swear word or editing. However, this novel has nothing to entertain a reader nor will they learn anything new, it's simply grubby.
Ready? This book gets a good ol-fashioned NOPE from me.

I wish that could be it. I wish that could be the beginning and the end of the review. Just, NOPE. It isn't though because this book has caused me to feel so much rage while reading that it has to come out. So, here we go (spoilers discussed below).

This book is terrible. It wants to be something more than it is and it feels like author desperately wants to build a reputation as a dark gritty author (see Gillian Flynn) but it fails. It's basically sex, incest, sex, incest, sex, oh, and more sex. Of course, there is alcoholism, self-hatred, and tons of mental anguish mixed in but the general tone of the book is that incest and sex causes mental anguish in victimized women who then either tun to sex as a cure (#irony), alcoholism, or suicide.

So, here are a few things about that

1 - I'm so, so, so sick of sexual abuse being used as the motivation behind women's actions in books. WE ARE MOTIVATED BY MORE THAN THAT #thankyouverymuch. It's lazy writing and it's pathetically presented in The Roanoke Girls. Not to mention, literally everyone turns a blind eye to what's going on? Family members? Hired help? Townsfolk. Yep, move right along. Nothing to see here. Just granddad gettin' it on with every female in the family.

2 - Women combat trauma by doing more than running away, becoming alcoholics, and destroying their lives. When did this become such a common literary trope? It gets all the eye rolls from me. Literally, there are chapters in The Roanoke Girls dedicated entirely to brief descriptions of how a woman just cannot handle being rejected and replaced by her abuser so she throws herself into suicide because that'll show him. There's not a strong woman in the book, not even Lane. I know other reviews disagree with me but, again, NOPE.

3 - It can't just be sexual abuse...no...it has to be incestuous sexual abuse! Over the course of 3 generations. Literally...the same dude abusing all of the women in his family, including his own daughters and grand-daughters, yet no one says a thing. Have we reached a point where sexual abuse in a book is so common that authors feel the need to push the envelope even further to earn head pats and fame for being the one willing to go there.

4 - Oh, and of course this incestuously abusive dude has to be depicted as THE GREATEST THING TO EVER HAPPEN TO WOMEN because the women are basically throwing themselves at him, practically pleading to be manipulated and abused, then kill themselves or run away when he moves on to someone else. PLEASE! That's just disgusting. If I had to read one more time about how handsome granddad is or what a soothing voice he had, I was going to take this book to the backyard and burn it. Can we not romanticize sexual predators, please?

Oh, yeah, and there's a cousin missing in all of this. Allegra (the cousin) disappeared so Lane (the main character) gets a call from dear old granddad saying she needs to come home. Right. Lane fled to California to escape the family but yup, she's going to come home to try to find her cousin. The police are on the case but no, Lane has to come back to this horrific place full of sex and abuse to solve the case. Only she finds herself hooking up with an old boyfriend because, sex. 

I read to the end and was just glad it was over. This was an epic waste of time and doesn't deserve nearly the praise it's been receiving. It's try-hard and pathetic. There are way better books out there more deserving of your time.
Flowers in the Attic for a entirely new generation. While I'd love to be able to say that my snobby, higher-literature self didn't care for this new novel, the fact that I plowed through it in two days with only a short sleeping break belies that assertion. It is a good novel. It's definitely NOT a spoiler to give the Flowers in the Attic reference (you know the entire premise is based on incest by chapter 2 or 3) so I'll feel free to talk about it here.

The novel's protagonist is Lane, a young woman who has returned to the familial estate, Roanoke, she fled from as a teen in the middle of nowhere Kansas to help search for her missing "cousin" Allegra. Lane's grandparents still reign supreme at Roanoke and through chapters that jump around in time and from different viewpoints we quickly learn that this home is not a good place for young girls to grow up. Multiple generations of girls have suffered the repercussions of living (not just the physical but more important the psychological) here. While the mystery of what happened to Allegra is compelling, what keeps the pages turning are the revelations of the scope of the abuse.

For those who inherently shy away of graphic sex or violence, rest assured there is none here. Instead the author chooses to focus on the psychological damage that results. It's a well told story and if you're looking for a read to take on that upcoming long flight, this is it.