Before reading The Roanoke Girls by Amy Engel, I had heard it was creepy and disturbing. That statement is 100% true. I was immediately drawn in by the story and it was near impossible to put the book down for even a few minutes. I honestly found myself thinking about it throughout the work day, because I just could not wait to sit down and start reading it again.

The Roanoke Girls follows Lane Roanoke during two times of her life - when she's 15 and again when she's 26. The chapters flip back and forth between "then" (at 15 yo) and "now" (at 26 yo). You also get a chapter every once in a while from one of the other Roanoke girls, including Lane's mom and aunts.

At 15, Lane's mother commits suicide, so Lane goes to live with her grandparents and her cousin, Allegra. Lane spends one summer there in Roanoke, until it becomes too messed up for her, and she runs off to LA.

At 26, she gets a call from her granddad telling her Allegra is missing. Not knowing if Allegra finally ran away, or if something's happened to her, Lane goes back to Roanoke to help search for her missing cousin.

This novel is insanely disturbing, and made me so uncomfortable, but it was mesmerizing and so impossible to put down. The prose is beautifully written, and the imagery is on-fire.






I cannot recommend this book enough. It's part All the Ugly and Wonderful Things and part The Girls (which I didn't actually like, but I thought could have been amazing).

My only regret with this book is that I didn't start reading it on a day that I had nothing to do, so I could've devoured it in one sitting. I don't often give books 5 out of 5 on Goodreads. I'm more of a steady 4 type of girl if I enjoyed the book. I have to really love it to give it a 5. This one was a 5 through and through.