This was such a disappointing read, especially because I had heard many great things about it. I expected something much different.
For those of you who have don't know what The Roanoke Girls are about, it follows Lane Roanoke. Lane is one of the lucky ones. When she was fifteen, over one long, hot summer at her grandparents' estate in rural Kansas, she found out what it really means to be a Roanoke girl. Lane ran, far and fast.
Until ten years later, when her cousin, Allegra, goes missing and Lane has no choice but to go back. She is a Roanoke girl. But is she strong enough to escape a second time?
Very mysterious!
When I first started reading this book I felt like all I wanted to do was continue reading to find out what happens at Roanoke. But the more I read the more I could predict the ending.
For a short book it feels like it takes forever to really get into the story. I felt like the first so many chapters were all background. It wasn't until about half way through were I felt the story started to pick up. And while reading I kept finding myself putting the book down after a few chapters. It feels like a lot happens too quickly that I needed to take a little break to gather my thoughts. It wasn't hard to put the book down, not saying that it wasn't engaging, I just felt sometimes it felt like too much was happening in a chapter.
I didn't have many problems with the writing except maybe the fast pacing. The book could definitely be longer!
I did find that it took me way longer to read this than I thought it would. For a book that is roughly 270 pages and my normal pacing for reading about 100 pages a day, it should have taken me a few days to read this. Instead it took me double the time. I found that I would read a few chapters and then want to put the book down, in the end taking me longer to finish it.
I do have to say that I was disappointed with the ending. As I mentioned earlier, I found the ending to be predictable. I could predict the ending before I hit the last 100 pages. I thought that maybe the ending wouldn't have been so predictable, that there would be a big twist at the end that I did not see coming, but I was wrong. The closer I got to the ending the more I could see that my prediction was right.
On a high note I did like how the story switched between two different time periods. I felt like something new was revealed in every 'then' chapter and how easy it was to see how it related to the 'now' chapters. I also liked seeing the character development of all the characters and seeing how each of their relationships develop over time.
Overall I did rate this book 3 out of 5 stars.
Happy reading!
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