book: the roanoke girls by amy edelman

I went through a phase of reading some twisted and messed up books (Gillian Flynn's Sharp Objects, Dark Places and Gone Girl are particular favourites, as hyped as they are) so I had high hopes for The Roanoke Girls by Amy Edelman.

The blurb looked promising (from Amazon.co.uk):

"Beautiful. 
Rich. 
Mysterious. 

The Roanoke girls seem to have it all. But there's a dark truth about them which is never spoken. Every girl either runs away, or dies. 

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 eleven years later, when her cousin Allegra goes missing - and Lane has no choice but to go back. 

She is a Roanoke girl. 

Is she strong enough to escape a second time?"

The Roanoke Girls is a book about a dysfunctional family set on a rural farm in Kansas. The characters are all a bit mysterious - Charlie, the old man who helps out at the farm and Sharon, the house maid who can't seem to cook an edible meal despite all of her years of service. I would have liked to have learnt a bit more about these two characters as the author alludes to them all having a creepy side with a past full of skeletons but does not elaborate on any of these hints!

Honestly, I found the plot a bit predictable and guessed what was going to happen at most of the major twists. Some parts felt a bit forced - as if they were written in to shock the reader. There were so many shady characters, it felt a bit wasteful to not use them as potential suspects in more depth during the investigation of Allegra's disappearance.

Overall, I found this book really underwhelming. I only finished it to see if my theory was right (and it was) but other than that, I would have happily left this book half read. Gone Girl, this book is not, but it does have a decent plot. Just one that isn't at its full potential. 5/10.