As much as I raced through it, ultimately I didn't think much of this one. I liked that it got its 'secret' on the table very early on - having dropped enough hints in the preceding pages to make it no longer a surprise - and also appreciated the atmosphere (sticky-hot Kansas foreboding in a kind of contemporary Gothic mode), and I didn't mind the somewhat hard boiled register into which the 'now' sections shift as Lane conducts her own investigation into Allegra's disappearance while grappling with everything that her return to her own originally traumatic site means.
In the end, though, I think that on two, critical beats it's psychologically simplistic or implausible to an extent that it becomes unsatisfying: the powerful allure that Yates exerts over the entire family and how the damage that the family environment does to all of the Roanoke girls plays out in their characters and lives. And I had a similar problem with the short chapterlets from the points of view of each of the individual girls - while I like the concept of providing them with their own subjectivity, the sketches are too thin to achieve the purpose (The Shining Girls did something similar, but to far better effect).
In the end, though, I think that on two, critical beats it's psychologically simplistic or implausible to an extent that it becomes unsatisfying: the powerful allure that Yates exerts over the entire family and how the damage that the family environment does to all of the Roanoke girls plays out in their characters and lives. And I had a similar problem with the short chapterlets from the points of view of each of the individual girls - while I like the concept of providing them with their own subjectivity, the sketches are too thin to achieve the purpose (The Shining Girls did something similar, but to far better effect).
