This too shall pass... like a kidney stone

While well written, I struggled to get through Milena Busquets' This Too Shall Pass.

Perhaps something got lost in translation somewhere, but I found it hard to relate to Blanca and her carpe diem lifestyle with two children. I can empathize with her situation, as I too have lost my mother to a terminal illness. It was just at a much younger age and I maintained a level of maturity instead of whining about my mother leaving me. The level of detail was nice, it was the story that lost me. I mean who goes on vacation with both of their exes and current married lover. I guess that's what they do in Cadaques, but in America that is not the norm and certainly not approved of by many. Instead of breezing through the novel, I found myself being forced through the pages. I received this book from Blogging for Books for this review."

Every Family has a secret

But for the Roanoke Girls, it often goes to the grave with them.

Amy Engel's tale of the Roanoke family strikes at the heart of anyone who has had a bad relationship with family, lived through their parents messed up view of the world, or just in general wanted to feel special. Preying on the knowledge that all girls wanted to be "special" Yates Roanoke created a kingdom in the middle of Kansas that it seemed no one came out of in one piece. Despite the twisted reality that lay inside the house, Allegra couldn't leave. Lane thought it would be a chance to finally feel loved, but what she found lived up to her mother's warnings and not her dreams. Her mother had left Roanoke but it never left her. Lane found her own way out, but it found a way to get her back. Engel captures the story in such a way that I wanted to keep reading in disbelief of the truth. You wanted the best for the girls, but knew that they shared the same fate. Dead, gone, Dead, Gone. just as Allegra told Lane in her first days in the house. Lane was never added to the frame, perhaps that is why she could escape but not without being damaged. I practically devoured the book, each story repeating the mistakes of the generation before. I even sympathized with Gran, wanting to end it all. It was best after all. I received this book for review from blogging for books.