"The Wayward Girls"

“The Wayward Girls”

Written by Amanda Mason

Reviewed by Diana Iozzia

“The Wayward Girls” was a book that appealed to me in many different ways. There are many literary tropes that I enjoy reading, and when reading the plot premise, I thought some of my favorite tropes would be included in this story. Specifically, I love stories that have the main character return to her family home, supernatural investigation teams, messy families, and creepy houses with possible ghosts. This story initially seemed to me like “Sharp Objects”, “The Haunting of Hill House”, and “The Glass Castle” combined. Unfortunately, all of the exciting elements did not prove to equate to a novel that I loved.

The largest flaw with this book is also unfortunately a positive to some. When I read, I want a book that has a very descriptive narrative style, with compelling dialogue, and an interesting plot. The characters should be fleshed out, with enough detail to easily decipher and compare between them, with perhaps some character development if the plot allows. The style of this book is the downfall. The story takes place in two separate time frames.

 Half of the book takes place in the past, when our main characters were young. Bee and Loo are sisters, separated in a larger age gap. It’s not clearly defined, but Loo seems to be about 10, while Bee seems to be 16 years old to 19 years old. Bee and Loo’s family is messy, poor, and disorganized. The girls, their other siblings, and their mother begin to experience a haunting. Marbles fly across the room, chairs lift up and crash down, there’s knocking at the doors, and a few other minor bumps in the night. Their mother, Cathy, capitalizes on possible money and invites a supernatural investigation team and a psychic into their home to record sounds and take photographs, in hopes of understanding the phenomena.

Years later, Loo, now Lucy, has come home to take care of Cathy, who is older and senile. She imagines she sees shadows outside of her nursing home and decides to wander outside the grounds at night. Lucy does not believe her mother. Additionally, Nina, the daughter of Simon, a member of the past investigation team, has contacted Lucy to attempt to finish her late father’s research and finally debunk the haunting of Lucy’s childhood home. Lucy returns with Nina and her team to the home, and so begins another investigation.

For most of the story, we learn all about the characters and do not see much of a haunting. In the later part of the novel, we finally are told all of the secrets behind the haunting. I enjoyed the eerie and creepy scenes of this story, but most of the book is just exposition and conversation. I was hoping for much more horror than we received. Most of it was just spent on detail that was not necessary.

In conclusion, I did enjoy this book. About 25 percent of the time. I can only give it a three out of five-star rating. I would consider reading more from this author in the future.

I received this book in exchange for reading and reviewing purposes.