Marjorie, aka Majie, aka Laney, lives in super super rural New England. Her dad and mom are very religious, following Pastor Schect as if his word is law. I guess, to them, it is. They have so far isolated themselves from society that they have their own dialect of English. (They basically insert a preposition in between every word.)
Marjorie gets a job being a stone-mason to try and bring in money. Meanwhile she accidentally (or is it all planned?) dredges up some secrets about her and her family's past.
These aren't secrets like "your mom had a divorce way back when".
These are secrets like "your aunt had an illegitimate child with a Jamaican man who later died in a bus accident. Not even her own stepsister (aka your mother) knew about him, and, oh, btw, he is your boss. And he is in love with you. And he was molested by his pastor as a child."
Or: "your dad enjoys dismembering people with a chainsaw."
And yet... this book still manages to be boring.
The story moves along in the same way an eight year old moves along when she's on her way to bed.
Slowly, haltingly, in a barely perceptible way.
Call me sick, but the only good parts of this book were the parts where more and more disgustingly horrible details are revealed about the cult that her parents are part of.
Ex: (SPOILER) when Majie is brought to the front of the church and gets a bag put over her head. And then everyone takes turns punching her in the face.
Or when you find out that a form of punishment is tying a child to a tree and leaving them there for around twelve hours with no food and no way to sit down.
Those parts are the interesting parts. The rest is.... meh.
Also there was the creep-tastic romance going on between Majie/ Laney (sorry for all the names, she has three in the book) and Sands. Who is her cousin. Step-cousin, but still. He mentions a lot how they aren't actually related by blood, but still. It is just really, really icky. AND he's six years older than her.
Plus it honestly didn't seem believable. There was never an epiphany for Laney when she realizes that she is in love with him. The book kind of hints at it and then twenty or so pages later, oh, look, they live together. And oh, now they're married.
The writing never showed any chemistry between them.
That way mainly what this book was missing. Passion. Emotion. You'd think there'd be a lot of it, given the plot, but the writing was kind of... muted. Lacking. I was half-way through the book and I thought I was still just getting background info, because that's the way it reads, almost as if the story is a recap of itself.
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