The Girls

I typically don't go for anything cult-related. Cults creep me the fuck out, but a friend of mine enthusiastically recommend this to me, and I trust her taste. The best thing about this book is the writing – poetic with flashes of brilliance and wisdom. There are so many places where I marked passages to return to. Cline's ability to create a sense of eeriness and foreboding throughout, from the first page, is masterful. Because it's based on the well-known events of the Manson family cult, we all know how the story ends, and we keep reading because we want to know how the narrator, Evie Boyd, gets from point A to point B. If you're a person who needs to be able to like or relate to the characters in order to enjoy a book, I wouldn't pick this one up. If character likability is not something that matters to you, then this is definitely worth a read. Cline writes these complex, nuanced characters who are so real and so detestable at times – and I love that. Those characters stick with me more than “likable” ones. All in all: this book didn't change my life, but it's pretty good. Worth a read.

Very original phrasing, yet reminds me of Joan Didion sometimes in her striking, clear understanding of human nature.
One of those books where I write down certain passages so my pen and notebook, as David Sedaris said, can remember what it feels like.

“the empty kitchen, smelling of the domestic rot of the sponge”

“Her face answered all its own questions.”

This book was so highly praised, I must have missed the point completely.

My experience consisted of 300+ pages of over-stylized prose with a narrator who is obsessed with her own thoughts and feelings. All of it headed towards an anticlimactic ending. This is all without any self-awareness or irony on the author's part.

The story and characters were so washed out and watery, yet given the subject matter, it should have been intense and colorful.

Fourteen year old Evie has got a long summer ahead of her before she is shipped off to boarding school. She falls out with her best friend, her mum spends her time with her new boyfriend and her dad lives elsewhere with his new wife. Evie finds herself alone and desperate for attention. Then one day in a park, she notices a couple of strange girls and follows them to a dumpster where they collect dinner. She meets them again when her bike slips its chain and they offer her a lift to their ranch. There she finds the attention she has been craving. Everyone is chilled out and interested in her. And everyone is in awe of Russell. He is the manipulative head of the cult and he welcomes Evie with open arms. She spends the summer at the ranch, doing drugs and learning about sex, only returning home to keep up appearances (and steal money from her mum). But when Russell doesn't get the record deal he thinks he is due, things go very bad and Evie has a narrow escape.
 
This is not the kind of book I would normally read. It is a kind of coming of age story which is not my preferred genre. Evie is a lonely, bored and vulnerable teenage girl with low self-esteem, just crying out to be noticed - one of thousands in every generation. It is easy to see how some can be in thrall to sick men like Russell. Her gradual integration into the ranch community was chilling. I liked the end, proving that you can find friends and a sense of belonging in less dangerous surroundings.The writing was great, descriptive enough to let you see the details but it didn't get bogged down.
 
I loved this book. It is a must read for every parent with a teenage daughter. Or maybe not, I don't think I could have stomached it when my daughter was that age.
 
 

I enjoyed the author's writing style for the most part, though occasionally she would try to create metaphors while picking a word that didn't make sense, like someone who's first language isn't English. Like using broody here “Creeping along the hallway like a specter in shortie pajamas, their polyester slickness stuck in the broody stretch between princess costumes and lingerie,” or bellow here “like when I smelled the bellow of iron in the bathroom and knew she had her period. “ She's basically saying that Evie smelled a sound - it doesn't really work.

I found Evie, the main character, to be profoundly unlikable. I couldn't connect with her on any level. The author writes about women and girls in the light of the apparent sexism of the era, but without any sort of redemption for either the men or women of the story. She writes Evie thinking things like “I knew just being a girl in the world handicapped your ability to believe yourself. Feelings seemed completely unreliable, like faulty gibberish scraped from a Ouija board,” as if they were universal truths and not just Evie and her cult girlfriends messed up perspectives. The book is entirely from Evie's point of view, and the view is incredibly narrow and self centered.

When I got to Part Four, the brief coda of Evie arriving at boarding school, I thought back on all the preceding chapters and wished that the book had started at where the author chose to wrap things up. There was no suspense leading up to the murders, the reader already knows what happens before the first page, since the story of Charles Manson is very well known. So the slow integration of a bored and narcissistic 14 year old into their cult is kind of sad and dull. The aftermath is where I really started to get interested, but the book ends shortly after.

Also, we're supposed to be left wondering if Evie was indeed capable of murder. But I didn't have any doubts, she would have done anything Suzanne wanted her to do.

I really enjoyed this one! definitely more than i thought i would, for some reason i've been enjoyjng more of the subtle character driven books—baby teeth for example—and i'm surprised by that because i'm normally more interested in plot driven books! needless to say although there's not a lot of action or explosive things happening in this novel, it was really well written and somehow very enjoyable considering. i especially liked the book towards the end!

The two stars are for the writing style, which was exceptionally soothing and easy to get through but the plot was so bad. I'm sorry, i think it could've been better, there was nothing exciting, or keeping me on the edge. The protagonist seemed so dull, as if she is being forced to portray this character. Even in the last scene when suzanne kicks her out of the car, i would've preferred that she got involved in it so that at least there was some excitement?

Anyone who knows me knows I am obsessed with cults. As soon as this book showed up on my radar, I knew I had to read it and I knew I'd love it, too. And love it I did.
From what I can tell, most books dealing with cults are nonfiction, which can be heavy reads emotionally. This is a partly biographical book, very clearly inspired by the Mansons, taking place in 1960s California. But Cline does an amazing job of making it her own world, using eclectic and fantastical ways to describe the ordinary and the disturbing. Her prose alone deserves five stars.
My biggest complaint, though I really did enjoy the book, is that the author spent more time in places that weren't terribly important for the development of the larger story. Though this is a book about a girl who joins a cult, we really don't spend much time with the cult, or with the cult leader for that matter. I was hungry for more cult screentime, but what I got was present-day Evie tolerating characters who weren't particularly interesting, and who disappear before the book's conclusion. Prior to the murder, there is nothing to indicate that the cult is willing and able to kill anyone. I think that if Evie had been present for the murder (which happens in the last 40 pages of the book, making it feel sort of like an afterthought), we would have gotten to see more buildup and a more satisfying climax. We would have gotten to see the cult's descent from harmless hippies to the obedient murderers we came for.
This book NEEDS an extra 100 pages to hit my sweet spot. As it stands, though, I came away somewhat unsatisfied with how the story played out. How about a “sequel” from Suzanne's perspective, Emma Cline?

I have decided to rate this book between 3.4 and a low 4 stars. When I first started reading it, I was really engrossed in the story and was fascinated by Evie's obsession with Suzanne. However as I got to the end of the book today I found the story kind of petered out and the characters of Suzanne and Evie got rather trying. I found the character of Julian revolting and unnerving. Also the fact we got no closure on what became of Sasha and Julian, I thought was irresponsible of the author. As a reader we invested in Sasha and then just watched Evie let her leave with Julian with no idea what became of her. I was fascinated by the lead up to the evening of the crime. But I found Evie's naivety over the developing situation unbelievable. Clearly her infatuation with Suzanne was her coming to terms with her sexuality and not from generally feeling enamoured with the cult or Russell. I liked that this adaptation took the Mason Cult and re worked it from a different angle. However I feel considering the book is called The Girls, the only fleshed out characters are Suzanne and Evie and their relationship to each other doesn't provide us with enough evidence to explain why The Girls committed the violent murders they did. In conclusion, this book was a great concept but it failed to convince me overall.

This book examines what it's like to be a young teen girl in a way I've never seen done so well. Cline masters the awkwardness, the need to be wanted, the struggle to belong, the blossoming of sexuality, the ability to see parents as humans with flaws, and the idolization of those who seem outwardly to have it all. She so expertly delves into how thoughts and ideas and emotions shape Evie as she searches for herself. Some of these thoughts are so deeply painful, yet so beautiful to read:

“Even possessing that small amount of money tindered an obsessive need in me, a desire to see how much I was worth. The equation excited me. You could be pretty, you could be wanted, and that could make you valuable.”

And this one:

“I wanted to be told what was good about me. I wondered later if this was why there were so many more women than men at the ranch. All that time I had spent readying myself, the articles that taught me life was really just a waiting room until someone noticed you – the boys had spent that time becoming themselves.”

I lost myself in this book. I connected on a visceral level to parts of Evie's experience, having been an adolescent girl myself. My thoughts, of course, were never as profound as Cline's artful (and sometimes disturbing) portraits of what's going on in Evie's mind.

Read my full review here: http://www.literaryquicksand.com/2016/05/arc-review-girls-emma-cline/

I read this in Overdrive and I kept checking to make sure I didn't get a weird abridged version. It seemed so short? I guess maybe I wanted more out of the story. Parts of it were lovely but they let me wanting. And not in the “hmmm this is making me think about things and really take my time.” Just like I was missing something.

I'd read really mixed reviews of this but I'm interested in cults (...fictionally speaking) so I checked it out. I...agree with mixed reviews? It's a great idea and there are some beautifully observed lines about ~the patriarchy~ and how much sense it makes for all these girls to be competing for a male cult leader's affections. (“I waited to be told what was good about me. [...] All that time I had spent readying myself, the articles that taught me life was really just a waiting room until someone noticed you- the boys had spent that time becoming themselves.” ) It can feel a little didactic in points, but the frame narrative makes that make sense.

Overall I'd recommend it if you're interested in cults, but otherwise not a must-read.

Story about a girl who falls into a cult at age 14. I liked the split of the storytelling into the past and present. The present almost being more interesting, with grownup Evie, still dealing with the aftermath of her youthful adventures. An ok book, not more. Slightly disappointing, because it feels it could have gone deeper. I liked the writing though.

Audiobooks make me go through books too fast and I rarely pick a winner it seems. Which might be due to the lacking selection, but also the lower commitment with which I consume them (easy to get distracted while multitasking).

DNF at 49%. It's a good book, good writing...but the subject matter and the narrator's voice is really depressing me, and I'm depressed enough right now. I just can't deal with it, there have been scenes that left tears in my eyes, scenes that left me nauseous. I'm shelving it to come back to at a later date when my own state of mind isn't quite so fragile or easily influenced.

Book Club 2016

To me, The Girls was pretty much Cutis Sittenfeld's Prep (the only book I have ever thrown away), just with better prose. It's a fair exploration into the psyche of a teenage girl, but Cline does so much to protect her main character that there are no stakes: any sense of drama around Evie is empty. She can leave the ranch at any time so there are ultimately no stakes to her being there past the exploration of her teenage ennui. Even the framing device of her older self looking back on her near-miss with this Manson-esque cult is so devoid of point of view and can be summed up, basically, by, “oops oh well?” Again, don't get me wrong, Emma Cline can WRITE – she just doesn't have much to say.