The Girls

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.