The Girls

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?