The Girls: A Novel Paperback – May 9, 2017

Don’t think this is a fictional version of the Manson murders, this is an entirely new group of characters that are clearly inspired by Charlie and his gang of ruffians. More of a coming of age novel that just happens to revolve around an LSD murderous cult then a true crime tale I assure you. Really great read, the modern day stuff is hit or miss but the 60s set story is breathtaking to read. Poetic and sad, as empathetic as it is critical of this place and time. At times it feels a tad wish fulfillment esque. But it doesn’t hurt the book.

Emma Cline’s The Girls is a mesmerizing and deeply atmospheric novel that perfectly captures the vulnerability, recklessness, and longing of adolescence. Inspired by the infamous Manson Family, the book follows Evie Boyd, a lonely teenager in late-1960s California, who becomes captivated by a group of free-spirited yet dangerous young women and is slowly drawn into the orbit of a cult.What makes The Girls so compelling is not just its chilling subject matter but Cline’s exquisite prose. Every sentence is lush, evocative, and razor-sharp, immersing readers in the hazy, sun-drenched atmosphere of the era. The novel isn’t about the cult leader as much as it is about the girls—their hunger for connection, their need to be seen, and the quiet desperation that makes them so easily manipulated. Evie’s obsession with the enigmatic Suzanne feels achingly real, a reminder of the intoxicating yet treacherous nature of teenage friendships.This is not a fast-paced thriller, but rather a slow-burning, psychological deep dive that lingers long after the final page. The Girls is haunting, beautiful, and disturbingly insightful—one of the most powerful explorations of female adolescence in recent fiction.

I have mixed feelings about this book. I picked it up because of the hype (kudos to Cline's publishing team) and the first few pages were really impressive. I don't read a lot of literary stuff like this, and Cline's words were mesmerizing at first. Every sentence perfectly and poetically constructed. You could take any snippet from this book, post it anywhere, and it would be obvious how strong a writer Cline is, without even knowing what the story was about.But then it became exhausting. Because while Cline is an incredibly gifted writer, she's not a great storyteller, and it got really tiring reading paragraph after paragraph of beautiful prose that essentially says nothing. The pacing was soooooo sloooooow. It took pages to describe the smallest details. The story, in a nutshell, is about a girl who becomes part of a cult, and the cult commits heinous murders. The premise is fantastic. But in my opinion, it was told from the wrong point of view. What should have been a fabulous imaginative retelling of Manson fell flat, because the protagonist is only a bystander, and a part-time one at that. She doesn't live with the cult - she goes home most nights. She has no memorable relationships with anyone else in the group, other than the one girl she's infatuated with. But because her attraction is one-sided, the relationship never develops. And other than this one girl, the other characters are barely sketched out. They only exist in her peripheral vision, hazy snapshots at best, and this includes the Manson-like character himself. The victims, we don't really know at all, so it's difficult to be horrified about what happens to them. Speaking of which, she's not involved at all in the planning of the murders, and she's even not there when the murders happen. All that build-up, and we don't even see the terrible thing that's the climax of the story.The book is essentially one giant flashback, with a handful of present-day scenes telling us very little about the protagonist's life now (but I get why Cline choose to do it this way - if the story is told in flashback, she can tell it with added insight and hindsight, using lots of "little did she know's" to hint at what's to come - a cheap way to create tension, but I suppose it's better than no tension at all). In the end, though, it's so completely dissatisfying because we don't know what she's learned, or how she's grown. She hints at trying to help a young girl in the present-day, someone who reminds her of herself, but again, it never develops into anything.This is a story that gets lost in its own words. I'm so disappointed. Great premise, great writing, weak story.

I was caught by the short prologue to this book. It was both an introduction to the story and summation of the heart of the book. It is, as the title suggests, about The Girls. The line, "It was an age when I'd immediately scan and rank other girls, keeping up a constant tally of how I fell short, and I saw right away that the black-haired one was the prettiest," set the stage for the insecurity of teenage girls, the longing to belong and the often overlooked influence that girls play in the lives of their friends.Nonetheless, as I headed into the heart of the book I was struck with real doubt about how good this book would be. The very first paragraph was so overwritten that I cringed. "...the sweet drone of honeysuckle thickening the August air." and "...the seep of night." Ugh. How does honeysuckle drone? The book overall was marked with passages such as these that showed the immaturity of the writer, but overall her insights into the life of a teenager and her ability to convey the angst, insecurity, naivete, and foolish assuredness of youth counted for more.In some ways the glut of words that Cline was prone to in her writing helped contribute to the picture of the sixties that she painted. It was a picture of malaise, a fug of heat, drugs and sex and communal ennui even as the characters at the ranch spoke of changing the world. My early impressions of the book were that it was going to be overwritten, but in the end I saw that Cline can write. Her writing really shone for me when she wrote about the feelings of the girls and the relationships between them. I found her observations to be astute and spot on. So much young adult literature and characterization of young women in fiction generally reads as aspirational to me. Girls can be the heroes of their own stories. Girls can be strong and brave and assertive. I am grateful for those literary role models for my daughters and I like to think I lead a life that hews to such a model. But the reality for girls in the sixties was much as Cline describes it and to be honest the position of women vis-a-vis men today is still informed by those undercurrents of power and sex.The language that Cline chooses works in large part because of the fact that we are flipping between fourteen year old Evie and adult Evie who can put words to that time in her life more succinctly than a young teenager ever could. Writing about her lazy summer days with Connie applying face masks and reading magazines before her time at the ranch Evie notes, "I waited to be told what was good about me. I wondered later if this is 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." And later she writes, "Girls are the only ones who can really give each other close attention, the kind we equate with being loved. They noticed what we want noticed." This is, after all, the reason even today women make catty comments about panty lines and striped clothing and Mom jeans and on and on - because women notice. This is why girl bullying is so ferocious and cutting because they notice. This is why there are still Queen Bees. Suzanne was the ultimate Queen Bee and that dynamic is what drives the book. Russell is an important impetus, but Suzanne is a power unto herself. All of the longing and need that Evie is desperately slipping around in is fulfilled, albeit briefly, by Suzanne.The story is both a coming of age and cautionary tale. Evie's fixation on Suzanne ultimately informs her whole life. Her life is suffused by the listlessness of that summer and in some ways paralyzed by the examination of her involvement, the depths of her devotion, what almost was and her inability to change those patterns for Sasha even as she saw them so clearly. This book is a good reminder for young women that for all the Katniss Everdeen's that are pumped out in the literary world there are dozens more Evies and Sashas in the real world.I look forward to seeing Cline grow as an author.