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The Girls: A Novel

Description:

THE INSTANT BESTSELLER • An indelible portrait of girls, the women they become, and that moment in life when everything can go horribly wrong

ONE OF THE BEST BOOKS OF THE YEAR: The Washington Post, NPR, The Guardian, Entertainment Weekly, San Francisco Chronicle, Financial Times, Esquire, Newsweek, Vogue, Glamour, People, The Huffington Post, Elle, Harper’s Bazaar, Time Out, BookPage, Publishers Weekly, Slate

Northern California, during the violent end of the 1960s. At the start of summer, a lonely and thoughtful teenager, Evie Boyd, sees a group of girls in the park, and is immediately caught by their freedom, their careless dress, their dangerous aura of abandon. Soon, Evie is in thrall to Suzanne, a mesmerizing older girl, and is drawn into the circle of a soon-to-be infamous cult and the man who is its charismatic leader. Hidden in the hills, their sprawling ranch is eerie and run down, but to Evie, it is exotic, thrilling, charged—a place where she feels desperate to be accepted. As she spends more time away from her mother and the rhythms of her daily life, and as her obsession with Suzanne intensifies, Evie does not realize she is coming closer and closer to unthinkable violence.

Finalist for the Los Angeles Times Book Prize • Finalist for the National Book Critics Circle John Leonard Award • Shortlisted for The Center for Fiction First Novel Prize • The New York Times Book Review Editors’ Choice • Emma Cline—One of Granta’s Best of Young American Novelists

Praise for The Girls

“Spellbinding . . . a seductive and arresting coming-of-age story.”
The New York Times Book Review

“Extraordinary . . . Debut novels like this are rare, indeed.”
The Washington Post

“Hypnotic.”
—The Wall Street Journal

“Gorgeous.”
—Los Angeles Times

“Savage.”
—The Guardian

“Astonishing.”
—The Boston Globe

“Superbly written.”
—James Wood, The New Yorker

“Intensely consuming.”
—Richard Ford

“A spectacular achievement.”
—Lucy Atkins, The Times

“Thrilling.”
—Jennifer Egan

“Compelling and startling.”
—The Economist


Editorial Reviews

Review

“Spellbinding . . . A seductive and arresting coming-of-age story hinged on Charles Manson, told in sentences at times so finely wrought they could almost be worn as jewelry . . . [Emma] Cline gorgeously maps the topography of one loneliness-ravaged adolescent heart. She gives us the fictional truth of a girl chasing danger beyond her comprehension, in a Summer of Longing and Loss.”The New York Times Book Review

“[
The Girls reimagines] the American novel . . . Like Mary Gaitskill’s Veronica or Lorrie Moore’s Who Will Run the Frog Hospital?, The Girls captures a defining friendship in its full humanity with a touch of rock-memoir, tell-it-like-it-really-was attitude.”Vogue

“Debut novels like this are rare, indeed. . . . The most remarkable quality of this novel is Cline’s ability to articulate the anxieties of adolescence in language that’s gorgeously poetic without mangling the authenticity of a teenager’s consciousness. The adult’s melancholy reflection and the girl’s swelling impetuousness are flawlessly braided together. . . . For a story that traffics in the lurid notoriety of the Manson murders,
The Girls is an extraordinary act of restraint. With the maturity of a writer twice her age, Cline has written a wise novel that’s never showy: a quiet, seething confession of yearning and terror.”The Washington Post

“Outstanding . . . Cline’s novel is an astonishing work of imagination—remarkably atmospheric, preternaturally intelligent, and brutally feminist. . . . Cline painstakingly destroys the separation between art and faithful representation to create something new, wonderful, and disorienting.”
The Boston Globe

“Finely intelligent, often superbly written, with flashingly brilliant sentences, . . . Cline’s first novel,
The Girls, is a song of innocence and experience. . . . In another way, though, Cline’s novel is itself a complicated mixture of freshness and worldly sophistication. . . . At her frequent best, Cline sees the world exactly and generously. On every other page, it seems, there is something remarkable—an immaculate phrase, a boldly modifying adverb, a metaphor or simile that makes a sudden, electric connection between its poles. . . . Much of this has to do with Cline’s ability to look again, like a painter, and see (or sense) things better than most of us do.”The New Yorker

“Breathtaking . . . So accomplished that it’s hard to believe it’s a debut. Cline’s powerful characters linger long after the final page.”
Entertainment Weekly (Summer Must List)

“A mesmerizing and sympathetic portrait of teen girls.”
People (Summer’s Best Books)

The Girls isn’t a Wikipedia novel, it’s not one of those historical novels that congratulates the present on its improvements over the past, and it doesn’t impose today’s ideas on the old days. As the smartphone-era frame around Evie’s story implies, Cline is interested in the Manson chapter for the way it amplifies the novel’s traditional concerns. Pastoral, marriage plot, crime story—the novel of the cult has it all.”New York Magazine

About the Author

Emma Cline is the New York Times bestselling author of The Girls and the story collection Daddy. The Girls was a finalist for the Center for Fiction’s First Novel Prize, the National Book Critics Circle’s John Leonard Prize, and the Los Angeles Times Book Prize. It was a New York Times Editors’ Choice and the winner of the Shirley Jackson Award. Cline’s stories have been published in The New Yorker, Granta, The Paris Review, and The Best American Short Stories. She was named a Guggenheim Fellow, received the Plimpton Prize from The Paris Review and an O. Henry Award, and was chosen as one of Granta’s Best Young American Novelists.

Reviews:

4.0 out of 5 stars The Girls is undoubtedly a challenging read.

T.C.N. · June 28, 2017

The Girls is undoubtedly a challenging read. Based on the Manson murders, make no mistake, there is a hefty amount of uncomfortable content centering around drug use and sexual encounters (some of which I would clearly label as assault). The fact that the main protagonist Evie is a mere 14 years old, makes it one tough pill to swallow.Based on several reviews, I was anticipating a dark read full of teenage angst that played on a graphic core in order to up the “wow” factor. I could not have been more wrong. Nor have I ever been happier to be so wrong. The Girls is a shining example of how to utilize first person narration in the most successful ways.It is the end of the 60’s in Northern California. It is summer, and Evie Boyd feels isolated and out-of-place. Like many teenage girls she just wants to belong. Enter Suzanne. She is care-free and captivating. Immediately drawn to this young stranger, she slowly begins distancing herself from her family and only real friend to spend more time with Suzanne and her friends on the ranch led by the amorous Russell. Evie feels like she has finally found her place in life. But once the initial luster wears off, she realizes she may be involved in something sinister and dangerous.“My eyes were already habituated to the texture of decay, so I thought that I had passed back into the circle of light.”Evie Boyd is so bitterly realistic and raw as a protagonist that there is a part of her I found uncomfortably familiar. As a young impressionable girl desperately seeking an acceptance that most of us can remember feeling was out of reach during some point in our young lives, she is undeniably relatable to at least a small degree. It is this painfully honest approach to her character that gives her and The Girls true life and credibility. The part of me that would normally question her frighteningly bad decisions and actions was easily replaced with an equal amount of sadness and understanding. I didn’t like that I was juggling this new-found sympathy for a character who was making harrowing choices, but I couldn’t help but admire the author’s ability to solicit this from me. Full immersion into Evie’s life had occurred.“You wanted things and you couldn’t help it, because there was only your life, only yourself to wake up with, and how could you ever tell yourself what you wanted was wrong?”Cline spares zero expense or feelings in effort to establish this dark world that is a cult. She brazenly exposes the reader to the loss of Evie’s innocence, gross sexual encounters and the repetitive drug use that fuels this disturbing journey into one young girl’s psych and time on the ranch. The very facets that make The Girls so disturbing also make it so triumphant. This no holds barred approach succeeds in setting the stage and making the unfathomable feel horribly possible. It is through this bold technique that the reader can begin to process how our young protagonist has come to find herself on the ranch. This is a terrifyingly sincere representation of cult life and culture. It is not meant to be pleasant or easy.Cline’s writing is almost poetic yet pragmatic. She effortlessly supplies a fluid narration that leaps from Evie’s past to present. I have noted some reader’s struggled with the change in tone at times, but I personally found this to play perfectly into her transitions, conveying our narrator’s current state of mind more effectively. The ending did not offer an overly satisfying conclusion, but I couldn’t really ask that from The Girls.So here is the hard part, I loved this novel. But I am hesitant to recommend it. This will be too much for many and rightfully so. This is a brutal coming of age story during a very dark time. It has burrowed deep into the core of my mind and is sure to remain for some time. If you find yourself truly fascinated with cult culture and the human psych and can stomach the harsh reality of what it entails, then consider adding this to your list.

5.0 out of 5 stars A hypnotic, unsettling exploration of girlhood and belonging

S. · March 2, 2025

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.

3.0 out of 5 stars A beautifully written debut novel

K.B. · July 17, 2016

I was sure I would enjoy “The Girls” after reading so many 5-star reviews, and for a while, I did. Ms. Cline's writing is strong and engaging, rich in metaphor and description. I was enchanted. So it took me longer than usual to realize I’d been duped. Characters tend to be underdeveloped: their behaviors, actions and emotions become flat and predictable, though gorgeously so. Settings and scenes are recycled like chameleons, changing in color and hue, while offering little contextual shift, deflating the expectation that NOW something exciting or interesting or jaw-dropping is about to happen. Nothing happens. Its pseudo-tension. We anticipate a cliffhanger, and receive a letdown. And nobody is let down more than Evie, who as narrator of “The Girls” tells us her story in two timelines, as both the emotionally lost, passive and vulnerable 14-year-old she was in the summer of 1969, and, years later, as a still emotionally lost, passive and vulnerable middle-aged woman on a tenuous path to adulthood. But that’s not surprising, given that Evie is never permitted to grow; she’s never allowed to take responsibility for her actions, never suffers a crisis – at least not one that we can convincingly suffer along with her. She’s never permitted a watershed moment that might lead her to self-understanding devoid of self pity, one that might blow apart her sweetly held illusions of innocent victimhood. Instead, Evie is constantly being rescued – saved from herself at every potential plot twist that didn’t happen. She’s saved by her neglectful, self-absorbed, clueless and scorned parents (think on that); by the disturbing Suzanne (I enjoyed this character) whose proclivity for mayhem and jealous guardianship of her sexual rights over Evie’s to their distasteful leader, Russell, make her motives suspect; and later, by friends whose sympathy for Evie’s fragile emotional state allows her to prop up her uncertain (bordering on unconscious) life. The self-defeating mantra Evie adopts to rationalize her decisions at age 14, - “At that age, I was, first and foremost, a thing to be judged, and that shifted the power in every interaction onto the other person,” has accompanied her into middle age. “I was almost a wife, but lost the man. I was almost recognizable as a friend. And then I wasn’t.” Evie remains a static observer of her life, never to experience the inner or outer conflict, the crisis of conscience and its resolution, that might have turned “The Girls” into a powerhouse novel. But in all fairness, that may be difficult to achieve in a “fictional” story based on a true one. “The Girls” seduces, it promises, but in chapter after chapter it fails to deliver the force and courage of its convictions. It holds back, and that’s almost unforgiveable in a tale based loosely on one of the most horrific crimes of the 20th century, masterminded by a depraved, psychotic cult leader and carried out, for the most part, by his “girls.” But perhaps it’s only readers who lived through the shock and horror of those 1969 murders nightly on their television screens, or daily in their newspapers, who will feel the low wattage of this novel, or miss the emotional depth and tension it deserves.For a psychologically insightful, gut-wrenching account of cult mentality and what really happens to the displaced Evies of the world who are lured by its promises, follow up “The Girls” with "Helter Skelter" by Vincent Bugliosi, best-selling author and chief prosecutor for the Manson murders.

Thought Provoking and entertaining

r. · July 29, 2016

I ordered this item after hearing about it from many sources, and hearing many recommendations for it. I thought that the subject matter was very intriguing, especially given the notoriety of the Manson murders, and the books fictionalized approach to a similar group. I thought that the authors language was descriptive, often times I felt like I was with Evie at events, or feeling the things she felt. I also felt that it was a great perspective through the eyes of someone who was young and impressionable, but also a bit jaded from things that happened in her own life. Having not lived through that time period, I found the book to be interesting and thought provoking, with a character that was complex enough to want to see what happens at the end. I confess I did not always like the main character, but I felt you didn't have to like her to understand what was going on, and why she made the choices she did. Overall it was a good book, I didn't give it 5 stars as I felt that the end wasn't to my liking, and there were parts that I didn't think had great transitions between past and present- but I did enjoy the read.

page

R.G. · March 5, 2019

page de couverture abîmée ,collante

Beautifully atmospheric study of being a teenage girl with murderous cult edge

G. · October 1, 2016

This book tells the story of an ordinary (though well-off) sixties teenager dealing with the usual teenage dramas and the breakup of her parents# marriage, before getting involved with a hippie cult that ultimately turns murderous.I really loved how it created a sense of time and place. Reading it, you could really feel the heat of the California summer and smell the scent of incense. Both the normal, staid middle-class life and the counter-culture were nicely portrayed. It was all very atmospheric.There was a phase a few years ago where every other book with a female protagonist and a dark edge was compared to Gone Girl. I thought that in most cases, this missed the fact that the best thing about Gone Girl wasn't the twisty plot, but the clever passages ruminating on life, women, and relationships, which few of its imitators pulled off. Here, there are some similarly clever and relatable pieces of writing about being a teenage girl, which I really enjoyed.The ending (cult goes on a murder spree) is revealed in the opening chapter, so most of the drama is based less around what's going to happen, more about how and why. I really enjoyed the journey and the sense of someone being sucked into something. Despite relatively little happening until the final drama, the focus on characters and relationships and things slowly taking a turn for the worse really sucked me in.If I'm honest though, I found it slightly hard to suspend belief enough to believe that someone as normal as the narrator could get sucked in to the cult so quickly and so deeply, or that the core cult members, who seemed a but odd rather than totally twisted, could commit such gruesome, cold-blooded murders. It didn't detract from my enjoyment of the story, but I'd have liked just a bit more explanation and build up.Every so often, the narrative switched from the sixties to the present day, with the main character still scarred by her experiences and living a lonely life. These sections mostly focus on her meeting a teenage girl who's been sucked into a borderline-abusive relationship rather than a cult, but who reminds her of her younger self. This part wasn't bad, but I didn't find it as compelling as the main story and didn't feel it added much value.I was very caught up in the book as I went along, and I think that if I'd reviewed it as soon as I'd finished, I'd have given it five stars, but a week or two later, it hasn't stuck in my mind in the way my all-time favourites do and I'm a little more conscious of its minor flaws. It's a high four stars though, and I'd definitely recommend this.One final thought - the behaviour of the cult is one thing, but was how sexually active the main character was in her normal life (with her friend's brother for example) realistic for a middle-class fourteen year old in the sixties? This is probably just me being painfully millennial and naive, so I'd welcome views from those who lived through the period.

Entretenido, pero esperaba más

K.S. · May 11, 2020

"I looked up because of the laughter, and kept looking because of the girls".Con esta línea inicia el libro de Emma Cline, el cual prometía mucho, influido creo por todo el bombo y publicidad alrededor de él. Está más enfocado en el crecimiento y madurez de una adolescente ("We all want to be seen") que en el ficticio asesinato masivo.En general, el libro es entretenido, y tiene pasajes interesantes, pero definitivamente esperaba más, mucho más. No tiene ni la narración más fluida ni es de esos textos que no puedes soltar por que quieres saber qué va a suceder.

Never read something like this which is so spine chilling and true

U.N. · December 26, 2016

This book snaps you out of all the sugarcoated dreams . Dreams of meeting your Prince Charming , saving the damsel in distress . It states the hard reality , all the suffering , manipulation . Never read something like this which is so spine chilling and true . Love this book .

The Girls: A Novel

Product ID: U0812988027
Condition: New

3.8

AED6936

Price includes VAT & Import Duties
Type: Paperback
Availability: In Stock

Quantity:

|

Order today to get by 7-14 business days

Delivery fee of AED 20. Free for orders above AED 200.

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Imported From: United States

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The Girls: A Novel

Product ID: U0812988027
Condition: New

3.8

The Girls: A Novel-0
Type: Paperback

AED6936

Price includes VAT & Import Duties
Availability: In Stock

Quantity:

|

Order today to get by 7-14 business days

Delivery fee of AED 20. Free for orders above AED 200.

Returns & Warranty policies

Imported From: United States

At BOLO, we work hard to ensure the products you receive are new, genuine, and sourced from reputable suppliers.

BOLO is not an authorized or official retailer for most brands, nor are we affiliated with manufacturers unless specifically stated on a product page. Instead, we source verified sellers, authorized distributors or directly from the manufacturer.

Each product undergoes thorough inspection and verification at our consolidation and fulfilment centers to ensure it meets our strict authenticity and quality standards before being shipped and delivered to you.

If you ever have concerns regarding the authenticity of a product purchased from us, please contact Bolo Support. We will review your inquiry promptly and, if necessary, provide documentation verifying authenticity or offer a suitable resolution.

Your trust is our top priority, and we are committed to maintaining transparency and integrity in every transaction.

All product information, images, descriptions, and reviews originate from the manufacturer or from trusted sellers overseas. BOLO is not affiliated with, endorsed by, or an authorized retailer for most brands listed on our website unless stated otherwise.

While we strive to display accurate information, variations in packaging, labeling, instructions, or formulation may occasionally occur due to regional differences or supplier updates. For detailed or manufacturer-specific information, please contact the brand directly or reach out to BOLO Support for assistance.

Unless otherwise stated, all prices displayed on the product page include applicable taxes and import duties.

BOLO operates in accordance with the laws and regulations of United Arab Emirates. Any items found to be restricted or prohibited for sale within the UAE will be cancelled prior to shipment. We take proactive measures to ensure that only products permitted for sale in United Arab Emirates are listed on our website.

All items are shipped by air, and any products classified as “Dangerous Goods (DG)” under IATA regulations will be removed from the order and cancelled.

All orders are processed manually, and we make every effort to process them promptly once confirmed. Products cancelled due to the above reasons will be permanently removed from listings across the website.

Description:

THE INSTANT BESTSELLER • An indelible portrait of girls, the women they become, and that moment in life when everything can go horribly wrong

ONE OF THE BEST BOOKS OF THE YEAR: The Washington Post, NPR, The Guardian, Entertainment Weekly, San Francisco Chronicle, Financial Times, Esquire, Newsweek, Vogue, Glamour, People, The Huffington Post, Elle, Harper’s Bazaar, Time Out, BookPage, Publishers Weekly, Slate

Northern California, during the violent end of the 1960s. At the start of summer, a lonely and thoughtful teenager, Evie Boyd, sees a group of girls in the park, and is immediately caught by their freedom, their careless dress, their dangerous aura of abandon. Soon, Evie is in thrall to Suzanne, a mesmerizing older girl, and is drawn into the circle of a soon-to-be infamous cult and the man who is its charismatic leader. Hidden in the hills, their sprawling ranch is eerie and run down, but to Evie, it is exotic, thrilling, charged—a place where she feels desperate to be accepted. As she spends more time away from her mother and the rhythms of her daily life, and as her obsession with Suzanne intensifies, Evie does not realize she is coming closer and closer to unthinkable violence.

Finalist for the Los Angeles Times Book Prize • Finalist for the National Book Critics Circle John Leonard Award • Shortlisted for The Center for Fiction First Novel Prize • The New York Times Book Review Editors’ Choice • Emma Cline—One of Granta’s Best of Young American Novelists

Praise for The Girls

“Spellbinding . . . a seductive and arresting coming-of-age story.”
The New York Times Book Review

“Extraordinary . . . Debut novels like this are rare, indeed.”
The Washington Post

“Hypnotic.”
—The Wall Street Journal

“Gorgeous.”
—Los Angeles Times

“Savage.”
—The Guardian

“Astonishing.”
—The Boston Globe

“Superbly written.”
—James Wood, The New Yorker

“Intensely consuming.”
—Richard Ford

“A spectacular achievement.”
—Lucy Atkins, The Times

“Thrilling.”
—Jennifer Egan

“Compelling and startling.”
—The Economist


Editorial Reviews

Review

“Spellbinding . . . A seductive and arresting coming-of-age story hinged on Charles Manson, told in sentences at times so finely wrought they could almost be worn as jewelry . . . [Emma] Cline gorgeously maps the topography of one loneliness-ravaged adolescent heart. She gives us the fictional truth of a girl chasing danger beyond her comprehension, in a Summer of Longing and Loss.”The New York Times Book Review

“[
The Girls reimagines] the American novel . . . Like Mary Gaitskill’s Veronica or Lorrie Moore’s Who Will Run the Frog Hospital?, The Girls captures a defining friendship in its full humanity with a touch of rock-memoir, tell-it-like-it-really-was attitude.”Vogue

“Debut novels like this are rare, indeed. . . . The most remarkable quality of this novel is Cline’s ability to articulate the anxieties of adolescence in language that’s gorgeously poetic without mangling the authenticity of a teenager’s consciousness. The adult’s melancholy reflection and the girl’s swelling impetuousness are flawlessly braided together. . . . For a story that traffics in the lurid notoriety of the Manson murders,
The Girls is an extraordinary act of restraint. With the maturity of a writer twice her age, Cline has written a wise novel that’s never showy: a quiet, seething confession of yearning and terror.”The Washington Post

“Outstanding . . . Cline’s novel is an astonishing work of imagination—remarkably atmospheric, preternaturally intelligent, and brutally feminist. . . . Cline painstakingly destroys the separation between art and faithful representation to create something new, wonderful, and disorienting.”
The Boston Globe

“Finely intelligent, often superbly written, with flashingly brilliant sentences, . . . Cline’s first novel,
The Girls, is a song of innocence and experience. . . . In another way, though, Cline’s novel is itself a complicated mixture of freshness and worldly sophistication. . . . At her frequent best, Cline sees the world exactly and generously. On every other page, it seems, there is something remarkable—an immaculate phrase, a boldly modifying adverb, a metaphor or simile that makes a sudden, electric connection between its poles. . . . Much of this has to do with Cline’s ability to look again, like a painter, and see (or sense) things better than most of us do.”The New Yorker

“Breathtaking . . . So accomplished that it’s hard to believe it’s a debut. Cline’s powerful characters linger long after the final page.”
Entertainment Weekly (Summer Must List)

“A mesmerizing and sympathetic portrait of teen girls.”
People (Summer’s Best Books)

The Girls isn’t a Wikipedia novel, it’s not one of those historical novels that congratulates the present on its improvements over the past, and it doesn’t impose today’s ideas on the old days. As the smartphone-era frame around Evie’s story implies, Cline is interested in the Manson chapter for the way it amplifies the novel’s traditional concerns. Pastoral, marriage plot, crime story—the novel of the cult has it all.”New York Magazine

About the Author

Emma Cline is the New York Times bestselling author of The Girls and the story collection Daddy. The Girls was a finalist for the Center for Fiction’s First Novel Prize, the National Book Critics Circle’s John Leonard Prize, and the Los Angeles Times Book Prize. It was a New York Times Editors’ Choice and the winner of the Shirley Jackson Award. Cline’s stories have been published in The New Yorker, Granta, The Paris Review, and The Best American Short Stories. She was named a Guggenheim Fellow, received the Plimpton Prize from The Paris Review and an O. Henry Award, and was chosen as one of Granta’s Best Young American Novelists.

Reviews:

4.0 out of 5 stars The Girls is undoubtedly a challenging read.

T.C.N. · June 28, 2017

The Girls is undoubtedly a challenging read. Based on the Manson murders, make no mistake, there is a hefty amount of uncomfortable content centering around drug use and sexual encounters (some of which I would clearly label as assault). The fact that the main protagonist Evie is a mere 14 years old, makes it one tough pill to swallow.Based on several reviews, I was anticipating a dark read full of teenage angst that played on a graphic core in order to up the “wow” factor. I could not have been more wrong. Nor have I ever been happier to be so wrong. The Girls is a shining example of how to utilize first person narration in the most successful ways.It is the end of the 60’s in Northern California. It is summer, and Evie Boyd feels isolated and out-of-place. Like many teenage girls she just wants to belong. Enter Suzanne. She is care-free and captivating. Immediately drawn to this young stranger, she slowly begins distancing herself from her family and only real friend to spend more time with Suzanne and her friends on the ranch led by the amorous Russell. Evie feels like she has finally found her place in life. But once the initial luster wears off, she realizes she may be involved in something sinister and dangerous.“My eyes were already habituated to the texture of decay, so I thought that I had passed back into the circle of light.”Evie Boyd is so bitterly realistic and raw as a protagonist that there is a part of her I found uncomfortably familiar. As a young impressionable girl desperately seeking an acceptance that most of us can remember feeling was out of reach during some point in our young lives, she is undeniably relatable to at least a small degree. It is this painfully honest approach to her character that gives her and The Girls true life and credibility. The part of me that would normally question her frighteningly bad decisions and actions was easily replaced with an equal amount of sadness and understanding. I didn’t like that I was juggling this new-found sympathy for a character who was making harrowing choices, but I couldn’t help but admire the author’s ability to solicit this from me. Full immersion into Evie’s life had occurred.“You wanted things and you couldn’t help it, because there was only your life, only yourself to wake up with, and how could you ever tell yourself what you wanted was wrong?”Cline spares zero expense or feelings in effort to establish this dark world that is a cult. She brazenly exposes the reader to the loss of Evie’s innocence, gross sexual encounters and the repetitive drug use that fuels this disturbing journey into one young girl’s psych and time on the ranch. The very facets that make The Girls so disturbing also make it so triumphant. This no holds barred approach succeeds in setting the stage and making the unfathomable feel horribly possible. It is through this bold technique that the reader can begin to process how our young protagonist has come to find herself on the ranch. This is a terrifyingly sincere representation of cult life and culture. It is not meant to be pleasant or easy.Cline’s writing is almost poetic yet pragmatic. She effortlessly supplies a fluid narration that leaps from Evie’s past to present. I have noted some reader’s struggled with the change in tone at times, but I personally found this to play perfectly into her transitions, conveying our narrator’s current state of mind more effectively. The ending did not offer an overly satisfying conclusion, but I couldn’t really ask that from The Girls.So here is the hard part, I loved this novel. But I am hesitant to recommend it. This will be too much for many and rightfully so. This is a brutal coming of age story during a very dark time. It has burrowed deep into the core of my mind and is sure to remain for some time. If you find yourself truly fascinated with cult culture and the human psych and can stomach the harsh reality of what it entails, then consider adding this to your list.

5.0 out of 5 stars A hypnotic, unsettling exploration of girlhood and belonging

S. · March 2, 2025

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.

3.0 out of 5 stars A beautifully written debut novel

K.B. · July 17, 2016

I was sure I would enjoy “The Girls” after reading so many 5-star reviews, and for a while, I did. Ms. Cline's writing is strong and engaging, rich in metaphor and description. I was enchanted. So it took me longer than usual to realize I’d been duped. Characters tend to be underdeveloped: their behaviors, actions and emotions become flat and predictable, though gorgeously so. Settings and scenes are recycled like chameleons, changing in color and hue, while offering little contextual shift, deflating the expectation that NOW something exciting or interesting or jaw-dropping is about to happen. Nothing happens. Its pseudo-tension. We anticipate a cliffhanger, and receive a letdown. And nobody is let down more than Evie, who as narrator of “The Girls” tells us her story in two timelines, as both the emotionally lost, passive and vulnerable 14-year-old she was in the summer of 1969, and, years later, as a still emotionally lost, passive and vulnerable middle-aged woman on a tenuous path to adulthood. But that’s not surprising, given that Evie is never permitted to grow; she’s never allowed to take responsibility for her actions, never suffers a crisis – at least not one that we can convincingly suffer along with her. She’s never permitted a watershed moment that might lead her to self-understanding devoid of self pity, one that might blow apart her sweetly held illusions of innocent victimhood. Instead, Evie is constantly being rescued – saved from herself at every potential plot twist that didn’t happen. She’s saved by her neglectful, self-absorbed, clueless and scorned parents (think on that); by the disturbing Suzanne (I enjoyed this character) whose proclivity for mayhem and jealous guardianship of her sexual rights over Evie’s to their distasteful leader, Russell, make her motives suspect; and later, by friends whose sympathy for Evie’s fragile emotional state allows her to prop up her uncertain (bordering on unconscious) life. The self-defeating mantra Evie adopts to rationalize her decisions at age 14, - “At that age, I was, first and foremost, a thing to be judged, and that shifted the power in every interaction onto the other person,” has accompanied her into middle age. “I was almost a wife, but lost the man. I was almost recognizable as a friend. And then I wasn’t.” Evie remains a static observer of her life, never to experience the inner or outer conflict, the crisis of conscience and its resolution, that might have turned “The Girls” into a powerhouse novel. But in all fairness, that may be difficult to achieve in a “fictional” story based on a true one. “The Girls” seduces, it promises, but in chapter after chapter it fails to deliver the force and courage of its convictions. It holds back, and that’s almost unforgiveable in a tale based loosely on one of the most horrific crimes of the 20th century, masterminded by a depraved, psychotic cult leader and carried out, for the most part, by his “girls.” But perhaps it’s only readers who lived through the shock and horror of those 1969 murders nightly on their television screens, or daily in their newspapers, who will feel the low wattage of this novel, or miss the emotional depth and tension it deserves.For a psychologically insightful, gut-wrenching account of cult mentality and what really happens to the displaced Evies of the world who are lured by its promises, follow up “The Girls” with "Helter Skelter" by Vincent Bugliosi, best-selling author and chief prosecutor for the Manson murders.

Thought Provoking and entertaining

r. · July 29, 2016

I ordered this item after hearing about it from many sources, and hearing many recommendations for it. I thought that the subject matter was very intriguing, especially given the notoriety of the Manson murders, and the books fictionalized approach to a similar group. I thought that the authors language was descriptive, often times I felt like I was with Evie at events, or feeling the things she felt. I also felt that it was a great perspective through the eyes of someone who was young and impressionable, but also a bit jaded from things that happened in her own life. Having not lived through that time period, I found the book to be interesting and thought provoking, with a character that was complex enough to want to see what happens at the end. I confess I did not always like the main character, but I felt you didn't have to like her to understand what was going on, and why she made the choices she did. Overall it was a good book, I didn't give it 5 stars as I felt that the end wasn't to my liking, and there were parts that I didn't think had great transitions between past and present- but I did enjoy the read.

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R.G. · March 5, 2019

page de couverture abîmée ,collante

Beautifully atmospheric study of being a teenage girl with murderous cult edge

G. · October 1, 2016

This book tells the story of an ordinary (though well-off) sixties teenager dealing with the usual teenage dramas and the breakup of her parents# marriage, before getting involved with a hippie cult that ultimately turns murderous.I really loved how it created a sense of time and place. Reading it, you could really feel the heat of the California summer and smell the scent of incense. Both the normal, staid middle-class life and the counter-culture were nicely portrayed. It was all very atmospheric.There was a phase a few years ago where every other book with a female protagonist and a dark edge was compared to Gone Girl. I thought that in most cases, this missed the fact that the best thing about Gone Girl wasn't the twisty plot, but the clever passages ruminating on life, women, and relationships, which few of its imitators pulled off. Here, there are some similarly clever and relatable pieces of writing about being a teenage girl, which I really enjoyed.The ending (cult goes on a murder spree) is revealed in the opening chapter, so most of the drama is based less around what's going to happen, more about how and why. I really enjoyed the journey and the sense of someone being sucked into something. Despite relatively little happening until the final drama, the focus on characters and relationships and things slowly taking a turn for the worse really sucked me in.If I'm honest though, I found it slightly hard to suspend belief enough to believe that someone as normal as the narrator could get sucked in to the cult so quickly and so deeply, or that the core cult members, who seemed a but odd rather than totally twisted, could commit such gruesome, cold-blooded murders. It didn't detract from my enjoyment of the story, but I'd have liked just a bit more explanation and build up.Every so often, the narrative switched from the sixties to the present day, with the main character still scarred by her experiences and living a lonely life. These sections mostly focus on her meeting a teenage girl who's been sucked into a borderline-abusive relationship rather than a cult, but who reminds her of her younger self. This part wasn't bad, but I didn't find it as compelling as the main story and didn't feel it added much value.I was very caught up in the book as I went along, and I think that if I'd reviewed it as soon as I'd finished, I'd have given it five stars, but a week or two later, it hasn't stuck in my mind in the way my all-time favourites do and I'm a little more conscious of its minor flaws. It's a high four stars though, and I'd definitely recommend this.One final thought - the behaviour of the cult is one thing, but was how sexually active the main character was in her normal life (with her friend's brother for example) realistic for a middle-class fourteen year old in the sixties? This is probably just me being painfully millennial and naive, so I'd welcome views from those who lived through the period.

Entretenido, pero esperaba más

K.S. · May 11, 2020

"I looked up because of the laughter, and kept looking because of the girls".Con esta línea inicia el libro de Emma Cline, el cual prometía mucho, influido creo por todo el bombo y publicidad alrededor de él. Está más enfocado en el crecimiento y madurez de una adolescente ("We all want to be seen") que en el ficticio asesinato masivo.En general, el libro es entretenido, y tiene pasajes interesantes, pero definitivamente esperaba más, mucho más. No tiene ni la narración más fluida ni es de esos textos que no puedes soltar por que quieres saber qué va a suceder.

Never read something like this which is so spine chilling and true

U.N. · December 26, 2016

This book snaps you out of all the sugarcoated dreams . Dreams of meeting your Prince Charming , saving the damsel in distress . It states the hard reality , all the suffering , manipulation . Never read something like this which is so spine chilling and true . Love this book .

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