Emma Cline’s The Girls is a fascinating coming of age story set in Los Angeles of the late 1960’s. It details the almost-obsessional relationship between a young girl, Evie, and a group of girls whose paths cross one fateful day.

It’s not a spoiler to say that this novel is a fictitious account surrounding a very real and infamous event – the Charles Manson killings.

Cline’s description of the ranch is artfully done, and Evie’s spiral of descent into darkness is heartbreaking and believable. You can almost feel the LA sun on your face as you read it.

I’ve long-been fascinated by this true crime case – mainly by the overpowering influence that Manson managed to exert upon his followers – so for me the novel worked on both a fictional sense as well as an example of social reportage. Recommended

Enter the sweaty, oppressive, days of California in 1969 and meet Evie, a member of a Manson-style cult living on a ranch. Cline seeks to give answers to those who ask, ‘how could this happen?’ and her story is engaging, terrifying and believable in equal measure. You are unlikely to ‘like’ Evie but will undoubtedly begin to understand her motivations through Cline’s excellent writing. The story flicks between timelines which is a device I particularly love in fiction. A highly recommended read.

I was highly anticipating the release of this debut due to the very mysterious and intriguing synopses I’d heard. All I knew was that it was about a girl who forms an obsession with a group of girls in her neighbourhood and this leads her down a dark path. That was all I needed to know in order for me to see what it was all about.

In the present day, Evie Boyd is house-sitting for a friend when his twenty year old son turns up with his younger girlfriend. Amidst some awkward interactions with the drug-addled couple, Evie tells us of the summer she was fourteen in late 1960s California. A lonely teenager, she notices a group of girls in the park who seem to have a certain aura surrounding them. These girls are beautiful, carefree and downright enchanting. Soon enough, Evie befriends Suzanne, an older girl with a mesmerising, enigmatic air, of which Evie is in awe. She quickly becomes a part of their tight-knit circle and is thrown into their bohemian lifestyle, led by charming Russell. Spending more and more time at the group’s run down ranch and away from her distracted parents, Evie finds herself desperately seeking acceptance. Intoxicated by the exciting atmosphere, she doesn’t see the hidden danger and thirst for violence running underneath.

The Girls has a heavy focus on what it really is to be an insecure teenage girl. Evie reflects a lot on her conscious need to feel beautiful and accepted as part of a group. She knows that this is a predominantly female preoccupation and sees men as independent, headstrong leaders. Like the other girls, she doesn’t question Russell’s authority at any point and allows herself to become part of his cult.

Although Evie is very young compared to some of the other girls, there is emphasis throughout the book on women striving for physical perfection above all else. Almost every female character in the book -old and young- appears to be trying to please a man and it makes the reader wonder whether this is a sad truth being told to us.

The book also does a lot of exploring the reasons behind why women do this. The above quote sees present day Evie talking about Sasha, the girlfriend of her friend’s son, Julian. Sasha is besotted with Julian, who is very dismissive of her. She is only a little older than Evie was when she joined the cult and Evie seems to see a lot of her younger self in Sasha. The words above are brimming with truth and tragedy and they cause the reader to stop and silently agree. It’s Evie’s sad realisation that although decades have passed, women’s desire to please men hasn’t wavered.

The idea of selfishness and possession is another central theme. It’s most clearly seen during the scenes where Evie is at home with either one of her separated parents. Her mother enjoys a laid-back lifestyle and dating a string of unsuitable men while her father is living with his beautiful, glamorous assistant. Their lives are all about material things and instant gratification, a complete contrast to the way life is lived on the ranch. The girls share everything -clothes, money, even children- and pleasure is found through love and debauchery. It becomes easy to see why it looks appealing to an impressionable teenager with superficial parents.

Cline took inspiration for the cult itself from the infamous Manson family. Russell is based on its leader Charles Manson and the conclusion is both as shocking and brutal as its source material. It’s very well-researched with disturbing resemblances to reality. The language and writing style is drenched with original description and lyrical metaphor, which can take a little getting used to, if you’re not familiar with it. It has a lot to say about women’s perceptions of themselves, men and in turn, how men see them. There is an atmosphere of The Virgin Suicides by Jeffery Eugenides and I did find myself being reminded of that book repeatedly. Dark and emotive with a tinge of innocence around the edges.

Gripping narrative voice that really does convey a disillusioned teenager and the heady times of the 1960s. Strangely compelling although not necessarily enjoyable!

Literary novel about the Manson murder cult which explores the pull of the counter-culture and the dangerous wish to belong whilst rebelling against the norm.

Fantastic book - well worth the read. Emma Cline writes beautifully and The Girls left me with goosebumps.

I really tried to like it. I really tried to ignore the hype that followed this book. There was just something about it that didn't sit well with me. Sorry.

Gripping summer read! Exploring the vulnerability of people and transporting the reader into a dangerous world that echos real life events. Page turner from the start

I have a dislocated elbow at the moment; my arm is in a full cast and I’m unable to work so it’s the perfect time to catch up with some of my giant TBR pile. Last year there was a lot of buzz about The Girls, it was hyped to the max, and I remember hoping it wouldn’t be one of those novels that are full of potential that doesn’t quite get realised. The jury’s out on that one, but I’m happy to report that when I began reading I was totally absorbed. It’s a reimagining of the Manson cult (I initially tried using a dictation device as my right arm/hand is out of action, but it typed Manson cult as mints and coat and I gave up) told from the point of view of Evie, a 14-year-old who is bored by her long-standing friendship with Connie, upset with her separated parents, ignored by her crush, and disillusioned by school. She is the perfect blend of yearning romantic and brittle bravado for the Mansonesque Russell and his girls to manipulate and influence. Cline is dazzlingly good at the socially awkward shuffles and games adolescent girls employ hoping to be accepted and cool, and the faith we have that one day we will discover our real purpose, our real lives.

She was lost in that deep and certain sense that there was nothing beyond her own experience. As if there were only one way things could go, the years leading you down a corridor to the room where your inevitable self waited – embryonic, ready to be received. How sad it was to realise that sometimes you never got there. That sometimes you lived a whole life skittering across the surface as the years passed, unblessed.

Interspersed throughout, a middle-aged Evie, damaged and lonely, spends time in the company of a couple of teens who are impressed by her past. Her life is indelibly marked by her association with the cult. Her “inevitable self” is not anything she would have hoped for.

Cline writes convincingly about how the girls, and boys too, come to find themselves part of Russel’s commune, living a bullshit free love existence. Evie is entranced by one of them, Suzanne, enough to return to the grimy commune rather than stay with either of her parents. Russell is the magnetic leader, but he remains distant to the reader as the novel moves towards the inevitable brutal murders. It’s Suzanne who is Evie’s focus, although like all the cult characters she too remains unknowable and mysterious.

On reflection, the weird problem I have with the book is that probably the least successful part is the Manson story. The teen girl insights chimed with me and were where my interest lay. I’m not sure the cult part is that interesting – maybe read Helter-Skelter if that’s your area (the bestselling true crime book written by Vincent Bugliosi, the chief prosecutor in the Manson case – a book I devoured many years ago when I was a teen). I wonder if Cline’s novel was actually hindered by following that narrative. However, her perceptiveness and ability make whatever she writes next very interesting to me.

DNF

I think when I initially started this book I expected something a little different. I got about a hundred pages in before I finally gave up on it. I didn't care for the characters enough, as much as I wanted to connect with them, and I never really felt any spark of enjoyment whenever I picked it up to continue reading. I was a little curious as to how the story would unfold but to be honest, I also felt a little uncomfortable with the concept and wasn't really sure whether it was worth my time to continue, considering it really wasn't grabbing my attention. The writing was a bit pretentious in parts, maybe the prose was slightly too overwritten for my liking.

I'm guessing this story follows a girl who gets herself messed up in some sort of cult. Cults in general make me feel all kinds of uncomfortable, especially since I've never actually read a story or watched a movie where its a positive experience. I recently watched a drama where the events that occured had made me feel a little nauseous to the stomach, so perhaps that's why this book didn't gel for me, but it's not to say that it's a terrible book or that others won't enjoy it, as clearly lots of others have.

Loosely based on the killings in 1969 by Charles Manson and his group of followers, Emma Cline's novel shows just how easy it can be to fall into a cult setting such as the one Manson created.  Evie Boyd has a mother who is more interested in her new boyfriend than in Evie herself, so it is easy for her to say she is staying at best friend Connie's house when in fact she isn't.  Evie meets Suzanne in a local store and is drawn in by her beauty and state of apparent bohemia.  This girl is not like her or Connie, and Evie is immediately drawn to her.  Suzanne takes her 'home' to meet Russell, and the other people she lives with.  What occurs there is seedy and uncomfortable but Evie is strangely drawn to being there amongst them. 

The book weaves through that extraordinary summer and now in the present day, as 50-something Evie recollects whether she could have prevented the tragic events that occurred, or whether in fact she had been protected by Suzanne all along. 

I can see why the book has been so raved about.  I liked it, but I didn't love it but I think it's a personal choice.  I certainly would say to read this though as it is both dark but intoxicating at the same time, and an eye opener to the world for some of the summer of 1969.

Although I appreciated the use of language within this book I found that the writer focused more on making the book sound good than giving us an interesting plot. The Manson murders are used to advertise this book because otherwise it has little going for it.

A haunting coming of age novel. An insight into the decline of sixties fervor and the "Manson" element was fascinating and made me want to read more! Disturbingly good.

The Girls, by Emma Cline

I was interested to read this book, and it was a good read. It’s the story of a girl who was ‘almost’ – almost remembered, almost revered/reviled. In the right place at the wrong time.

Evie is a middle aged woman who is housesitting for a friend in California, when her friend’s estranged son and his young girlfriend visit unexpectedly. She is encouraged into telling her story of how she was part of a cult when she was a teenager.

The story is told in flashbacks, as vignettes, snapshots of young men and women living together in the Summer of Love era. The days are hot, the food is scarce and they live on lust and drugs.

Evie’s story is wistful, and because there isn’t really anything about the thirty years inbetween now and then, it feels like she’s been stuck in time, not being able to move forward from that episode. Without introducing spoilers, I thought that Evie regretted her part in it, and wished for something more. Something more impressive.

The book was a good read and I thought it was well written, but there was something lacking for me. I expected there to be something else coming round the corner, and it never did.

I was expecting big things from the book but I couldn't get into it, it just wasn't for me. I didn't find the writing very accessible. I really wanted to like it and support new authors but maybe her next book.

I really enjoyed this, it had the same effect on me as a little life. I was initially put off by the title and jacket as I thought it was as going to be teeny and angsty. So glad my colleague persuaded me to jump in it was fab!

You wait forever for a book about the girls of the Manson Family to arrive and then two come along at once. This month sees the publication of both Emma Cline’s The Girls and Alison Umminger’s My Favourite Manson Girl. And, if we’re counting the TV series Aquarius, as well as Manson’s Lost Girls, the recent Lifetime movie (yes, really), Susan Atkins et al have, like, omg never been hotter.

Let’s save the “ethics of true crime” discussion for another time (hey, you listened to Serial, too, right?). There’s obviously something that still resonates about this legend of a magnetic man; one who’s capable of building a cadre of (mostly female) misfits willing to murder for him. The fact that attention has mostly shifted from Manson to his “girls” speaks to both the post-Gone-Girl wave of female-driven crime novels and also to society’s persistent astonishment whenever a woman does anything except what she’s supposed to. When we see her mugshot, we all still wonder, “How’d a nice girl like you end up there?”

In The Girls, the year is 1969 and that nice girl is Evie, a 14-year-old from an affluent home that’s breaking down around her (dad’s run off with his secretary; mom’s dating losers and drinking too much). Little wonder that, when she sees around town a group of free spirits led by a woman named Suzanne, she drifts away from home and into their commune. The surface differences between this group and the Manson Family are minor, but, for Evie, it’s Suzanne who’s the “magnetic” one. The Manson figure of Russell exists largely in the background.

Would you be disappointed to find out that The Girls isn’t really about Russell/Manson (or Suzanne/Susan Atkins) at all?

Well, sorry, but it’s not.

Manson is clearly the 10-second-sell for this book, but in actual fact it’s more of a hazy tale of friendship, lust, and coming of age.

I couldn’t help but think of Curtis Sittenfeld’s American Wife, a roman à clef about George and Laura Bush, where the most compelling parts have nothing at all to do with true events. The real people are the sell, but Sittenfeld does her best writing when she’s unconstrained by the roman à clef structure.

The same could be said for Emma Cline. I’d argue that The Girls’ best moments have little to do with cult life.

I loved the queasy sequence where Evie spends time with the boy next door, a pre-pubescent boy who can barely conceal his erection when faced with her bikini-clad body. Almost without thinking about it, Evie manipulates him into giving her money (for drugs she knows she’ll never deliver). She exhibits the shark-like focus of someone who has power for the first time in her life.

Well observed, also, is Evie’s relationship with her new stepmother, Tamar, a woman barely older than she is. Their girlish camaraderie abruptly cools when Evie realises that this marriage is doomed. Tamar will leave her dad, and soon.

However, these sequences are snapshots. Although compelling, they have little bearing on the overall story. In fact, The Girls is rather a sluggish affair.

It’s a novel that revolves around a cult – and the cult ought to give the novel its shape, its purpose. The trouble is, Cline doesn’t really commit to exploring the cult’s horrors. She smooths out many of the real-life rough edges of the Manson clan, making her version of the Tate murders into a simple case of revenge. For my money, this is a mistake. What’s luridly fascinating about the Tate-LaBianca murders is how utterly bonkers they were, soaked in Beatles obsession and imagined apocalyptic racial warfare.

Fascinating, too, is the girls’ slavish devotion to Manson, which, in The Girls, is dismissed as hyperbole. It’s another narrative decision that lessens the drama of the novel, rather than adds to it.

I remember watching the 1973 Manson documentary, with its extensive footage of glassy-eyed cult members, and finding it so viscerally disturbing that I deleted the movie the moment I hit the end credits. ‘Never, ever, ever going to watch that again,’ I said to myself. Of course, a few years have passed now, and I think I’d like to watch it again… Because, the thing is, this is one of those curious instances where the truth is far, far stranger than fiction. None of the recent wave of Manson-and-his-girls stories have matched that documentary or the utterly absorbing true crime book, Helter Skelter.

All told, The Girls feels like something and nothing. It’s filled with descriptions that are sometimes beautiful but more often exhausting. There’s a dual narrative with a present-day subplot that ultimately drifts away like smoke. When I reached the novel’s end, I was sad to see it go – but not because it was an un-putdown-able read, but because it felt like a prologue to what could have been a fascinating novel.

So I originally received an arc for this from NetGalley and then it sat on my Kindle for way longer than I expected to let it sit. Blame it on my life or my horrible sense of time but it took way longer to get to this book than it should have taken.

I really wanted to just love this book but then I wanted myself wanting more from it. It's called 'The Girls' but it ended up just focusing on one girl's experiences with a few other girls who were part of, let's just say it, a cult. Or a way or life, if you prefer that term. I wish their had been more about each girl or more from each girl's perspective about all the workings inside their little 'family'.

I didn't mind the writing style as I found it to flow rather simply once I started actually reading it. I wouldn't be opposed to reading another Emma Cline book in the future, I just wanted more from everybody else involved in the story.

I would recommend The Girls. The protagonist here is Evie Boyd who is also connected to a mass murder, this one perpetuated by member of a cult: indeed the book’s main event and the cult portrayed are based lose on that of Charles Manson and the Sharon Tate murder. What is impressive is what Cline does with that idea. Told mostly in flashback it is a well observed and nuanced portrayal of adolescence. Summer 1969 and Evie is just desperate to be noticed. She feels frumpy, unattractive, invisible. He parent have split up: her Dad swapping her mom for a younger model; her mother meanwhile is collecting new boyfriends. Between them there is little time for Evie. And the Evie sees Suzanne, whose “face answered all its own questions.” She seems to instantly provide the excitement and mystery missing from Evie’s life.

What follows is Evie’s slow and gradual move away from her home life to live as part of a cult with the Suzanne and a group of other, mainly, girls and their leader ‘Russell’.

That could be it, a so what, a so-cliched-bring-on-the-sex kind of book. That isn’t what you get though. Instead this book rises above that expectation with an assured quality and believability of the writing. It’s not showy in any way , the murders happen, but they are not the focal point of the book. It’s about the fears and feeling of a teenage girl, and Evie’s feelings and fears in 1969 would seem to ring as true for many teenage girls today as they do for her then. An impressively written debut.

Originally saw this book on a 'Summer hot reads' list so was very happy to see it pop up on Netgalley for a sneaky ARC - many thanks !! Really quite enjoyed the book but perhaps my expectations were set a little too high given all the hype surrounding it. Despite it not quite hitting the mark, I was eager to keep turning the pages, enjoyed all of the characters and thought the writing was brilliant - I could picture each and every scene and I do have to say that I did enjoy the book!