The Girls by Emma Cline

This novel was highly anticipated by the book community. So, when I finally got my copy, I couldn't wait to see what all the fuss was about. The hype wasn't wrong, that's for sure.

In her haunting debut, Emma Cline takes readers on a tragic journey across the landscape of one young girl's mind. Evie Boyd is 14 and it's the summer of 1969. She lives in California and the summer break from boarding school stretches out before her in the way that time can only react to a teenager. She is well off, has always had everything she could possibly need or want, but she's filled with a deep, unsettling malaise. The summer doesn't get off to a great start. Her parents have just divorced and, with her dad off playing house with the young woman who dissolved his marriage, Evie's mother is throwing herself into a recovery, of sorts. She brings a cast of characters home or stays out nights at a time, leaving Evie feeling isolated and forgotten. After a falling out with her childhood best friend, Evie meets an older girl, Suzanne. Suzanne is free, she says, not chained to the "straight" life. Evie is spellbound, both looking up to and loving Suzanne with a strength that surprises and confuses her, allowing her to forgive many faults. Evie falls in with Suzanne and her friends, eventually meeting Russell--the charismatic leader of their band of individualists--and her summer starts to unravel. What does it mean to be a part of a group? And how much will she risk to belong? What will she do for love? This book explores what it means to be a teenage girl: what desire means from that perspective, what love means, and what we are willing to endure (and to ignore) to be close to the ones that light us up. Cline addresses many hard topics with a brutality and openness that mimics a teenage summer--gone rotten, tinged with guilt and excitement.

I highly recommend this book to lovers of The Secret History by Donna Tartt or Jane Eyre by Charlotte Brontë. 

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​Rated 5 out of 5 stars