Last year I read Vincent Bugliosi’s Helter Skelter and it was easily one of the best non-fiction books-hell any genre of book- I read that year. Emma Cline’s The Girls takes a fictional approach to violent cults in the late 1960s and falls short of the real life horrors.
That isn’t to say The Girls isn’t a good novel- it is- it just doesn’t live up to the hype that surrounded it this summer.
“They didn’t have very far to fall—I knew just being a girl in the world handicapped your ability to believe yourself.”
Evie Boyd is a fourteen year old, upper middle class girl living in California during the late 1960s. Her parents have divorced and her mother has been dating a series of men Evie dislikes; Evie’s best friend, Connie, has dumped her for a new group of girls leaving her alone for the summer. After all this adolescent turmoil Evie easily falls into a group of hippies that hang around The Ranch worshiping a wannabe rock star named Russell. The similarities to Charles Manson are neon bright.
In present day, a middle aged Evie is crashing at a friend’s beach house when his son turns up with a girlfriend. Evie’s wild childhood, including her connection to a violent murder, gets brought up leading to her recollection of the past. I could do without the present day plot. She isn’t recounting her story to these people they just jog her memory so the only purpose it serves is to break up the more interesting plot! I also wish the ending hadn’t been quite so abrupt…
The 1960s storyline is beautifully written and while it feels a bit plagiarized from the real world Evie is given a realistic and interesting narrative. Cline has a strong voice and I’m interested to see what else she has in the works.
Darn! I picked this one up when it first came out based purely on the INSANE
Damn! I picked this one up when it first came out based purely on the INSANE amount of hype, and because I was really intrigued by the concept. I tried to read the first chapter, and found it weirdly heavy-handed, but then I just assumed I wasn’t in the mood and would pick it back up later.
Me too. I actually bought it because I didn’t want to deal with my library’s wait time but the first two chapters failed to grab me. I put it down and then returned to it maybe 2 months later. My biggest problem was that I loved Helter Skelter and the real story is ten times more captivating than a fictional one
Yeah I felt the same about this one — it was decent, but in no way lived up to the hype.
Glad to hear Helter Skelter holds up to my vague but terrifying memories of reading with with Cat in middle school though.