The Girls

Why I Chose This Book

I’ve always found cults to be extremely interesting. What kind of mentality allows a person to abandon society and fuse together in a belief system that is undoubtedly strange to the rest of us? What is it about the leader of these groups that causes otherwise sane people to worship them as if they’re the second coming?

I’ve watched countless specials on Jonestown and Waco, Texas, along with other well known cults, but there’s one that has always stricken a chord with me. Charles Manson and his following have a strangely fascinating story. So when I read the description for “The Girls”, by Emma Cline I was instantly drawn in.

Story Line

The Girls is a loosely based account of life on “The Ranch”. The narrator, a fourteen year old girl Evie, gets sucked into the mayhem in the summer of 69’ right before she's set to ship off to private school. Her interest in the cult is not what you’d expect though. Instead of her being drawn to the leader, Russell, she finds herself falling for Suzanne, another girl who’s a huge part of the inner workings of The Ranch. The story line bounces back and forth between Evie now as an older woman, and her experiences that summer. The reader gets to see how that short time has shaped Evie’s life as an adult.

My Perception

You can tell right from the first page that Cline is a very vividly detailed writer. Her imagery, although very beautiful, could be a bit much at times. The first rule of thumb as a writer is to show the reader, don’t tell them. I felt a lot like I was being told how to view certain characters and situations. Some of her comparisons came off a bit pretentious, making me feel as if I wasn’t intelligent enough to “get” what Cline was trying to say.

With this said, I did actually really enjoy this book. It gave me exactly what the description had promised. I could see through Evie’s eyes how Russell could be so charming. I began to understand how these women got caught up in situations that were so obviously bad for them. I as the reader felt as if I were right there in the summer heat of 69’, excited to finally belong to something, love and drugs clouding my better judgment, making mistakes that would change the way I navigated through the rest of my life.