Book Review: The Girls By Emma Cline

The Girls By Emma Cline

Goodreads Synopsis: 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, and to that moment in a girl’s life when everything can go horribly wrong.

**Spoiler Alert**

My Review:

You guys I was so disappointed by this book. I’ve heard so many great reviews. I’ve had this at my house from the library for months now and I’ve  been pushing off reading it. I finally decided to go for it. I was thinking of DNF’ing this but I was already in too deep and still haven’t read about the murder part so I stuck it out.

So this story is about Evie. It goes back and forth with past and present. It’s about how she’s unhappy her mom barely notices her and she just into a fight with her best friend she’s seeking something more. Well one day she spots this group of girls who seem daring and carefree. She ends up making herself known to them and ends up joking their group who ends up being obsessed over this one guy. However Evie doesn’t really seem the appeal of him she’s drawn to Suzanne, one of the girls she spotted. Her obsession draws her in to the group of people who may not as great as they seem.

So the main thing that drew me is that Evie basically ends up joining a cult which is based of the Manson murders. I have such a interest in serial killers that I was extremely excited to read that. However that wasn’t what I got at all.

I have to say the story going back and forth with past and present really turned me off. You would get a little taste of her being with the cult then bam it would go back to the present. Usually writers do that to draw you in and want more but I didn’t feel it had that cliffhanger ending. It kinda just ends and it’s like here we are in the present. The author broke the story up into parts and I wish it had been like here is Evie’s life before the cult, here is her life during her time with the cult, here is her life after. I feel that would have made more sense for this type of story.

I’m also disappointed because I found the cult parts to be extremely boring. I didn’t really enjoy them. They kinda just were there for me. I felt there wasn’t much too them. I mean I guess maybe it’s because Evie didn’t feel much for her like the other girls did. She was more into Suzanne. At first I thought I saw it as something more than it was but later on it was made very clear Evie’s feelings for Suzanne. I’m a little surprised that the book wasn’t labeled LGBT. Evie would always go on about Suzanne and the power she had over her which I felt was a big part of the story. I even read other people’s reviews on the book and they said the same thing.

Another thing was how long it took to get to the murders. That was the big selling point of the book how it was based off the Manson murders and here I am basically half way through the book and still nothing. Then when we finally get to it, Evie wasn’t there to witness the murders. That was extremely disappointing. She didn’t have to kill anyone but I would have liked to liked to see if Evie’s thoughts on Suzanne changed when she saw her kill someone.

I’m sorry that most of this review is me bitching. I just heard a lot of great things about this book and was so hyped for it that I’m just upset. I’m not going to recommend this but I do feel people should still try it if they want to. I do hype people have better luck than I did.

 

Overall 2/5 Stars

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