I'm sorry but I did not like this one. I had a difficult time getting into the details. I have read the book HelterSkelter and know the subject matter. So this one was a big interest for me. However, I just could not get into the story and found it very boring. I tried multiple times but I feel this one is just not for me. Thanks to NetGalley for an early review of this one. It did not influence my review.

I thought this was a great concept for looking back on a time and events that we all think we are familiar with. Approaching the story through the eyes of a girl who was there, but wasn't was a whole new perspective of how the events came to unfold. One of the best coming-of-age stories I've read.

This novel is irresistible for its extraordinary craft. The prose is nervous and electric, the sentences crisp and crystalline. You can almost taste the rot and the waste in this summer from hell. The young (and old) narrator's voice is something to behold. Haunting. Fragile. Her senses in full bloom. Her awakening to the world potent and fascinating. Her presence is undeniable. She carries the story with an uncanny sense of innocence and gloom.

Emma Cline is an amazing new voice on the literary scene and I will follow her works with keen interest. But I really, really didn't want to be here.

This books started out so strong and I was immediately captivated by Cline's vivid descriptions and insight. But I thought it ended somewhat abruptly and oddly.

The first thing I noticed about The Girls is that the author's style is absolutely flawless, and I think is one of the things that made this book so addictive. The author grabs your attention in such a way that you just keep reading, wanting to know more. 

I'm all for first impressions when it comes to books, people, and makeup products, and with this book what you get is a very promising prologue, that already throws hints as to what the story is going to be about and has readers hooked from the start. 

Although the book revolves around a series of events that took place when the main character was fourteen years old, it is not a YA novel. This is one hundred percent adult, and you can definitely tell by the complexity of the writing style. And even though I was super into the book, it took me a while to get used to it. 

Evie, our main character, is in many ways a typical fourteen-year-old, and at first I thought that's why she felt so attracted to Suzanne, and older girl who is a part of the cult. I changed my mind as I kept on reading that Evie is indeed attracted to girls and has always been. 

There's a bit that I understand was a part of the novel that couldn't be omitted, and this is the whole sexual content, especially the scenes regarding Evie and Russell, the cult leader, and Mitch, one of his friends because they are both grown men and Evie is a minor. 

All in all I liked this story and appreciated the fact that it's different from what I usually read both in genre and plot-wise, but I was expecting more at the end, I feel that so much anticipation was built and then it fell flat, which is why I ultimately didn't give it a five-star rating. Still, it's a read I'd recommend and Emma Cline is an author I'd want to read in the future.

Loved this book
Didn't want it to end
Highly recommend

Read so many great reviews for this book, but it just wasn't for me. Only read half.

I'm going to start out this review by saying Emma Cline's writing is very good, and I didn't have an issue with that at all, which is why I'm giving this 2 stars instead of just 1 star. I did however have an issue with almost everything else about the book. I found the plot and setting to be boring, and the pacing was a bit awkward at times, but the main issue I had was with the narration style and the narrator herself. I hated the back and forth between the past and the present. I felt as though present Evie brought absolutely nothing to the table except to prove she was just a waste of a character. She floated through her entire life letting everything just happen to her, and seeing herself as a victim. I think this story could have been much better if it switched back and forth between Evie's POV and the POV of Suzanne, or anyone else who was actually apart of the cult. I was really expecting a character study on someone who finds themselves in a cult, but instead we get a young girl who is just a very weak person and becomes infatuated with one of the main girls in a cult. Evie isn't even really a member of the cult, she just goes to the ranch when she's mad at her mom. The whole novel is basically Evie calling herself a victim and not owning up to anything she did when she was with the other girls, and she really didn't even blame the girls for what they did in the cult. It was just pathetic how she was completely obsessed with Suzanne. Evie hated her parents, and her friends, and so she spent the whole book trying to impress the girls in the cult. It was so dull. I wanted something more exciting and more interesting, and something definitely darker. I wasn't shocked by anything the characters did, and I felt the plot really led nowhere. I continued to the end of the book because a friend assured me the ending is worth it, but I really disagree. We know how the story ends and just reading about it from the POV of a character who wasn't even involved was a serious let down. There were no plot twists, no major shocks, no characters that stood out. I really feel this book was a waste of time, and I can't think of anybody I would recommend this to.

Thank you to NetGalley and Random House for this free readers edition. In exchange I am providing an honest review.

I'm a little confused. The Girls is a fiction book only because, it seems to me, Cline took a real life event and people (Charles Manson) and changed the names and location. But if you are familiar with the story of Manson and his followers then as you read this book you can predict exactly what is coming up. The giveaway was the first time Cline uses the location "the Ranch." I already had felt like it was the story of Charles Manson and his followers and the location of the ranch sealed the deal. So the reason this book is fiction is because it features a girl who we get an insider's view into her backstory and her fringe association with the group led by Russell (aka Charles Manson). Cline even used Manson's musical aspirations and association with a famous musician for her storyline - just changing the names and situation a bit. The writing wasn't bad. I read the story quickly. Cline did a great job with the fringe character and exploring some of the possible reasons people, specifically girls, will join cults. But at the end of the day, so to speak, the story is still a ripped off version of Charles Manson and his group.

Time to play so review catch up. I listened to The Girls on audiobook to finally get this review out in the world, only a year late! (We've all been there). The Girls has a fantastic premise, cults are one of my reading buzzwords so I had to check this one out. However, I found I was just mediocre about this story. It was neither bad nor was it fantastic. I often just felt distant from the story and had a hard time focusing on what was going on. I also found that I got confused when the story just back to the present, in the audiobook there wasn't really a break to show the change of time so I definitely got a bit lost.

I found myself siding with Evie's parents, which I definitely don't think you're suppose to do. I kept thinking you're 14-15 years old, go home! I often didn't know what her motivations were and I honestly didn't find her overly likable enough to care about. In the end, this is just an easily forgettable book.

I had super high expectations after hearing all of the hype associated with the book. For the most part, those expectations were met, though I wasn't truly prepared to encounter the more risque elements of the book. Overall, I think Cline is a skilled writer who can set a scene like no other. The narrative voice is so strong, specifically because the first-person narration is self-reflective. 

The real downside for me was that the plot was a little thin, relying instead on the graceful writing and the adult intrigue. Despite my small disappointment with the simple plot, it was still a compulsively readable story, one that was engaging and that left me feeling satisfied, despite the weaker parts of the story.

Not as exciting as I had anticipated. The most interesting sections of the book were the ones set later, the older Evie relating the young people she meets with herself as a teen. I enjoyed the self reflection.

I didn't enjoy this story. It wasn't my cup of tea so unfortunately, I had to DNF.

“Poor girls. The world fattens them on the promise of love. How badly they need it, and how little most of them will ever get.” 
Summary:
Evie Boyd is now in her fifties as she reflects back on her time as a 14 year old living in late ‘60s Northern California.  As with most 14 year old girls, Evie is young, impressionable and longing to find her place in the world.  She comes across a group of young women in the park and their carefree ways captivate her.  Soon she manages to befriend one of these young women, Suzanne.  Suzanne takes her under her wing.  Evie is swept into Suzanne’s world when they visit the ranch where the girls are living.  She is introduced to their leader, Russell Hadrick.  Russell is an enigmatic man who has this fantastic following and seems to be on the edge of fame.  He and his “family” seem to have the world in the palm of their hands and Evie can’t resist the pull.
The Premise:
This book has gotten rave reviews.  Perhaps I am alone in not finding it all that captivating.  None of the characters in this book were likeable including the main character, Evie.  It’s so obvious that this is a fictional representation of a young girl being taken into a Charles Manson-like cult.  Knowing the outcome of that horrendous true-crime story makes it hard for me to understand how anyone could be lured to it.  I read Helter Skelter when I was very young and I was appalled by it.  I didn’t get how those young women could be drawn to such a monster and I still don’t get it even after reading this book.  Someone of a younger generation who cannot recall those events so easily might find this book much more riveting than I did.  Like Gone Girl, this book just made me want to take a shower.  
The Writing:
Each generation has their version of living on the edge and doing things that seem taboo.  The 60s were a great turning point in the freedoms that society experiences to this day.  It was a turbulent time of change for young people.  Emma Cline takes us into the head of one young girl during that time.  Evie became easily misdirected and her poor decisions will forever haunt her.  To me, there is one very important point here.  When we are young our expectations of the world are high.  Society leads us to believe that things should be a certain way.  We begin to realize during adolescence that maybe for some of us those things aren’t that easy to come by.  Is the world going to be disappointed by us?  Are we going to be disappointed by it?  The heart can be a lonely confusing place and we all long to belong somewhere.  As we grow away from some we’ve been close to and towards new people, we each have an inner journey going on that no one else is privy to.  Cline did indeed give us a vivid picture of the strife that can come with this journey.  
I want to thank the publisher (Random House Publishing Group – Random House) for providing me with the ARC through NetGalley for an honest review.

I just didn't gel with this one. The narrator's insistence on telling us constantly that she "didn't know at the time..." grated on and bored me in equal measures. I couldn't connect with her or the story she was trying to tell.

Great read.  It took me a while to actually start this book but once I did I could not put it down.  The story touched so many aspects of my life and invoked countless memories.  Read this book!

First, I would like to say that I enjoyed the book very much. The book, in my opinion, is clearly a fictional story that parallels the Manson Family activities quite closely.  What was very unique about this book, is that is was told from the point of vbookof an adult, recalling in vivid detail, her experiences as a 14 year old girl. She told a story of a girl in search of something at home and with her high school friends, and when she didn't fiand it, she saw something in a young women in her early twenties...a very complicated relationship up until the very end.

The book also seamlessly went back and forth  between her present day life where it revealed some of her same insecurities.  They also introduced other characters that parallel that same insecurities that some women feel even this many years later.  The book includes a lot of sexual situations the that were not in any way gratuitous,  but I did feel I needed to mention it in case my review encouraged younger readers. Although it was about a 14 year old girl,  lots of sex was involved.

This was one of the big hype books of summer 2016, and, ever the contrarian, this made me I predisposed to dislike it. It didn’t help that press kept breathlessly hailing Emma Cline as the voice of her generation – making me think of Hannah Horvath in HBO’s cult hit Girls “"I think that I may be The Voice of My Generation... or at least a voice of a generation”. 

Poor girls. The world fattens them on the promise of love. How badly they need it, and how little most of them will ever get. The treacled pop songs, the dresses described in the catalogues with words like 'sunset' and 'Paris.' Then the dreams are taken away with such violent force; the hand wrenching the buttons of the jeans, nobody looking at the man shouting at his girlfriend on the bus.

Set in 1960s California, inspired by Charles Manson and his ‘Family’ The Girls is suffused in a sun baked headiness of social and sexual awakening. The book is told form the point of view of teenage Evie Boyd, who becomes embroiled in the cult not because of the cult leader Russell but because of her need to be accepted by his female followers. She sees them as impossibly cool and beautiful, and as her family falls apart Evie’s longing to be loved and accepted by these women is almost a physical need.  There is something languid, blurry, and vaguely stoned about the writing that captures the situation and time-period perfectly. In short – it turns out this was an increasingly rare case of justifiable hype. It’s hard to believe this is a debut novel, and I can’t wait to read more from Emma Cline.

You have probably seen Emma Cline's book all over the internet by now. It seemed at one point to be THE book you ought to read, if you were only going to read one book (after all it made it to the NY Times Bestsellers list!).

I really had high hopes for this book. And maybe that's the problem. I am not sure it if was all the hype constructed around the book, or if it was my hope to read the next "Gone Girl" with an even bigger story twist. Instead... well. It was all but that.

The Girls is Emma Cline's debut novel and it tells the story of Evie Boyd, a young privileged teenager, who finds herself drawn by a group of girls living in some sort of made-up boho camp ( really a run down ranch), and following an older man as their leader. It is very clear whose story Emma Cline is trying to tell: the infamous Manson clan. The story doesn't get any more original from that point, instead, we are offered to relieve the horrors of the past but it a very slow fashion. Where one would hope to see strong female characters and their take of what it must have been like to be part of a cult like Manson's was, we are instead offered a pretty pale version. Evie is another stereotyped rich girl who finds herself sucked into something bigger than she had bargained for. We are supposed to feel bad for her, but instead I fell very annoyed by her character and disappointed by all the other female characters in  this book.

As you can imagine by now, I didn't think much of this debut novel. Yes, it was well structured and well told, but the magic and the surprise elements were just lacking. Don't get me wrong, there is nothing wrong inspiring ourselves from history (what would be do without a good historical fiction anyway?), but there must be something more compelling than just regurgitating facts and changing names. There must be an element of surprise for the reader, and the characters have to be compelling enough to lead us til the end. However, The Girls missed the mark.

I give the book a solid 3 stars, and that is mostly due to the fact that despite Emma Cline missing the thrill-bandwagon, she was pretty good at describing scenes and translating how Evie feels and why she is drawn to the leader of the cult. We get it - she is lonely, feeling unloved, and desperate for attention. Emma Cline made me understand Evie's struggle, and why Suzanne seems so appealing to her. But like I said, besides that, there is nothing else to the story, and that is very sad.

I think Emma Cline has potential to write a good novel, and I hope that someday I will come across a much enticing novel that will really make me rate it 5 stars.

Thank you to NetGalley, and Random House for an ARC of  The Girls by Emma Cline, in exchange for an honest review.