The Girls
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By Emma Cline
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1 review
A gripping and dark fictionalised account of life inside the Manson family.
If you’re lost, they’ll find you…
Evie Boyd is fourteen and desperate to be noticed.
It’s the summer of 1969 and restless, empty days stretch ahead of her. Until she sees them. The girls. Hair long and uncombed, jewellery catching the sun. And at their centre, Suzanne, black-haired and beautiful.
If not for Suzanne, she might not have gone. But, intoxicated by her and the life she promises, Evie follows the girls back to the decaying ranch where they live.
Was there a warning? A sign of what was coming? Or did Evie know already that there was no way back?
‘Taut, beautiful and savage, Cline’s novel demands your attention’ Guardian
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Read with Gloucester Book Club
I was so impressed by the way the author was able to capture and deal with some of the real issues and fears girls and women face.
In an ideal world and life one would hope that all girls and women (plus boys and men) can have a nice life and live happily ever after. Far too often, this is not the case.
Evie is in that formative stage between childhood and adulthood. As well as this being a difficult time generally her home and friendship life isn't the best. She feels confused and rejected and clamours around looking for love and acceptance with devastating consequences. Unfortunately, this is all too often the case in real life and when I came to learn after I had read the book that this was an exploration of the Charles Manson cult and murders, I thought it all the more powerful.
I loved how the 60's story was juxtaposed against what was happening in modern day to Evie as an adult woman and the girlfriend who was in the same house as her, showing how even today some men deliberately disrespect and manipulate women - when the girlfriend exposed her breasts it was just so powerful in saying - SEE! SEE WHAT IS STILL HAPPENING!!
I am not at all suggesting that all men are idiots and all women are saints. I know that there are situations when the roles are reversed, this was shown in Evie's treatment of the boy who was her neighbour, but on the whole this is a feminist novel and the issues on the other side of gender equality will no doubt be discussed in other books.
It was thought provoking, raw and real. There was a part in it that I particularly hated, but now I know that Sharon Tate was heavily pregnant when murdered I understand why it was put in. (Shudder!) It is so awful. I thought the author did a great job of including what inevitably had to happen while not making it the focus of the book. Really, just a brilliant and important book.
