The Girls

The Girls by Emma Cline.  368 pages.

Northern California, at the end of the 1960s, seems to embody a combination of place and time where people kept finding themselves, or reinventing themselves, or just trying to figure out where and how they fit into the world.  Evie is no different.  A young teen, she thinks she's happy enough . . . until she spots a group of girls in the park who obviously seem much freer than Evie.  Soon, Evie starts hanging out with these girls and becomes especially attached to Suzanne, one of the older girls in the group.  Living in a ranch in the hills, Suzanne and the other girls are part of a larger group that are all drawn to Russell, a larger-than-life personality.  However, it's not an idyllic life and soon, it becomes clear that things are getting darker and more dangerous.  Question is: how far is Evie willing to go?

I felt the book is very well written, enough so that when I didn't really want to keep reading, I kept reading. Evie (as a character) can be very frustrating, even if you understand that she is motivated by a lack of sense of self.  It's sometimes hard to understand why she continues her connection to Suzanne and the others, although the way that those characters are written, you can grudgingly accept that Evie would have come under their spell.

This is the kind of book where when I was reading it, I could feel like I was there (and, in fact, sometimes, smell like I was there).  It's easy to become immersed in the story and the characters.  It's an insightful kind book, where there is no judgment, and no explaining things away.  Rather, it's a "this is what happened.  This is what I did and then when I looked back, I could see what was really happening" kind of story.  Evie makes some interesting observations about how society sees women and girls, and I think this made the story a more compelling read for me.