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A review by libliz
The Girls by Emma Cline
4.0
4.5 stars.
Manson murders meets The Virgin Suicides
It's easy to forget that the protagonist is just 14, in the summer before her Freshman year of high school. I often fell into the comfort of believing Evie older than her actual years---but then Cline would snap me back to reality with some small, adolescent banality. The ever-present anxiety of being a teen coupled with the never-ending stretches of boredom and loneliness. The effect was jarring, purposeful, and unsettling. Anchoring the whole book in Evie's adult life, too, gave the novel a melancholic (if nostalgic) tone. One wonders how Evie would have turned out if she came of age in a time where she could explore her own sexuality in a healthy way, away from the toxic masculinity and fucked up patriarchal bullshit that was 1960s America...
The book was overwritten at times, but I look forward to seeing Cline mature as a writer and hope to read more of her work soon.
Manson murders meets The Virgin Suicides
It's easy to forget that the protagonist is just 14, in the summer before her Freshman year of high school. I often fell into the comfort of believing Evie older than her actual years---but then Cline would snap me back to reality with some small, adolescent banality. The ever-present anxiety of being a teen coupled with the never-ending stretches of boredom and loneliness. The effect was jarring, purposeful, and unsettling. Anchoring the whole book in Evie's adult life, too, gave the novel a melancholic (if nostalgic) tone. One wonders how Evie would have turned out if she came of age in a time where she could explore her own sexuality in a healthy way, away from the toxic masculinity and fucked up patriarchal bullshit that was 1960s America...
The book was overwritten at times, but I look forward to seeing Cline mature as a writer and hope to read more of her work soon.