The Girls
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The Girls
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Narrated by:
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Cady McClain
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By:
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Emma Cline
About this listen
California. The summer of 1969. In the dying days of a floundering counterculture, a young girl is unwittingly caught up in unthinkable violence, and a decision made at this moment, on the cusp of adulthood, will shape her life....
Evie Boyd is desperate to be noticed. In the summer of 1969, empty days stretch out under the California sun. The smell of honeysuckle thickens the air, and the sidewalks radiate heat.
Until she sees them. The snatch of cold laughter. Hair long and uncombed. Dirty dresses skimming the tops of thighs. Cheap rings like a second set of knuckles. The girls. And at the centre, Russell. Russell and the ranch, down a long dirt track and deep in the hills. Incense and clumsily strummed chords. Rumours of sex, frenzied gatherings, teen runaways.
Was there a warning, a sign of things to come? Or is Evie already too enthralled by the girls to see that her life is about to be changed forever?
©2016 Emma Cline (P)2016 Audible, LtdListeners also enjoyed...
Critic reviews
"I don't know which is more amazing, Emma Cline's understanding of human beings or her mastery of language." (Mark Haddon)
"Emma Cline's first novel positively hums with fresh, startling, luminous prose. The Girls announces the arrival of a thrilling new voice in American fiction." (Jennifer Egan)
"Emma Cline has an unparalleled eye for the intricacies of girlhood, turning the stuff of myth into something altogether more intimate. The Girls destroys our ability to consider violence a foreign territory, and reminds us that behind so many of our culture's fables exists a girl: unseen, unheard, angry. This book will break your heart and blow your mind." (Lena Dunham)
Thought-provoking
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Chilling and Insightful
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My only reservation is the ending, I did expect more from it but all in all, a brilliant novel.
Written beautifully
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Anyway, after loving a couple of Cline’s short stories and having completely forgotten what The Girls was about, I bought the audio on a whim. Whoops.
But against all expectations, it was excellent. Rather than glorifying a grisly series of murders, it’s a nuanced study of teenage angst and vulnerability. Evie lives in N California, is 14 and something of an outsider; ‘I was an average girl and that was the biggest disappointment of all.’ After a chance encounter with three girls, she becomes infatuated with them and is drawn into their cult, spiralling into a dream-like existence of sex, drugs and crime. Cline does a brilliant job of balancing Evie’s distaste at the squalid lifestyle with her willingness to embrace it in a desperate need to belong.
’Back then I was so attuned to attention. I dressed to provoke love, hugging my neckline lower, setting a wistful stare on my face whenever I went out in public that implied many deep and promising thoughts, should anyone happen to glance over.’
A secondary timeline introduces Evie in middle-age when she meets a friend’s son and girlfriend. In part it’s a musing on Evie’s adolescence, but more significantly a subtle observation on how the desire to be accepted can lead to manipulation and abuse. The more I’ve reflected on The Girls, the more powerful I’ve found this secondary timeline. Both are heartbreakingly, stomach-churningly relatable, but it’s the relative everydayness of the second one that delivers the gut-punch.
As a word of caution, given the curious Shatner-esque style of narration, I’m hesitant to recommend the audio. There were. Pauses. In the most unlikely places and it was somewhat. Distracting. But it’s entirely possible this is a thing, in the way uptalk emerged in the 80s and is now normalised.
A solid four. Stars.
Excellent
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Fabulous descriptions about atmospheres and environments.
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This is a coming of age book, which just happens to use the (Fictionalised and renamed) Manson family murders as a narrative device to pull you through the book.
It is really about a mother-daughter relationship and then about female friendship, and then ultimately about first love. It handles all the characters believably and their interactions show genuine insight into the human condition.
There is excellent imagery in nearly every paragraph and the prose keeps the story moving at a nice pace.
I would recommend this to anyone who likes good writing as much as they like a good story.
The human side...
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Where does The Girls rank among all the audiobooks you’ve listened to so far?
I have read ones that were much more engaging and important to me but it is quite good.Who was your favorite character and why?
I don't think I had one.What does Cady McClain bring to the story that you wouldn’t experience if you had only read the book?
I'm not sure she adds anything. I like her voice and accent, a nice narration but not outstanding.The only thing that was a bit annoying is that she pronounces each word so eloquently that there are these awkward mid-sentence gaps all the time. A bit like she's narrating for foreign students of English, to make sure each word is understood. Even when one word begins with the same consonant that the previous one ended in, she insists on pronouncing both with the same clarity. In the real world no-one speaks like that. No-one says things like "Susan's smile", or "climbed down", or "suspicious squint" with both the ending and beginning s's and d's in the middle pronounced clearly and separately, with a weird little gap in between.
Was there a moment in the book that particularly moved you?
The whole process of how Evie got emotionally trapped was very disturbing. I'm not sure if her breezy attitude to her first sexual encounters, as nasty as they were, was realistic. I could understand how a 14 year old would explain things to herself the way Evie did but it comes across if at the time it didn't even really affect her much.Any additional comments?
All in all very nicely written, very good narration and describes very believably and realistically how a young girl might get trapped in a sect.Beautifully written, engaging novel
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Perfect for audio
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Well written but was quite a straightforward story…
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Where does The Girls rank among all the audiobooks you’ve listened to so far?
at the topWhich scene did you most enjoy?
Evie sitting in the back of the car in the dark with suzzanneemotionally evocative
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