The Girls

Northern California, the turbulent 1960s are coming to an end. In early summer, lonely and withdrawn fourteen-year-old Evie Boyd sees a group of girls in the park. They are nothing like anyone Evie has ever known. Their manners are relaxed, their clothes are careless, freedom is in every movement, in every glance, and an aura of being separate from everything else in the world. Evie is charmed by them. And soon she herself will become one of these girls—join the commune where there’s no room for rules, where life is nothing like ordinary routine, where the world revolves around a charismatic leader.

Consumed by this new life and obsessed with her desire for a new friend, Evie is getting closer and closer to the abyss—the point that will swap life and death. “The Girls” is Emma Cline’s debut novel, which became a major literary event. Behind the plot you can feel the outline of Charles Manson’s story and his commune-sect, made mostly of young girls. Saturated with the atmosphere of the sixties, Emma Cline’s novel is about secret desires, deep complexes hidden even from oneself; about the defenselessness and vulnerability of youth, about the lack of love—and how far girls can go in searching for that love and warmth.