A review by stateofgrace
The Girls by Emma Cline

3.5

I have mixed feelings about this book. I found the overall plot to be very interesting. Evie spends the novel being pulled into the gravitational field of a cult on the verge of committing an act of violence, and it's fascinating to unravel the different character's motivations, particularly on the night of the murder. There's a lot of interesting commentary on the shift from childhood to adolescence, but given that it is a historical novel, I didn't find any of that commentary particularly relevant. The author prioritized beautiful and descriptive writing over developing the plot, which is a shame because I was really interested in the plot. 

My biggest complaint about the novel is the age of the protagonist, Evie. The author wrote Evie to be fourteen for the events of the novel, which was not necessary for the plot and served no real purpose other than to make the book more ~taboo~