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A review by kivt
The Girls by Emma Cline
2.0
Really bad.
I picked this up because I read a review that raved about how well Cline encapsulates the experience of being a teenage girl, and the obsessive intensities of their friendships. She certainly did that. I generally avoid serial killer or cult books because they're often deeply misogynist, so I appreciated that Cline wrote a story about girlhood that eclipsed its cult murder setting. Russell is almost incidental to the story, nowhere near as important or compelling to the protagonist or to readers as Suzanne and the other women.
There are some worthwhile thematic things happening here, but it's mostly just dreary and almost impossibly poorly written. One of every three sentences is so painfully overworked that the book is nearly unreadable. The interludes with Evie as an adult are particularly painful.
I picked this up because I read a review that raved about how well Cline encapsulates the experience of being a teenage girl, and the obsessive intensities of their friendships. She certainly did that. I generally avoid serial killer or cult books because they're often deeply misogynist, so I appreciated that Cline wrote a story about girlhood that eclipsed its cult murder setting. Russell is almost incidental to the story, nowhere near as important or compelling to the protagonist or to readers as Suzanne and the other women.
There are some worthwhile thematic things happening here, but it's mostly just dreary and almost impossibly poorly written. One of every three sentences is so painfully overworked that the book is nearly unreadable. The interludes with Evie as an adult are particularly painful.