A review by taliatalksbooks
The Girls: A Novel by Emma Cline

challenging dark slow-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? Character
  • Strong character development? It's complicated
  • Loveable characters? No
  • Diverse cast of characters? No
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? No

3.0

The Girls by Emma Cline was a snapshot into the life of Evie and her involvement with a cult. I really wanted to love this book, but I felt like there were a few aspects that took me out of the story. First, the lens through with the story was told: and older Evie looking back at the past. While I didn’t mind the flashbacks, I thought the addition of these young characters who didn’t seem to care much about anything was out of place. I think the story could have been much more grounded if we were experiencing the traumas first hand for the entire novel, though I did like the added input from older Evie. I thought that the book was well-written, but the time jumps seemed random, more than planned. I also wish we had seen more of the progression of the cult behavior. It seemed to go pretty quickly from zero to one hundred and back again, with a lot of the middle ground feeling as though it lasted forever. Evie’s position on the outskirts created a blank space, that I wished we could have had filled in. A lot of the questions Evie had, especially about the other girls,were a lot of the same questions I had as a reader and these felt unanswered. Overall, it was an enjoyable read, but it was definitely a slower pace than I was anticipating with a cult novel.
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