The Girls, by Emma Cline

In retrospect, I was a very lucky teenager. Sure I had my moods, but I was never bullied or ostracized. I had a small but close group of friends to keep me company. I didn’t even like The Catcher in the Rye because I thought Holden Caulfield was a snotty punk. After reading Emma Cline’s The Girls, it’s hit me all over again how lucky I was when I was younger. This book is about the desperation some girls feel as teenagers to be paid attention to and how much they’re willing to give up in order to feel loved.

Evie Boyd is a neglected girl. Her father is busy with his new girlfriend. Her mother is dating men left and right to find a new husband. Her one friend gets angry with Evie when Evie gets too interested in her friend’s brother. She’s mostly left to entertain herself in the summer of 1969. It might have been an ordinary boring summer if Evie hadn’t spotted Suzanne and the other girls at a community barbecue. Something about the way Suzanne and her companions dress and behave—as though they don’t care what other people might think—strikes her deeply. Evie craves approval and love from someone and, more than anyone else, she’d like that from Suzanne.

In another novel entirely, this might have been a good thing. Evie might have been nurtured into healthy young women with self-confidence. This is not that kind of book. Suzanne is a member of a cult (clearly based on the Manson Family). Not only does Suzanne have her own issues with self-esteem, but she’s learned how to recognize and manipulate weakness in others. Suzanne shows Evie a bit of kindness and this is enough to get Evie stealing money and sleeping over at the disgustingly run down commune ranch.

There are hints early in The Girls that they members of the cult commit a terrible crime that Evie may or may not have been a part of. Even without those hints, it’s clear that there’s no way that life in the cult can end well. Everything revolves around Russell, who spouts pseudo-religious hippie nonsense in order to gather young girls and financial support. It’s hard to say how much he believes his own blather, though he certainly enjoys the benefits of being a cult leader. Evie gets sucked into their dangerous way of life because they pay attention to her, make her feel desired, and reward her for stealing for them.

The Girls is a disturbing look at the fragility of teenage girls. Even years later, in the glimpses of Evie’s life after the cult and its crimes, that the damage done to Evie’s psyche never recovered from that summer. Over and over again, we see girls taken advantage of by people who spot their desperate need to be liked. This is a depressing book but, I think, a necessary one. The Girls gives us a unique perspective of what it’s like to want to be loved so much that ethics and personal integrity go right out the window and how the need for love can be used as a weapon by sociopaths.

Notes for bibliotherapeutic use: Recommend this book to the parents of teenage girls.