http://rstyle.me/~aeuIl The Blonde Bookworm: The Girls by Emma Cline -- Review

The Girls by Emma Cline -- Review

Wednesday, January 25, 2017


Title: The Girls
Author: Emma Cline
Pages: 355
Published: June 14th 2016 by Random House
ISBN: 081299860X

Summary:

Northern California, during the violent end of the 1960s. At the start of summer, a lonely and thoughtful teenager, Evie Boyd, sees a group of girls in the park, and is immediately caught by their freedom, their careless dress, their dangerous aura of abandon. Soon, Evie is in thrall to Suzanne, a mesmerizing older girl, and is drawn into the circle of a soon-to-be infamous cult and the man who is its charismatic leader. 

Hidden in the hills, their sprawling ranch is eerie and run down, but to Evie, it is exotic, thrilling, charged—a place where she feels desperate to be accepted. As she spends more time away from her mother and the rhythms of her daily life, and as her obsession with Suzanne intensifies, Evie does not realize she is coming closer and closer to unthinkable violence, and to that moment in a girl’s life when everything can go horribly wrong.


Review: 

I went into this book really expecting to like it. Unfortunately, I didn't. After reading the summary, I was intrigued and really wanted to know what they hype of this book was all about, but I struggled to get through it. I put it down and picked it back up many times, and often had to talk myself into reading it all. That's not a good sign, right? Right. 

When it comes to books, I have the terrible habit of being incapable of leaving a book unfinished. No matter how long it takes me to get through it, I have to finish it. I get this terrible feeling that I may have missed out on the best ending ever written if I don't get all the way to the end. Again, this didn't happen with The Girls. I kept waiting and waiting for it to pick up and it never did. 

So, on to the reasons why I didn't really care for this book. For one, I didn't enjoy the writing style. It seemed a little choppy and over done. I also expected a lot more out of the characters. They seemed very one dimensional and boring and the main character just drove me a little nuts. Another thing that made me extremely uncomfortable was the crude talk about sex acts. Instead of glossing over the facts, the author wrote about them in a way that left me feeling like I needed a shower. Maybe thats what Cline was trying to accomplish, but to me it just felt grimy. I also really disliked the fact that nothing really happened until the last 10% of the book. 

Ok, so now that I've gotten all of that out of my system... I don't think I would recommend this book to friends. I hate writing a bad review, but I just really couldn't find anything to like about this book. I think I have a pretty unpopular opinion it seems, but that's what reviews are for, right? So now that I've voiced my opinion, I'll trot along back to my happy comfort zone of the YA genre! 

Rating 1/5

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