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The Girls

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The Girls

By: Emma Cline
Narrated by: Cady McClain
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About this listen

California. The summer of 1969. In the dying days of a floundering counterculture, a young girl is unwittingly caught up in unthinkable violence, and a decision made at this moment, on the cusp of adulthood, will shape her life....

Evie Boyd is desperate to be noticed. In the summer of 1969, empty days stretch out under the California sun. The smell of honeysuckle thickens the air, and the sidewalks radiate heat.

Until she sees them. The snatch of cold laughter. Hair long and uncombed. Dirty dresses skimming the tops of thighs. Cheap rings like a second set of knuckles. The girls. And at the centre, Russell. Russell and the ranch, down a long dirt track and deep in the hills. Incense and clumsily strummed chords. Rumours of sex, frenzied gatherings, teen runaways.

Was there a warning, a sign of things to come? Or is Evie already too enthralled by the girls to see that her life is about to be changed forever?

©2016 Emma Cline (P)2016 Audible, Ltd Coming of Age Crime Crime Thrillers Fiction Genre Fiction Literary Fiction Thriller Thriller & Suspense Women's Fiction Suspense Ranch

Critic Reviews

" The Girls is a brilliant and intensely consuming novel - imposing not just for a writer so young, but for any writer, any time." (Richard Ford)
"I don't know which is more amazing, Emma Cline's understanding of human beings or her mastery of language." (Mark Haddon)
"Emma Cline's first novel positively hums with fresh, startling, luminous prose. The Girls announces the arrival of a thrilling new voice in American fiction." (Jennifer Egan)
"Emma Cline has an unparalleled eye for the intricacies of girlhood, turning the stuff of myth into something altogether more intimate. The Girls destroys our ability to consider violence a foreign territory, and reminds us that behind so many of our culture's fables exists a girl: unseen, unheard, angry. This book will break your heart and blow your mind." (Lena Dunham)
All stars
Most relevant
I really enjoyed this book, great invocation of the era. The performance was great excellent. I look forward to Emma Clines next book.

Girls

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Beautiful book. Great to hear from emma cline. One of the best book by her.

Awsom

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The pacing is slow but not boring. Take your time with this book. It's not meant to be read in one sitting but in parcels over time so that you can relate to Evie and the things her teenage self feels.

Wordy but beautiful

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Though set in 1969, and based on the Manson gang, this is an incredible, visceral & current portrait of what it means to be a girl in this world. The powerlessness, and subsequent snatched pseudo-power conjured by sexual currency. The self destruction and sacrificing of themselves that young girls put themselves through in an effort to be relevant in any way. This book will stay with me for a long time.

Brilliant

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This was a push from when I started listening but I couldn't do it. It simply went from bad to worse. I wish I'd known.

Terrible book

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If this book wasn’t for you, who do you think might enjoy it more?

Found the book utterly tedious. The story is loosely based on the Manson Family with some sort of romantasism, and anyone old enough to remember that awful has to be appalled that it's horror can be thinky veilled and passed off as Fiction.

Who might you have cast as narrator instead of Cady McClain?

The content of the book is dull, and the narrator's monotone reading does nothing to make the content a more appealing listen.

Any additional comments?

Give this a miss....too tedious.

At best quasi-fiction

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This book was a struggle to finish. I kept hoping that something would eventually happen ....but nothing did. It was overwritten and overloaded with often bizarre metaphors and similes - probably trying for 'deeply profound' but for me it was just irritating. The author failed to develop the characters into anyone I could possibly care about. So relieved when it finished!

Slow slow slow

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Apart from this feeling terribly miscast, its delivery is also laboured and dull.
Overly written and difficult to follow. If it weren't for bookclub I wouldn't have finished it.

Painful

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