The Girls in Book Riot's Read Harder Challenge

Aug 22, 2016 Renata rated it liked it

Shelves: grownup, historical-fiction, fiction

I'd read really mixed reviews of this but I'm interested in cults (...fictionally speaking) so I checked it out. I...agree with mixed reviews? It's a great idea and there are some beautifully observed lines about ~the patriarchy~ and how much sense it makes for all these girls to be competing for a male cult leader's affections. (“I waited to be told what was good about me. [...] All that time I had spent readying myself, the articles that taught me life was really just a waiting room until some ...more

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Jul 16, 2016 Jessica rated it really liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: kindle

The Girls is one of the big buzz books of 2016, and I can see why - I read it over just two days because I couldn't put it down. Based loosely on the Manson Family murders, it's atmospheric and creepy, the story of a teenage girl falling in with the members of a cult one aimless summer and very nearly ending up going along with them on the night they commit a gruesome mass murder. While most of the book is about that summer, parts of it are told from Evie's perspective as an older woman, looking ...more

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Jul 09, 2016 Ashley rated it really liked it

Shelves: fun, fiction-novels-plays-stories

I think that the marketing of this book did it a disservice. This is only sort of a story about a Manson Family-like cult. It's not a mystery or a thriller but an extended examination of girlhood at a very particular time and place. It's all about the darkness in teenage girls (a theme I love) and also about the ways girls create their own society around/inside of the one occupied by men.

The writing is beautiful but a little overweight at times-- I think that was a stylistic choice but it grate ...more

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May 18, 2017 Abby Johnson rated it liked it

Shelves: historical_fiction, grownup_books, family-book-club

Not my normal kind of book, but darkly fascinating. I think it's really interesting that the author chose to imagine this story from the perspective of a girl who wasn't trapped on the ranch. Maybe it makes the story a little less disturbing? Evie always had an out, a safety net she could fall back on, which wasn't true for some of the other characters.

I'll be interested to hear what my fellow book-clubbers think next week! ...more

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Jun 21, 2016 Ally rated it liked it

Shelves: 2016-challenge

I don't mind a story told from the viewpoint of a bystander, provided the story is told in a compelling manner by a compelling character. The narrator of The Girls had neither. I found myself wishing for perspectives from other characters or really anything in the story to detract from the narrator. Perhaps you're supposed to feel sorry for her, or concerned about a life wasted, but frankly, I just wanted her to shut up. ...more

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