THE INSTANT BESTSELLER • An indelible portrait of girls, the women they become, and that moment in life when everything can go horribly wrong NAMED ONE OF THE BEST BOOKS OF THE YEAR BY The Washington Post • NPR • The Guardian • Entertainment Weekly • San Francisco Chronicle • Financial Times • Esquire • Newsweek • Vogue • Glamour • People • The Huffington Post • Elle • Harper’s Bazaar • Time Out • BookPage • Publishers Weekly • Slate 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.
Finalist for the Los Angeles Times Book Prize • Finalist for the National Book Critics Circle John Leonard Award • Shortlisted for The Center for Fiction First Novel Prize • The New York Times Book Review Editors’ Choice • Emma Cline—One of Granta’s Best of Young American Novelists Praise for The Girls “Emma Cline has an unparalleled eye for the intricacies of girlhood, turning the stuff of myth into something altogether more intimate.”
—Lena Dunham “Spellbinding . . . a seductive and arresting coming-of-age story.”
—The New York Times Book Review “Extraordinary . . . Debut novels like this are rare, indeed.”
—The Washington Post “Hypnotic.”
—The Wall Street Journal “Gorgeous.”
—Los Angeles Times “Savage.”
—The Guardian “Astonishing.”
—The Boston Globe “Superbly written.”
—James Wood, The New Yorker “Intensely consuming.”
—Richard Ford “A spectacular achievement.”
—Lucy Atkins, The Times “Thrilling.”
—Jennifer Egan “Compelling and startling.”
—The Economist “Elegant and nostalgic.”
—Julie Beck, The Atlantic “Masterful . . . In the cult dynamic, Cline has seen something universal—emotions, appetites, and regular human needs warped way out of proportion—and in her novel she’s converted a quintessentially ’60s story into something timeless.”
—Christian Lorentzen, New York
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?
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