The Girls

I typically don't go for anything cult-related. Cults creep me the fuck out, but a friend of mine enthusiastically recommend this to me, and I trust her taste. The best thing about this book is the writing – poetic with flashes of brilliance and wisdom. There are so many places where I marked passages to return to. Cline's ability to create a sense of eeriness and foreboding throughout, from the first page, is masterful. Because it's based on the well-known events of the Manson family cult, we all know how the story ends, and we keep reading because we want to know how the narrator, Evie Boyd, gets from point A to point B. If you're a person who needs to be able to like or relate to the characters in order to enjoy a book, I wouldn't pick this one up. If character likability is not something that matters to you, then this is definitely worth a read. Cline writes these complex, nuanced characters who are so real and so detestable at times – and I love that. Those characters stick with me more than “likable” ones. All in all: this book didn't change my life, but it's pretty good. Worth a read.

Very original phrasing, yet reminds me of Joan Didion sometimes in her striking, clear understanding of human nature.
One of those books where I write down certain passages so my pen and notebook, as David Sedaris said, can remember what it feels like.

“the empty kitchen, smelling of the domestic rot of the sponge”

“Her face answered all its own questions.”

This book was so highly praised, I must have missed the point completely.

My experience consisted of 300+ pages of over-stylized prose with a narrator who is obsessed with her own thoughts and feelings. All of it headed towards an anticlimactic ending. This is all without any self-awareness or irony on the author's part.

The story and characters were so washed out and watery, yet given the subject matter, it should have been intense and colorful.