Have you ever wondered what it would be like to get sucked into a Charles Manson-esque cult? The Girls by Emma Cline is a not so subtle riff on Charles Manson and his “family”, down to the horrific murders that Manson urged his followers to commit. In this novel the infamous cult leader’s name is Russell, but he is physical described like Manson, he plays guitar like Manson and he is even friends with a famous musician so that he can get a record deal like Manson. However, this novel is really about Evie Boyd.

The novel opens on Evie when she is middle aged. She is between jobs (she works as a live-in care giver) and is staying at a friend’s beach house. One night the friend’s son shows up with his girlfriend and remembers being told about how Evie was in Russell’s cult. This leads to flashbacks of the summer of ’69 when Evie is fourteen years old and falls in with Russell’s cult, leading, inevitably, to the murders committed by Russell’s followers.

It’s easy for us now to wonder about how anyone can be stupid or naïve enough to get involved with someone like Charles Manson and his “family”, but The Girls illustrates how men like Manson know how to manipulate women and use their insecurities against them to turn them into fanatic followers. Evie is also a fourteen-year-old girl with no parental guidance. Her parents are divorced; dad’s gone to live with his new, young girlfriend, and mom’s too busy trying to fill the void left in her post-divorce instead of raising her child. Evie’s lonely and pretty much left to her own devices, especially after she and her best friend have a following out (over a guy, of course). So it’s no wonder that when Evie first spots Suzanne, one of Russell’s main followers, she’s instantly drawn to Suzanne and therefore into the cult. It’s no wonder she is influenced into become a bad character that steals money from her mother and breaks into the neighbours’ house, and it’s no wonder she learns how to use her own sexuality to get what she wants.

There is also a present-day subplot where middle aged Evie sort of befriends the girlfriend that shows up at the beach house one night. It serves as a harsh truth that even though Evie’s older, she’s not necessarily wiser and she still hasn’t learned to become a good judge of character.

I thought The Girls was an interesting read and is worthy of being read, but do I think I’ll ever read this book again? Probably not.