The Girls

The Girls

by EmmaCline (Author)

Synopsis

** The Sunday Times Top Ten Bestseller ** ** The New York Times Top Ten Bestseller ** The UK's best selling hardback debut novel of 2016 Selected as a Book of the Year 2016 in the Evening Standard, Observer and The Times California. The summer of 1969. In the dying days of a floundering counter-culture 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.... 'This book will break your heart and blow your mind.' Lena Dunham 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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More Information

Format: Hardcover
Pages: 368
Edition: First Edition, First Impression
Publisher: Chatto & Windus
Published: 16 Jun 2016

ISBN 10: 1784740446
ISBN 13: 9781784740443
Book Overview: California. The summer of 1969. In the dying days of a floundering counter-culture 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...

Media Reviews
A coming-of-age tale like no other ... the book of the summer * Grazia *
Stunning...thrilling... A spectacular achievement * The Times *
This book will break your heart and blow your mind * Lena Dunham *
The read of the summer -- India Knight * Sunday Times *
A tense and claustrophobic read * Stylist *
Taut, beautiful and savage, Cline's novel demands your attention * Guardian *
An exhilarating read * Emma Healey, author of Elizabeth is Missing *
Darker than anything Gone Girl had to offer * Shortlist *
A seductive and arresting coming-of-age story...spellbinding * New York Times Book Review *
An intensely atmospheric story that perfectly captures the aching loneliness and longing of a teenage girl. -- Sarra Manning * Red *
One of the best novels I've read about female adolescence... And as with so many novels about cults, The Girls is set to inspire a cultish devotion all of its own * Evening Standard *
A joy to read... Intense, clever, beautiful * Sunday Times *
Brimming with intelligence and ideas... Buy it for the Mansonesque plot but savour it for its insights * Irish Times *
I don't know which is more amazing, Emma Cline's understanding of human beings or her mastery of language. -- Mark Haddon
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 *
If the cult story and adolescent rite of passage are familiar tropes, what truly distinguishes this remarkable debut novel is its lush, beautifully calibrated prose, which captures the drug-fuelled squalor of the chaotic ranch and the uncertainties of youth... Brilliant. -- Simon Humphreys * Mail on Sunday *
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
Set to be the biggest literary debut of the summer, you'll soon be seeing its retro cover everywhere... Cline perfectly captures the spirit and nuances of female adolescence * Refinery29 *
Heart-wrenchingly nostalgic... Brings the details of girlhood rushing back... new voice in American fiction * Stylist *
Precisely, gorgeously written... What sets the book apart is its exquisitely forensic portrait of what it is to be a young woman. -- Alice Jones * Scotsman *
Author Bio
Emma Cline is from California. Her fiction has appeared in Tin House and the Paris Review. She was the recipient of the 2014 Paris Review Plimpton Prize for fiction and is a Granta Best Young American Novelist.