TUESDAY SPARKS: EXCERPTING “THE GIRLS”

 

Welcome to another Tuesday celebrating bookish events, First Chapter/Intros, hosted by Bibliophile by the Sea; and Teaser Tuesdays hosted by Books & a Beat.

Today’s feature is my next up read, a review e-ARC from NetGalley.  The Girls, by Emma Cline, is an indelible portrait of girls, the women they become, and that moment in life when everything can go horribly wrong—this stunning first novel is perfect for readers of Jeffrey Eugenides’s The Virgin Suicides and Jennifer Egan’s A Visit from the Goon Squad.

 

 

 

 

 

Intro:  I looked up because of the laughter, and kept looking because of the girls.

I noticed their hair first, long and uncombed.  Then their jewelry catching the sun.  The three of them were far enough away that I saw only the periphery of their features, but it didn’t matter—I knew they were different from everyone else in the park.  Families milling in a vague line, waiting for sausages and burgers from the open grill.  Women in checked blouses scooting into their boyfriends’ sides, kids tossing eucalyptus buttons at the feral-looking chickens that overran the strip.  These long-haired girls seemed to glide above all that was happening around them, tragic and separate.  Like royalty in exile.

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Teaser:  My task made me a spy in my mother’s house, my mother the clueless quarry.  I could even apologize for our fight when I ran into her that night across the stillness of the hallway.  My mother gave a little shrug but accepted my apology, smiling in a brave way.  (45%).

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Synopsis:  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.
 
Emma Cline’s remarkable debut novel is gorgeously written and spellbinding, with razor-sharp precision and startling psychological insight. The Girls is a brilliant work of fiction.

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I have been eager to start reading this book, a reminder of a time when young people longed for a more free and casual way of life, and often plunged ahead impulsively with no clue about what could happen to them.  What do you think?  Would you keep reading?

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