It took me 3 days to finish this one.
It was a great story, wonderfully told and the plot kept me hanging on for more.
It's based upon the Charles Manson murders, also known as the Tate-La Bianca murders, but this is never straightforwardly said.
I loosely know what happened with Roman Polanski's pregnant wife, that the resemblance (with a few alterations) is striking.
The back of the cover told me it was set in California, the summer of 1969, it was about a young girl who gets enthralled by a charismatic commune leader and the flock of girls surrounding her. There's already a mention of a violent end to this summer, to peak one's interest.
It was enough for me to buy this book and I haven't regretted it.
I've read other reviews, in which Emma Cline's writing style is being criticized as too much embellished which might hurt the story if that bothers the reader. I read my version in Dutch and I think that the translator has done a very good job. The stylish phrases are a part of the story it wants to tell, its languid language portrays the emotion of that summer of '69.
Other reviewers claim it doesn't live up to the hype it created, but since that hype never reached Belgium as far as I'm aware, I'm just glad I missed it (I'm biased about hyped books) and that it got just hyped enough for it to be translated so quickly. Not that I mind reading it in English, but I think I would've never accidentally stumbled upon this gem.
In my opinion this novel got the whole package.
The cover art was amazing. It got my attention right away and while it waited patiently in my book case I couldn't help being continuously intrigued by what the back cover promised. The fact that it spend but a few measly months on that shelf, before I finally picked this one up.. at the end of what has been a very hot summer indeed, paints the picture what kind of pull this book had on me.
(I've got books on there for more than a decade long that still remain untouched to this day).
When I thus picked this one as my next read I didn't believe I would've read halfway through on my first night. I'll admit.. it was an evening that lend itself remarkably well for a readathon. My husband had its own project, so no bother there ^^. Great music..
I was amazed at how well I could relate to this girl, Evie Boyd. The alienation with her family, the constant struggle to be someone she thinks others will approve, the ill way of behaving to get male attention, it's so familiar in a way, albeit that in the spirit of the 60's it was all just a bit more hot and a bit more sexy. Her side of the story is told from its own naive viewpoint. It's basically a love story, without the one falling in love knowing its love she feels and with the object of her love taking advantage of that emotion.
It may not be physical love she's after, although its a subject that's lightly touched in her story, but nevertheless her judgment is clouded in a way that doesn't leave any room for another explanation. Call it Stockholm Syndrome, but she's never held against her will. Evie initiates the first contact and up until the end the object of her attention (if this was a regular romantic story, I'd say desire, but that's not the right term here) doesn't leave her mind. It's her first crush, only heightened by a summer in which everything seemed possible, where no boundaries existed.
Nevertheless the story doesn't stop with the summer of '69. It gives a glimpse into the current life of Evie, where she still struggles to live by her own set of rules and has to continuously alter them slightly to fit into what others think is possible. She's still unable to stop whatever gets unwelcome situations flow.
This is made clear when she's suddenly surprised in the house she's temporarily staying in by the owner's son and his girlfriend. They test her boundaries, knowing what happened in '69. The girlfriend must have reminded her of herself, even if this is never plainly stated and she tries to turn herself into a mother figure for her, which eventually backfires.
The feeling I was left with in the end, was that what you start with is what you get in the end. The what if's never truly go away and the answer you give yourself on these questions may turn more true in nature as you grow older, but with truth comes darkness as well.
