The Girls/Emma Cline/355 pgs.

In her debut novel, Emma Cline creates a novel reminiscent of the Charles Manson cult in the late 1960s. Evie Boyd, 14 years old,  bored, and with minimal parental supervision, becomes part of a culture of young men and women living on a ranch in northern California. The head of the ranch, Russell, basically brainwashes the girls to do his bidding. It's a time of free love, hippies, drugs, and anything anti-establishment. Anyone familiar with the Charles Manson cult will see the similarities almost from the start of the novel. Recommended.