No, seriously, read 'The Girls'

Every week, The Thread recommends a book that offers a fresh perspective on current affairs and culture.

When The Thread producer Tracy Mumford raves about a book, I listen — and add it to my own "must-read" list. She scours the book blogs for new voices and reads with a sense of adventure.

But when she recently declared that "cults were having their literary moment" and that I should read "The Girls" by Emma Cline, I was reluctant. Two reasons: Cline is a 20-something first-time novelist who got a three-book deal and a $2 million-dollar advance. Who wouldn't murmur, "Really? She's that good?" under their breath?

But honestly, it's the cult leaders that turned me off originally. Unshowered, scraggly, wild-eyed — I've never found them glamorous. And one of them shows up in this novel pretty quickly. But he's not who this story is about.

"The Girls" is Evie's story. As an adult, she looks back on the summer she fell under the spell of Suzanne — young, beautiful and herself in thrall to the vacant and corrupt man who leads the Manson family-like cult.

Evie's adolescent vulnerability at 14, her confusion and yearning, are brought to life by prose that reads like the work of a master novelist. Evie is lonely and adrift and Cline captures it beautifully.

After describing Evie's nearly ritualistic reading of women's magazines, Cline writes: "All that time I had spent readying myself, the articles that taught me life was really just a waiting room until someone noticed you — the boys had spent that time becoming themselves."

My Thread Must-Read of the week is Emma Cline's "The Girls." Tell me your favorite novel of the summer on Twitter @KerriMPR.