1. The Girls by Emma Cline
![The Girls by Emma Cline The Girls by Emma Cline](https://media.timeout.com/images/103642069/750/422/image.jpg)
![The Girls by Emma Cline The Girls by Emma Cline](https://media.timeout.com/images/103642069/750/562/image.jpg)
It’s rare for a debut novel to have this kind of impact. This coming-of-age story set in Northern California in the 1960s follows Evie, a lonely 14-year-old desperate for attention—any attention. She finds it in the seductive, mesmerizing Suzanne, a 19-year-old follower of Charles Manson, and soon, Evie falls in with the cult. Little does she know that the group is careening toward an unthinkably violent end.