The Girls is a 2016 debut novel by American author Emma Cline. It is loosely inspired by the Manson Family and the murder of actress Sharon Tate. The majority of the novel is set in 1969 and focuses on 14 year old Evie Boyd who feels isolated and unloved and ends up spending the majority of that summer with a group of teenage girls on a ranch who are all devoted to an aspiring musician named Russell Hadrick.