Essay Questions

What makes Evie susceptible to fall for the distorted charm of the ranch?

To Evie, the ranch is a sanctuary, a reprieve from her lonely and miserable existence. It is a place where she can be free and be loved. The ranch gives her a new purpose in life and makes her feel good about herself in a way she never has before. Most of these sentiments are brought about by the presence of Suzanne who gives her the attention she so desperately craves. Suzanne serves as a love interest, a friend, and a caretaker to Evie at a time when Evie’s mother neglects her, her father has abandoned her, and her friendship with Connie is over. Before discovering the ranch, Evie falls into a state of depression. She wallows in self pity, only finding respite in alcohol and her brief encounters with Suzanne. To Evie, Suzanne and the ideals Evie has attached to her are a panacea for all Evie’s problems. At the ranch Evie experiments with drugs and sex. It is a vibrant community with parties and an abundance of free spirit. Russell's influence the ranch offers unwanted girls the promise of a place to belong, validation, and love. However this sense of validation is misleading; Russell exploits their weaknesses for sex and resources.

Would Evie have participated in the murders if she was given the chance?

Reflecting as an adult on the fateful summer of 1969, Evie is unsure of whether she would have participated in the murders. While she has dealt with this struggle internally for years, it is Sasha who verbalizes the question, resurfacing the shame and guilt. Evie likes to think of herself as a morally sound person entirely incapable of murder, but she also recognizes that she was deeply bound by Suzanne’s spell, doing whatever Suzanne wanted her to. Around Suzanne Evie acts in ways that she never thought she would. Before her time on the ranch, Evie contemplates shoplifting toilet paper from a drugstore but is unable to follow through. However, by the time of the murders, Evie is compelled into stealing and trespassing. As an adult Evie recognizes the weakness she felt around Suzanne as a teenager which may have driven her to join in and even enjoy the killings. On the night of the murders, Evie knows that she and the others are on their way to mess with Mitch, but does that make her complicit in the killing of four innocent people, including a small child? Even after hearing of the murders on the news, Evie realizes that Suzanne and the others are responsible but does not turn them in. Evie bears the weight of the guilt of the murders for the rest of her life—unsure of whether her younger self would have stopped them from happening or joined in.

Draw parallels between young Evie and Sasha.

Julian’s and Sasha’s arrival at the Humboldt house prompts the retelling of Evie’s life during the summer of 1969. As an older woman, Evie recognizes the many similarities between her younger self and Sasha. She identifies these similarities as the reason that she, and many young girls, are liable to fall into less than wholesome situations. The lack of self-confidence, the deep desire to be loved, and the desperate craving of attention are all some of the characteristics the two girls share. In Evie’s case, these traits led her straight into Suzanne’s demented world, and in Sasha’s, into the arms of Julian—an outwardly upright but nefarious young man. Adult Evie also makes notice of how ignorant and forgiving Sasha is. She knows that Julian has committed heinous acts, like killing his professor’s dog, but she does not associate this crime with her boyfriend. Similarly, Evie was warned that Suzanne was immoral and a liar, but still she continued idolized Suzanne even after the murders.

Why do the girls shun Tom, the Berkeley student who gives Evie a ride?

To the girls, Tom represents everything that they stand against. He has a well defined place within the realm of society and is not captivated by the culture of the ranch. He is able to see the ranch for what it truly is—a dump. Tom’s arrival could not have come at a worse moment in the timeline of the ranch. With Russell’s record deal a total failure, Mitch has stopped providing the ranch with the much needed supplies. The ranch now stands as a ghost of its former self. There are fewer people around, and the ones that stayed all appear as though they have not eaten a proper meal in days. The girls, especially Suzanne, are more on edge than usual—probably the result of their hunger and drug addictions. They even mock Evie for thinking that Tom was cool enough to hang out with them. The last straw of his brief time on the ranch is when he dives into the pool after Nico who he presumes is drowning. The girls laugh at him for being so concerned—of course the child was safe! The girls’ opinion of Tom quickly transforms Evie’s own from admiration to pity. When Tom offers her a way off the ranch, mentioning a college party and giving her his phone number, she quickly dismisses his suggestion. The encounter with Tom is only another of the myriad examples in which Evie defies her own judgement to side with Suzanne and the other girls.

Compare and contrast Evie’s relationships with Suzanne and Tamar.

Throughout the novel young Evie constantly tries to find a role model to replace her negligent mother. In both Suzanne and Tamar she finds snippets of what she is searching for, but latches on to them as if they can offer her what she truly seeks. In Evie's eyes, both women are young, confident, and attractive. In reality, however, both women have a myriad of issues they themselves cannot handle. Initially Evie is transfixed by Tamar’s beauty, which serves as a symbol for womanhood to Evie. During their encounters, Evie tries to prove herself to Tamar, to show her that she is the young woman she so desperately wants to be. At the house party Evie’s parents throw, Evie attempts to show Tamar that she drinks and partakes in other adult prerogatives. Similarly, Evie immediately mistakes Suzanne’s reckless, carefree attitude, and striking black hair as signs of a suitable substitute for her mother. After Tamar exits Evie’s life, Suzanne becomes Evie’s new role model. Where Tamar served as a role model for Evie in the realm of society, Suzanne serves as one in the counter-culture realm. Evie is blinded by Suzanne’s feral beauty and attaches herself to the teen in a sexual and familial way. Her obsession with Suzanne hides the fact that Suzanne is nothing more than a narcissist and liar. When Evie comes to live with Tamar and her father in their new apartment, she begins to see that Tamar is merely a child trying to play an adult. The foundation on which she tried to construct her new identity crumbles, prompting Evie to run away to the ranch where fate pushes her eerily close to the murders.

Describe Connie and Evie’s friendship and why it comes to an end.

From the start Connie's and Evie’s friendship is nothing more than a pastime for the two girls. The two spend time together because they are both outcasts and would rather spend their time together than alone. Their relationship is founded on the struggle to attract a boyfriend, someone who will actually love them and give them the attention they so desperately desire. The majority of their time together is spent discussing boys and attempting to make themselves appealing to boys, as directed by the magazines they read religiously. The bareness of their friendship is revealed when Connie’s older brother Peter begins to pay attention to Evie. He recognizes that Evie has a crush on him and exploits her naivety. Connie notices that Evie is using her as an excuse to spend time with Peter, making her jealous and further straining their friendship. On the night their relationship falls apart, Evie is trying hard to garner Peter’s attention which entirely obvious to Connie. When Evie breaks Henry’s, Peter’s friend and Connie’s crush, motorcycle, Connie offers her no forgiveness but instead asks her to leave her house. A few days later when Evie visits Connie to try and repair their friendship, Connie tells Evie that she may have to move. But Evie is only concerned about Peter’s whereabouts and the possibility that he may soon father a bastard child. This encounter totally destroys what little friendly sentiments they shared. Connie quickly replaces Evie with another placeholder friend, further driving Evie to the welcoming arms to Russell and the ranch.

Does the ranch appear different to Evie when she returns after staying with Tamar and her father?

When Evie first arrives at the ranch after her two week hiatus, she does not notice anything beyond the usual dilapidation of the ranch. Her giddiness about her return and seeing Suzanne prevents her from noticing how the ranch and its inhabitants have deteriorated since her departure. As the day drags on she begins to gradually notice the signs of its decay. There are less people milling about, the girls look starved and vicious, and Suzanne strongly disapproves of the outsider Berkeley student Tom’s presence. That night, instead of their regular lively festivities, the group eats an off-putting assortment of food while the fire burns much tamer than usual. It is only on her return that Evie realizes how terrible a musician Russell is. His depthless lyrics and inexperienced guitar playing only add to the depressing reality that has become the ranch. Although Evie notices these changes, she is unwilling to admit how dire the situation has become.

How does Evie justify manipulating and stealing from her neighbors, the Duttons?

Evie manipulates her neighbor Teddy Dutton and steals from his parents because her time on the ranch with the girls has endowed her with bravado and entitlement. She justifies her actions through the empowerment she feels when Teddy gawks at her emerging breasts and the boner he gets when she kisses him on the cheek. When Evie and Teddy stand in his parents’ closet as he forks over their money under the pretense that Evie will supply him with drugs, she almost forgets that he isn’t simply handing her the money. Later, when Evie, Donna, and Suzanne sneak into the empty Dutton house they experience a euphoric sense of invincibility, leaving a mess in the kitchen and upstairs bedroom. Their intention is not to steal, but just to flex their freedom from culpability and morality.

In general, describe how women in the novel behave.

Throughout the novel women behave as if their sole existence is to be the object of a man’s attention. Cline purposely portrays the female characters this way in order to point out how society begins to train girls from a young age to act this way. Evie and Connie receive this training in the form of the magazines they read that tell them how they should look and behave if they ever want a boy to like them. They also are influenced by the way the older women around them act. After Evie’s father leaves her mother, she is constantly trying to find a purpose for herself. She consults friends and tries new diets and therapies to no avail, but she cannot find the minimal comfort that her cheating husband once provided her with. Similarly, Suzanne is prompted to commit murder all to gain the attention of a cult leader. She allows Russell to abuse and neglect her and the other residents on the ranch because she believes that his affection can make her happy.

Although the ranch opposes social norms, how does it actually impose them on its inhabitants?

Although the ranch stands in opposition to society, it often imposes on its inhabitants the very constraints its presence claims to free them from. For example, the ranch is a place where people can experiment with drugs free from judgement and punishment. However, most of the ranch-livers are hooked on drugs and alcohol and are held captive by the clutches of these addictive substances. Secondly, the girls on the ranch are endowed with sexual liberty. They are not shunned for having sex with multiple men and women. Russell and Guy use this guise of sexual liberation to exploit the girls, eliciting sex whenever they are in the mood. Furthermore, when women give birth on the ranch, they are told not to attach themselves to their children so that they may grow up as individuals free from the imposition of their parents’ desires. The result is that the children are neglected, diseased, and undisciplined—just like their parents.