The story is told from the view point of Evie Boyd, a fourteen-year-old girl, whose childhood is changed when she is introduced to a cult.

As an adult, Evie reflects on her actions, as a child, bringing up questions of what it means to grow up as a girl and how injustice, in the world, can lead to terrible violence.

[9] While Cline is celebrated for her descriptive abilities and attention to gender structures, critics have also said that the cult setting seemed unnecessary to the novel and left the ending feeling unfulfilled.

[17] The New York Times wrote that the novel "could be read as an entertaining series of misguided shenanigans interrupting the upper class’s summer vacation, but under Cline’s command, every sentence as sharp as a scalpel, a woman toeing the line between welcome and unwelcome guest becomes a fully destabilizing force".

Reetz-Laiolo said Cline installed a spyware program on his computer in order to read his personal work and emails without his consent.

He demanded reparations and threatened to put forth a public court filing that included sexually explicit images and text messages of Emma Cline.

[6][21] Cline put forth a countersuit, arguing that the spyware was for her own protection because Reetz-Laiolo had been physically and emotionally abusive, and that the similarities between Reetz-Laito's work and The Girls was minimal.

[6] In June 2018, the copyright claim was dismissed with prejudice by Judge William Orrick, who said, "Both stories are ‘coming of age’ tales of sorts.