Megan Abbott

The searing novel of friendship and betrayal that inspired the USA Network series, praised by Gillian Flynn as "Lord of the Flies set in a high-school cheerleading squad...Tense, dark, and beautifully written." Addy Hanlon has always been Beth Cassidy's best friend and trusted lieutenant. Beth calls the shots and Addy carries them out, a long-established order of things that has brought them to the pinnacle of their high-school careers. Now they're seniors who rule the intensely competitive cheer squad, feared and followed by the other girls -- until the young new coach arrives. Cool and commanding, an emissary from the adult world just beyond their reach, Coach Colette French draws Addy and the other cheerleaders into her life. Only Beth, unsettled by the new regime, remains outside Coach's golden circle, waging a subtle but vicious campaign to regain her position as "top girl" -- both with the team and with Addy herself. Then a suicide focuses a police investigation on Coach and her squad. After the first wave of shock and grief, Addy tries to uncover the truth behind the death -- and learns that the boundary between loyalty and love can be dangerous terrain. The raw passions of girlhood are brought to life in this taut, unflinching exploration of friendship, ambition, and power. Award-winning novelist Megan Abbott, writing with what Tom Perrotta has hailed as "total authority and an almost desperate intensity," provides a harrowing glimpse into the dark heart of the all-American girl.

A Novel

Dare Me

Megan E. Abbott

a novel

Dare me

arwen

i love jealous and obsessed with each other sapphics

Evelina

Oh my god... I loved the show and i loved the book. When towards the end there is just more and more things being revealed, more things happening and it shocked me and left me wondering what's next? Wish we saw more of captain addy and beth was happy 3

Jeannette Ordas

I read this quickly while sick in bed with a nasty cold and even when a trashy read would have been oh-so-perfect, I didn't find this totally satisfying. The book drips with sexual tension that the main character only clues into on the last page or so and the queen mean teenage girl characters are so amped up but I couldn't fully buy into this cheerleader noir.

Arianna M

** spoiler alert **
           "Love is a kind of killing", Beth says, and it's very true because Beth loves Addy and, oh, how Addy did kill her; and how Beth gave it back. It's what truly sets the novel in motion.
There's a particular desperation in Beth that comes from the fact that she loves Addy, and Addy does not love her back in the same way, or rather she is so far from admitting to the very idea of it that it doesn't even matter. And Beth, Addy notes, is never unhappy alone.
Addy is an unreliable narrator, of course, and the first person she lies to is herself. She keeps saying, over and over again, that she does not want leadership, no, Beth has only ever been in that position and she doesn't crave it — but she does. Just as she knows, of course, just how Beth loves her, and won't admit it to herself, not even when she falls for Colette French in a very similar way: dangerous, because she'd do anything for her.
I feel like I wanted something else from this book - a different path, more Beth, probably, but that is not the story Abbott wanted to tell, and I love the angle she took to tell this story.
Eating disorders, for example, are very well described. Addy knows what she's doing, mind you — remember that aside, early on, about Coach telling Emily to "fix" her baby fat: she remembers "posters and PSAs and health class presentations on body image", but it's a part of what makes her a warrior. I remember that feeling. You feel so strong for it, more focused, more determined. It made me miss it, ache for it. Even when you faint, even when you feel dizzy, you have this strength that's all yours. It's beautiful, powerful. I don't think I've ever seen depicted so well as in this book — so well that it evoked my own experience almost violently.
Another thing is Addy's illusion that all the cheer girls around her are in it for her same motives, which she shows mostly by narrating through "we" a lot. This hive-mind mentality Addy tries to sell is just a projection, really. There's cracks in it that show here and there — the few times when she focuses on a single character here and there, but she doesn't do that often, so focused on herself as she is.

The relationship between Colette and Matt reminded me strongly of Tom and Daisy from The Great Gatsby, particularly in the way they teamed up to cover up the murder, tried to stick together after the infidelity, how it almost made them closer. Caitlin, too, parallels with Daisy's daughter in the way she seems like an afterthought in her mother's mind.

In the end, it was Beth, shining like a star and flying to her death, that broke my heart, lovesick and so attached to that hamsa bracelet, so hopeless, "How could you give her that bracelet, Addy?", she asks. […] "I mean, that was the worst part. It really was".
[…]
"It was you and me, Addy," she says".

This is the core of the novel, to me, the fundamental relationship and the real tragedy.

“You never could look at yourself, Addy,” she says. “What you wanted, what you’d do to get it. But here you are.”
Here I am.
“You wanted it. It’s yours now,” she says. “It was always you.”

jess

Showing the lives of savage teenage girls are a theme that I've been longing to read about, and Megan Abbot does this with pretty prose. The cheerleading is portrayed differently than in most fiction, which is relieving.

Kwan Ann Tan

Megan Oiler 

Arden Kowalski

Initial Thoughts: The teenage Gone Girl society needed... I have issues with a couple word choices and awkward sentences but what a novel.

Edit: This is a five star read, who are we kidding? There's something dangerous about the boredom of teenage girls!

Review: Dare Me was a definite highlight of the books I read in February. It has a gorgeously developed cast of characters, homoerotic obsession, and a meaningful reflection on the experience of teenage girls. I usually don't like cheer books, but this was very engrossing and had a clear and cohesive overall message. I loved Addy as a narrator, the way Colette was developed throughout the novel, and everything about Beth's arc. I felt that I understood the choices of the characters—despite them being bad people—and I was able to easily sympathize with them. The writing style was beautiful and sucked me in; I really loved Abbott's metaphors and attention to detail. This was a fantastic book that I would highly recommend.

Jordan Robinson

This book, for me, is hard to rate. While it's characters are fleshed out, the plot progression was well executed, the writing was hauntingly beautiful, but something felt off for me. 

I'm not amazed, i don't think this book will stay with me for the rest of my life. But it is a good book, it keeps the attention of the reader all the way through. (literally read it in like 12 hour span.)

I'd reccomend it for anyone looking for a book of completely unlikeable characters. (which is totally fine)

celeste

dnf @ 51%. everything about this was insufferable and i just can't do that to myself anymore. hoping the tv show is at least bearable.

Anastaciya

Uhh... what was it about? Mean 16 year old Cheerleaders? Family drama? Student - coach relationship? Depression? Jealousy?.. a bit of a salad. Too many themes, and feels like nothing is explored deeply... [I don't know what I'm saying, don't listen to me. Not my type of story, not my type of writing]

Jessica Smith

At first I thought this was going to be similar to You Will Know Me, just from the teen's perspective instead of the mum's and about competitive cheerleading instead of competitive gymnastics. Very quickly, though, I realised I was going to be disappointed.

Overall, I just don't think the characters or the world of this book made sense. Like, the cheerleading coach seemed to think she was one of the students, and I did not believe for ONE SECOND that this woman was qualified to teach in schools in any way. (Unless you're telling me that sports teachers don't need any kind of training or qualifications, and schools are allowed to hire total randos to ply students with booze and have sex on school property?) I didn't understand why all the cheerleaders' parents seemed to not exist (except Addy's dad once left her a note, and Beth's mum turned up at the very end). I didn't get what all the military people's actual jobs were, except that one of them's was apparently to hang out at the high school all day every day in the hope a student might want to spontaneously enlist. It was like every adult in the entire book had been replaced by some shapeshifting impersonator that just didn't understand WTF human adults were supposed to do.

So, yeah. Really unimpressed. If you're getting into Megan Abbott I would recommend trying literally any other one of her books, but I do remember that You Will Know Me specifically was pretty good.

Laura

I don't know how I feel yet about Megan Abbott. This is the second book within a short period of time that I read by her and both weren't as great as some of the reviews I read made them seem. She has interesting story ideas and a unique writing style that should work, but there's just something about her books that I find lacking.

I mean, I was enjoying the first half of this book. The writing and the overall atmosphere really worked for me, even if I did get a little bored looking for the mystery. But I had a busy week and read the first half in small doses, stealing bits of the book whenever I had time. But when I actually sat down and finished the book, I found myself getting annoyed with the way the mystery progressed and seeing flaws in the writing (the style gets really grating after awhile, especially since it feels at times like Abbott is just saying pretty things for the sake of saying pretty things) and especially the character interaction and just characterization in general. 

There's something kind of contrived about Dare Me, and I think the works I've read of Megan Abbott in general. I don't think she understands entirely how people act, if that makes sense. Those who claim that this book is the closest they'll come again to being in the mind of a teenage girl must be a long, long way from teenagerhood. Frankly, I had a hard time seeing how any of this was plausible, and this is most glaring in Beth's actions and especially the way she spoke. I mean, she sounded like a Southern drag queen. Not only that, she sounded exactly like how Chablis spoke in Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil. I kept expecting her to throw out a child or ooo honey. I don't think this book is supposed to take place in the South, but everyone sounded pretty Southern to my Yankee ears. I wonder if Abbott is from somewhere south of the Mason-Dixon line, because both this book and You Will Know Me seemed like it took place down there, even if there were some remarks made by characters that seemed to the contrary. I also felt like half the things that come out of the mouths of these characters felt way too symbolic or heavy and laden with meaning. Unnatural. I can't think of one person who would speak the way Beth did, for instance, or Tacy, and still be taken seriously.

Continue reading this review on my blog here: 
http://bookwormbasics.blogspot.com/20...

Jessica 

That’s what people never understand: They see us hard little pretty things, brightly lacquered and sequin-studded, and they laugh, they mock, they arouse themselves. They miss everything.

Let's get down to business. You've seen the buzz. You've been urged to check this one out. If you frequently use sites such as Tumblr and glimpse into its massive book community, of graphic makers in particular, you’ve probably found yourself hearing the buzz behind Megan Abbott’s novel Dare Me and the oh-so-overused yet absolutely truthful quote:


  “There’s something dangerous about the boredom of teenage girls.”


There’s also a chance that this quote and the trope that springs from it has either turned you off of the novel or captured your attention, without even reading it. I must say, it caught me right away because of the honesty behind it.

It’s such a simple statement, but it is right… mostly. I had high hopes for how Megan Abbott could incorporate this theme into her writing through Dare Me, a story about high school cheerleaders and something of an introduction into adult lives. It has a premise that would certainly make a solid coming of age adaptation and continue to generate buzz.

Continued @ BOOKEDJ.

tyler castle

"Tense, dark, and beautifully written" (Gillian Flynn), this novel of friendship and betrayal from an Edgar Award-winning author is a harrowing glimpse into the dark heart of the all-American girl. Addy Hanlon has always been Beth Cassidy's best friend and trusted lieutenant. Beth calls the shots and Addy carries them out, a long-established order of things that has brought them to the pinnacle of their high-school careers. Now they're seniors who rule the intensely competitive cheer squad, feared and followed by the other girls -- until the young new coach arrives. Cool and commanding, an emissary from the adult world just beyond their reach, Coach Colette French draws Addy and the other cheerleaders into her life. Only Beth, unsettled by the new regime, remains outside Coach's golden circle, waging a subtle but vicious campaign to regain her position as "top girl" -- both with the team and with Addy herself. Then a suicide focuses a police investigation on Coach and her squad. After the first wave of shock and grief, Addy tries to uncover the truth behind the death -- and learns that the boundary between loyalty and love can be dangerous terrain. The raw passions of girlhood are brought to life in this taut, unflinching exploration of friendship, ambition, and power. Writing with "total authority and an almost desperate intensity" (Tom Perrotta), award-winning novelist Megan Abbott delivers a story as unnerving and thrilling as adolescence itself. "Spectacular . . . It's Heathers meets Fight Club good." -- Chelsea Cain, the New York Times Book Review

Dare Me A Novel

Reviews