Megan Abbott

Give Me Your Hand

"No one makes better thrillers out of the relationships unique to teenage girls than Abbott... It's [Give Me Your Hand] pure suspense hinging on terrifyingly real characters." VultureYou told each other everything. Then she told you too much. Kit has risen to the top of her profession and is on the brink of achieving everything she wanted. She hasn't let anything stop her. But now someone else is standing in her way - Diane. Best friends at seventeen, their shared ambition made them inseparable. Until the day Diane told Kit her secret - the worst thing she'd ever done, the worst thing Kit could imagine - and it blew their friendship apart. Kit is still the only person who knows what Diane did. And now Diane knows something about Kit that could destroy everything she's worked so hard for. How far would Kit go, to make the hard work, the sacrifice, worth it in the end? What wouldn't she give up? Diane thinks Kit is just like her. Maybe she's right. Ambition: it's in the blood...PRAISE FOR GIVE ME YOUR HAND"[Give Me Your Hand] should cement [Abbott's] position as one of the most intelligent and daring novelists working in the crime genre today." New York Times Book Review"[A] nuanced tale of soured friendships, blood-soaked ambition, and desperate murders from Thriller Award-winner Abbott...No writer can touch Abbott in the realm of twisted desire and relationships between women, both intimate and feral." Publishers Weekly, starred review"In Abbott's deft hands, friendship is fused to rivalry, and ambition to fear, with an unsettling level of believability. It will take more than a cold shower to still the blood thumping in your ears when you finish this." Kirkus, Starred Review"Once again, Abbott plunges us deep into a vividly realized world of intense competition and creates life-or-death stakes where we wouldn't have known to look for them...this is a brilliant riff on hard science, human nature, and the ultimate unknowability of the human brain." Booklist, Starred Review

Jeannette Ordas

A speedy but uneven mystery from Meg Abbott. This fell apart for me at the halfway point, but I was still compelled to find out more. I just keep waiting for a wholly satisfying book from this author, I know she can do it!

Kwan Ann Tan

megan abbott does it again- honestly she's one of the only people that I really trust to write women as they are- their complicated, difficult selves, the inward looking versions that reflect women from all angles.

A creepy pageturning thriller unfortunately full of plot holes and predicability. Love Megan Abbott’s writing as always, though.

Sophia Lazari

DNF parei de ler na metade pq eh pessimo, nao eh interessante e quando acontece algo daora nem vale a pena continuar lendo pq quebra o ciclo do livro. 

eu achava q ia ser mto daora e interessante pq ela mata o pai dela e elas competem pra um spot num programa de cientistas e tals e ai durante isso acontece um acidente e ela eh culpada de assassinato e tal tal. elas tao estudando uma doenca de menstruação q eh o motivo q ela matou o pai dela???????

me deixou sem vontade de ler e eu nao conseguia focar na leitura pq era tediante e annoying. achava q ia ser moh interessante soh q tava me sentindo obrigada a ler nao como algo q eu gosto.

Ley Stanton

Definitely my least favorite of Megan Abbott's books, it just didn't grab me from the start like the others have. I still found the plot intriguing but the friendship between Diane and Kit wasn't as compelling as the friendships I've seen in previous books. I also found some of the plot points to be incredibly forced, I would have liked to see things go in a different direction. 
That being said, I wish this book had continued to see the fallout of the actions of Diane and Kit besides a brief flash forward. I think the dynamic between all of the characters would have been fascinating to see in the aftermath of everything that had happened.
Despite not enjoying this as much as her previous books, I will still continue to pick up and recommend Meghan Abbott's books as fervently as before. This one just wasn't for me.

so, so, so good. i could hardly put this down, abbott's prose is so enticing and engrossing. she just gets something about women and female relationships that others do not. the tragedy and drama of it.

'Megan Abbott at her very best. Cool, crisp, chilling.' Paula Hawkins, author of The Girl on the Train Kit has risen to the top of her profession. She's on the brink of achieving everything she wanted, but someone is standing in her way - Diane. Diane made Kit who she is today, lit the ambition that's driven her - and now she knows something that could burn Kit's world to the ground. But Diane has a secret of her own, and Kit hasn't forgotten. She remembers the worst thing Diane ever did, and how it blew their friendship apart. Diane is beginning to think that Kit is just like her. Maybe she's right. Ambition: It's in the blood . . . Give Me Your Hand is a blistering thriller from Megan Abbott.

Claire

Since I'm the only woman other than Dr. Severin (and we never talk about it in front of her), I'm supposed to know more, know differently, know something about the purple marrow of female rage. The fear all men have that there's something inside us that shifts, and turns. A living thing, once dormant, stirring now, and filled with rage. 

4.25 stars, rounded down. Just... wow. No one writes about the intensity of female friendships like Megan Abbott.

Zoë

!!! FINALLY A BOOK FILLED WITH MURDER IN WHICH THERE ARE CONSEQUENCES !!!

i almost cried when someone got arrested. thank you universe. uhhh. this book did tend to drag on in the middle and i wish we had one chapter told in diane’s point of view. i think it would’ve allowed some things to make a bit more sense. anyway a solid read that had me stressed and exited to read!

Laura

So I have a strange relationship with Megan Abbott. I’ve read three of her books, found two of them mediocre and loved one of them. But I wasn’t that interested in picking up this one up. I don’t like science-y books (history major here), and it seemed like a generic female friendship mystery- you know, two girls are unnaturally close friends, something happens to one of them, mystery ensues. But this was a complete miss. I genuinely disliked reading it; it felt like Abbott was trying way too hard to write a compelling, dark mystery that it was almost laughable. It deals a lot of PMDD, which something that I initially liked given that I myself may have some form of that, but everything was just so dramatic and over the top. My favorite part was how Abbott kept referring to menstruation as blood, like “and then the blood came”, which is the most overly dramatic way to describe it ever. Skip this one.

Jessica 

Blog | Twitter | Instagram | (3.5) Review also found  here. 

“Women have to live so much of their life in the in-betweens.” 

In case you didn't know: Megan Abbott is one of my all-time favourite authors. I adore her prose so much and the way she is able to portray the complexities of humanity and the relationships between women. It's fairly obvious why I'd been looking forward to Give Me Your Hand since it was announced. Abbott could write out the contents of a phone-book from 1975 and I'd be pretty much guaranteed to admire it. There is no other author out there like her and very few authors have made me feel to the degree that she has in prior releases.

Give Me Your Hand had a simple enough premise to it. As per usual, it followed the friendship between two young women. Armed with her brutal honesty and frank under-standing of being women, and the all-consuming friend-ships that can bloom in our youth, Abbott compels her audience into a chilling sort of captivation. While Give Me Your Hand is a solid release, and has its fair share of stellar moments, it is far from her best novel. There were moments where it seemed to pause and lack growth; perhaps this is due to its topic nature and inclusion of science (something I was never altogether great with in the past) and more of a personal preference.

I just found there to be quite a few passages where I nearly zoned out on. While they still had Abbott's signature shimmery prose to it, I did have difficulty focusing and connecting to the greater parts of it. They just weren't for me, and that's okay, because the story was enjoyable despite it.

What I found most striking about Give Me Your Hand is the sort of numbness that comes with it. I do not think I'm doing good with explaining it, but every time Diane appears on paper--both in present time, as a girl, and in the future as a women who has reappeared in Kit's life--there's this dreary sort of numbness that comes with her. I really dig it, because it adds this eerie element to it that will hit readers hard.

I enjoyed the central mystery and the connection that Kit and Diane shared, even after the years since high school passed and Diane told Kit a secret that changed everything. As adults, they are similar to who they were and because of this, that connection crackles even now. I thought there was something so terrifying, intriguing and bittersweet about their friendship and the series of events that unfolds in their adult years.

Admittedly, I found myself haunted by Diane's secret much like Kit was. There's something so... off center about Diane, you're disarmed. She seems normal enough. And then there's those moments in her scenes where you know she's not, and you're struggling right there with Kit.

Give Me Your Hand proves a theory I've had all along--even in Abbott's weaker points, her prose is so fiery and dark that there's no competition between her work and many of her contemporaries. I cannot stress this fact enough: even her least compelling works still remain better written than so many other's in modern times.

While this novel wasn't my favourite of Abbott's, it's still a fascinating read that will absorb your fear and captivate you in due time. Give it a chance, it's worth it once it gets into its groove.

Mitz

Taous Merakchi

Melissa Bragg 

Crystal L

Erna Björg Smáradóttir

Jean Linehan

Jessica Ford

Alison Fincher

Rowan Myers

A life-changing secret destroys an unlikely friendship in this "magnetic" (Meg Wolitzer) psychological thriller from the Edgar Award-winning author of Dare Me. You told each other everything. Then she told you too much. Kit has risen to the top of her profession and is on the brink of achieving everything she wanted. She hasn't let anything stop her. But now someone else is standing in her way - Diane. Best friends at seventeen, their shared ambition made them inseparable. Until the day Diane told Kit her secret - the worst thing she'd ever done, the worst thing Kit could imagine - and it blew their friendship apart. Kit is still the only person who knows what Diane did. And now Diane knows something about Kit that could destroy everything she's worked so hard for. How far would Kit go, to make the hard work, the sacrifice, worth it in the end? What wouldn't she give up? Diane thinks Kit is just like her. Maybe she's right. Ambition: it's in the blood . . .

Give Me Your Hand

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