Megan Abbott

An audacious novel about family and ambition from "a master of fingernails-digging-into-your-palms suspense" (Kirkus) and bestselling, award-winning author of The Fever, Megan Abbott. How far will you go to achieve a dream? That's the question a celebrated coach poses to Katie and Eric Knox after he sees their daughter Devon, a gymnastics prodigy and Olympic hopeful, compete. For the Knoxes there are no limits--until a violent death rocks their close-knit gymnastics community. As rumors swirl, Katie tries frantically to hold her family together while also finding herself irresistibly drawn to the crime itself. What she uncovers--about her daughter's fears, her own marriage, and herself--forces Katie to consider whether there's any price she isn't willing to pay for Devon's dream. YOU WILL KNOW ME is a breathless rollercoaster of a novel about the desperate limits of parental sacrifice, furtive desire, and the staggering force of ambition.

A Novel

You Will Know Me

One of the Best Books of 2016--NPR, the Washington Post, The Wall Street Journal, the Boston Globe, Elle, Thrillist, Men's Journal, Publishers Weekly, Time Out New York, Self and Kirkus The audacious new novel about family and ambition from "one of the best living mystery writers" (Grantland) and bestselling, award-winning author of The Fever, Megan Abbott. How far will you go to achieve a dream? That's the question a celebrated coach poses to Katie and Eric Knox after he sees their daughter Devon, a gymnastics prodigy and Olympic hopeful, compete. For the Knoxes there are no limits--until a violent death rocks their close-knit gymnastics community and everything they have worked so hard for is suddenly at risk. As rumors swirl among the other parents, Katie tries frantically to hold her family together while also finding herself irresistibly drawn to the crime itself. What she uncovers--about her daughter's fears, her own marriage, and herself--forces Katie to consider whether there's any price she isn't willing to pay to achieve Devon's dream. From a writer with "exceptional gifts for making nerves jangle and skin crawl" (Janet Maslin), You Will Know Me is a breathless rollercoaster of a novel about the desperate limits of parental sacrifice, furtive desire, and the staggering force of ambition.

bianca

She hadn’t learned, no one had taught her—[they] hadn’t taught her—that the things you want, you never get them. And if you do, they’re not what you thought they’d be. But you’d still do anything to keep them. Because you’d wanted them for so long.

She did love him, maybe. But she wasn’t sure what that meant, and did anyone ever know?

“I was so mad when I was younger. And then you grow up and you think you’re not that girl anymore. The girl you were at fifteen, sixteen. Angry and nasty. Hungry for love—”

“—I guess some girls are like that.”

“But the thing is, you’re always that girl. She never goes away. She’s inside you all the time. That girl is forever.”

She turned and, for the first time ever, he looked at her like he knew she was lying. Which she was, though she wasn’t sure why. But in that look, his eyes dark and sad, she knew something had ended, that great parental loss, the moment they realize you’re not perfect, and maybe even a little worse.

So many things you never think you’ll do until you do them.

Isn’t it a strange day when you realize you have no idea what’s going on in your kid’s head? One morning, you wake up and there’s this alien in your house. They look like your kid, sound a little like them, but they are not your kid. They’re something else that you don’t know. And they keep changing. They never stop changing on you.

And crushes. Had there ever been a more perfect word for a feeling? The way the girls looked at [him]—sometimes it had made [her] heart hurt. She wished she could spare all of them the pain of those infatuations. The ones doomed from the start.

She needs someplace to be herself. To be messy and sad and human. Real.

A snapshot taken in that very room, her bedspread visible. The boomerang of Devon’s mutilated right foot, close up.

Under the light, her desk lamp, it looked like it was glowing.

Why was it the picture felt more intimate, far more intimate, than a secret disappointment, a boy-crush confession?

And why did looking at it feel even more like a violation?

I had the dream again last night. The one where I look down and my right foot is ten times its size with skin like scales. So I take a knife from the kitchen drawer, the one Mom has to use with both hands, and I chop it off. The blood is like a fountain.

But Dad sees me and runs up the basement stairs. He ties his belt around my ankle and pulls it tight. The buckle is shining.

You need this, he says, grabbing my foot, twisting and molding it like art-class clay. It’s your superpower.

It wasn’t a diary at all. It was more like a training log.

Reading it, standing the whole time, leaning against the window for light, [she] was struck by how different it was from her own private ramblings at fourteen, all boys and song lyrics and fake IDs and where to hide the purloined pint of Jack Daniel’s for Friday night.

“You should enjoy it. It’s a great time. You… you feel things so deeply.”

“But then you stop?  Feeling deeply?”

We shouldn’t skimp on our children’s dreams.

That’s what parenthood was about, wasn’t it? Slowly understanding your child less and less until she wasn’t yours anymore but herself.

It was Devon, a marvel, a girl wonder, a prodigy, a star.

Devon, kicking her way out. Out, out, out.

“Remember that kind of wanting? That kind that’s just for yourself? And you don’t even have to feel guilty about it? You wouldn’t know you should.”

[She] nodded and nodded and nodded, because it felt true even if she couldn’t name the thing she’d wanted. But something. Looking around, she wondered, 

That feeling when I finish a book and the title (“You Will Know Me”) really hits me.

About parents not knowing what goes on in their children’s heads… their ever-changing children whom they don’t recognize anymore day by day… and children growing up, realizing that their parents are not perfect, and maybe even worse. The penultimate chapter blew me away. So gooood.

That feeling when I finish a book and the title (“You Will Know Me”) really hits me.

About parents not knowing what goes on in their children’s heads… their ever-changing children whom they don’t recognize anymore day by day… and children growing up, realizing that their parents are not perfect, and maybe even worse. The penultimate chapter blew me away. So gooood.

Katie and her husband Eric have made their daughter Devon the centre of their world. Talented, determined, a rising gymnastics star, Devon is the focus of her parents' lives and the lynchpin of their marriage. There is nothing they wouldn't do for her.When a violent hit-and-run accident sends shockwaves through their close-knit community, Katie is immediately concerned for her daughter. She and Eric have worked so hard to protect Devon from anything that might distract or hurt her. That's what every parent wants for their child, after all. Even if they don't realize how much you've sacrificed for them. Even if they are keeping secrets from you... A mother knows best... doesn't she?

Lauren Attaway

No Words

I loved this book,even though I could see everything before it happened, where it was all leading. But still. Dark, smart, chillingly relatable. One of my 2016 favorites, easily.

Samantha

How far will you go to achieve a dream? Devon and her family will stop at nothing to get her to the Olympics, until a violent death puts a crack in their close knit gymnastics community and everything is suddenly at risk.

Who killed Ryan? Was it his girlfriend, who he was having problems with? Was it Devon, who had started developing a crush on him? Or was it just an unfortunate accident? While Megan's books are a little slow for me, I love all the twists throughout the novel.

"Almost unbearably tense, chilling and addictive ... Exceptional." Paula Hawkins, author of The Girl on the Train Katie and her husband Eric have made their daughter Devon the centre of their world. Talented, determined, a rising gymnastics star, Devon is the focus of her parents' lives and the lynchpin of their marriage. There is nothing they wouldn't do for her. When a violent hit-and-run accident sends shockwaves through their close-knit community, Katie is immediately concerned for her daughter. She and Eric have worked so hard to protect Devon from anything that might distract or hurt her. That's what every parent wants for their child, after all. Even if they don't realize how much you've sacrificed for them. Even if they are keeping secrets from you... A mother knows best... doesn't she? MORE PRAISE FOR YOU WILL KNOW ME "Stunning. ... Nothing should be taken at face value in this jealousy-and hormone-soaked world except that Abbott is certainly our very best guide." Kirkus "hits that rarefied sweet spot between unnerving psychological suspense and a family drama with heart ... The pages couldn't turn fast enough" Jessica Knoll, New York Times bestselling author of Luckiest Girl Alive "comes barreling at you with all the power and urgency of a high-speed train, as Abbott asserts herself as one of the greatest crime writers of our time." Mary Kubica, New York Times bestselling author of The Good Girl

Jessica Smith

It's been a few years since I read the only other book of Megan Abbott's I have read, Bury Me Deep. That book was a very love-hate book for me (love the last third for being amazing, hate the first two-thirds for being so slow), but seeing as the other reviews were to the effect that Abbott had written better, I resolved to read another book by her. It's taken a long time, and in that time Abbott has stopped writing noir and started writing more mainstream mystery/thrillers, but man am I glad I did.

This is probably the most compulsive book I've read so far this year. Although on the face of it it's a murder mystery, really the most compelling thing about it is how it delves into one family, the Knoxes – their secrets, buried resentments, breakdowns in communication – and the world of competitive gymnastics. It's told from the perspective of Katie Knox, a thirtysomething wife and mother to two children – 15-year-old gymnastics prodigy Devon, and the oft-forgotten 10-year-old Drew. After a gruesome accident with a lawn mower when Devon was three, Katie and her husband, Eric, decided to enrol her in gymnastics classes to help her regain confidence in her body. Devon turned out to actually excel at gymnastics, and so Eric and Katie have come to sacrifice hugely – taking out a second mortgage on their crumbling house, or (in Katie's case) spending hours upon hours at the gym every day watching Devon practise – in the hopes they're giving her the best shot they can at making the Olympics.

But things start to unravel when Ryan, a charismatic young man who does odd jobs around the gym, is killed in a hit-and-run. It's not so much that the mystery is a real head-scratcher (it's not), but the way this event exposes so much dysfunction within the family and inside the “booster club” of “gymnastics moms” (and Eric) who fundraise for the gym. There's a ton of middle-class pettiness between the mums, vicarious competitiveness and snide put-downs made against one another's daughters. Within the family, you have Katie beginning to wonder whether the “win at all costs” mindset of competitive gymnastics is really good for Devon, while Eric becomes (from the perspective of Katie) increasingly unhinged insisting that it is. And all the while there's Drew, suffering from a fever for most of the book, noticing things that no one else feels they have the time to hear about.

So for me, what made this such a page-turner wasn't my desire to find out whodunnit, but the fact that I wanted to know what happened next. As chaos started setting in all around, I had to wonder: What was going to happen to this family?! To Katie? To Devon? Or even with some of the side characters, like Ryan's mum or his girlfriend, Hailey? That's what had me frantically flipping pages to the end.

It's not a book full of likeable characters – they feel realistic, but it's largely a world of self-absorbed people making utterly selfish decisions. That might be a turn-off for some people. I couldn't help but feel a bit disappointed by the ending, although I'll admit it was built towards over the course of the book.

Regardless of that, though, I really enjoyed this book. In its skewering of “teens doing competitive sport at high levels” culture, it treaded some of the same themes as Barracuda, and with its dark tone and treatment of domestic dysfunction it couldn't help but remind me of Gone Girl, either. All good books, and I'll definitely be back to read another one by Megan Abbott.

Kate Lillie

Ley Stanton

Julie Gibson

Katie and her husband Eric have made their daughter Devon the centre of their world. Talented, determined, a rising gymnastics star, Devon is the focus of her parents' lives and the lynchpin of their marriage. There is nothing they wouldn't do for her.When a violent hit-and-run accident sends shockwaves through their close-knit community, Katie is immediately concerned for her daughter. She and Eric have worked so hard to protect Devon from anything that might distract or hurt her. That's what every parent wants for their child, after all. Even if they don't realize how much you've sacrificed for them. Even if they are keeping secrets from you . . . A mother knows best . . . doesn't she?Plotted with all the brilliance of Dare Me, and written with the compassion of The Fever, the astonishing You Will Know Me - dark and tender by turns -is an unforgettable novel by Megan Abbott.

You Will Know Me A Novel

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