Megan Abbott

With their long necks and matching buns and pink tights, Dara and Marie Durant have been dancers since birth. After their parents' death in a tragic accident nearly a dozen years ago, the sisters began running their mother's dance studio together, along with Charlie, Dara's husband and once their mother's prized student. When a suspicious accident occurs, just at the onset of the school's annual performance of The Nutcracker, a season of competition, anxiety, and exhilaration, an interloper arrives and threatens the sisters' delicate balance.

The Turnout

Not my favourite Abbott novel I have read* but I love how consistently she recognises how horrible women can be and the specific traumas girls carry into their womanhood. 

*I thin we (I) need to be honest with ourselves (myself) and acknowledge that nothing will ever hit like reading "The Fever" for the first time did.

Not my favourite Abbott novel I have read* but I love how consistently she recognises how horrible women can be and the specific traumas girls carry into their womanhood. 

*I thin we (I) need to be honest with ourselves (myself) and acknowledge that nothing will ever hit like reading "The Fever" for the first time did.

Erin G.

Taous Merakchi

EXCELLENTE AMBIANCE. J'ai mis un peu de temps à arriver au bout, je l'ai trouvé moins palpitant que les précédents mais toujours merveilleusement bien écrit et très intrigant.

Kristen Claiborn

I’ve listened to buzz about Meg Abbott before but not really listened very seriously. I read SO MANY books, this author I haven’t really heard of can’t be creepy enough to interest me…so I didn’t read her before this one. And the only reason I read this one is because it showed up on one of the “big” book lists. So I put a hold on it at my library and went about my life. I didn’t even remember putting it on hold until I got an email. Oh boy! Then I started reading…
	Megan Abbott is an absolute master storyteller, but dear god something is wrong with her! There was so much in this book that just made me cringe! The students at this school are children, but Abbott spends an awful lot of time sexualizing them, which is decidedly cringe. And Maria’s “change” from the quiet teacher at the beginning of the novel, to what comes across as an evil vixen, is just bizarre. We all know the contractor is a POS the second he shows up in the story, but the extent of his POS-ness is also just bizarre. So. Much. Bizarre!
	So I’m going to leave it at that. This book is cringe on a pedo-level. This book has some scenes that make you want to rinse your eyes out with hand sanitizer. This book is truly disturbing, bizarre, and cringe. So essentially, it’s pretty awesome. It’s not for everyone, but it is really good.

A TODAY Show #ReadWithJenna Book Club Pick Bestselling and award-winning author Megan Abbott's revelatory and mesmerizing new novel set against the hothouse of a family-run ballet studio. With their long necks and matching buns and pink tights, Dara and Marie Durant have been dancers since they can remember. Growing up, they were homeschooled and trained by their glamorous mother, founder of the Durant School of Dance. After their parents' death in a tragic accident nearly a dozen years ago, the sisters began running the school together, along with Charlie, Dara's husband and once their mother's prized student. Marie, warm and soft, teaches the younger students; Dara, with her precision, trains the older ones; and Charlie, sidelined from dancing after years of injuries, rules over the back office. Circling around one another, the three have perfected a dance, six days a week, that keeps the studio thriving. But when a suspicious accident occurs, just at the onset of the school's annual performance of The Nutcracker—a season of competition, anxiety, and exhilaration—an interloper arrives and threatens the sisters' delicate balance. Taut and unnerving, The Turnout is Megan Abbott at the height of her game. With uncanny insight and hypnotic writing, it is a sharp and strange dissection of family ties and sexuality, femininity and power, and a tale that is both alarming and irresistible.

Cheri McElroy

A mystery? Yes. But, this is a very dark, atmospheric, character-driven novel. The plot moves slowly, revealing layers of secrets and damage done to Dara, Marie, and Charlie. If you were a fan of My Dark Vanessa and Girl A, this is a book for you.

Gretchen Sartele

A creepy slow burn with an unexpected twist at the end. The writing style and flowery language built a sad melodrama that kept me on edge until the very end, reminiscent of film noir. 

I thought there was some content (or implied content) that could have easily been left out or was unnecessarily added simply for shock value. I went into the book expecting some potentially triggering content, but I highly recommend that those reading this book seek out TW/CWs before reading.

lindy strauss

very slow book, felt like i was just trying to get to whatever the twist was as quickly as i could

also a lot of loose threads left

overall, only okay but it is redeemed by the way meg abbott writes about the twisted psyche of some women, i think she excels at taking a really broken person and accurately writing them

Zoe Smolen

The plot of this book is like a 4 but I just didn’t care? 

Usually I love Megan Abbott but this one was hard for me to get through.

mads

2.5 out of 5

This book is… weird. Admittedly Megan Abbott’s writing style isn’t my favorite, it’s beautiful but so flowery that it often feels too distant from the story for me to really sink my teeth into it.

I just don’t entirely know what to make of this and I think other reviewers said it much better. For one WE GET IT… BALLET = SEX. The Nutcracker fucks. God some of the metaphors and descriptions became SO repetitive so fast.

Also Derek as a villain just felt so over the top and ridiculous which is lampshaded at one point in the novel but he really sticks out like a sore thumb. I guess that’s the point of his character but it just didn’t really feel entirely believable or work for me.

SPOILERS

Was she hinting Marie is intersex? Yet constantly calls her a freak? Idk just strange choices.

Clairessa Smith

Lauren Attaway

This book was a slow burner for me, but then it did what Megan Abbott books always do, which is much like a turnout. A full changeup that had me racing to the end. She is one of the great writers to me for a reason, and this year’s novel is another of her can’t miss ones.

Ruth Parker 

Dara and Marie Durant are sisters who run the Durant Ballet School, gearing up and getting ready for their annual performance of The Nutcracker. However this year, not only do they have to deal with parents and children angry about the parts given for the performance, they also have to cope with an unexpected fire and the repair works needing completing on their studio.
But suddenly the loving sibling relationship between Dara and Marie is put under the test when Marie starts to find romance with the contractor hired to do their repair work. He's turning Marie against Dara but is it out for more than just Marie?

This was such a fun book. I'm a sucker for ballet and dance inspired films, tv shows and books, so I snapped this up right away on Netgalley and was thrilled to be approved for an ARC. Megan Abbott is a great writer with good twists and turns but also building that increasing sense of dread and absolute belief in the horrendous situations the characters find themselves in.

The reason I'm giving this 4 and not 5 stars is because at times to plot floundered a little and it was very slow in some sections. However, I appreciated what it was trying to do and I stuck with it and I'm glad I did.

Recommend to those who love a little rhythm of dance to their thrillers, without a doubt.

Laura

What Megan Abbott does is essentially write the same book over and over again, she just changes the subject of the book each time. The Turnout is Dare Me is You Will Know Me is Give Me Your Hand. All her books are about the power of womanhood and sex, with her characters cut and pasted from book to book. Her themes are about as subtle as a sledgehammer and you will be beaten to death with them. In this book, the ballet-sex connection is made so many times and in basically the same exact way each time that it's the only reason why I even remembered this book was about ballet. 

At the same time, The Turnout is probably my second favorite of her books, simply because the first fifty pages and the last fifty pages were so good. It was unable to usurp The End of Everything, which, in my opinion, was her most successful attempt to convey the themes she's so attached to, because the middle was extremely repetitive and dragging. Charlie is one of the most interesting characters she had ever created, and it's a shame he had so little pagetime or development. In fact, the book didn't need Derek and his plotline at all, because she already had a fascinating story by just focusing on Charlie, Dara, and Marie and their relationships with each other. Or, if we needed to have a Derek, have him be more of an outside interloper like the sister's boyfriend in The Cement Garden or Cousin Charles in We Have Always Lived in the Castle, as opposed to someone with an actual backstory and plot. 

I also did not particularly like the epilogue, as I don't think any of the characters really needed the happy ending and "where are they now" closure the epilogue provided.

The Turnout

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