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Dare Me

by Megan Abbott (Goodreads Author)

3.19 of 5 stars 3.19 · rating details · 4,239 ratings · 954 reviews

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.

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Hardcover, 290 pages

Published July 31st 2012 by Reagan Arthur Books (first published May 1st 2012)

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May 23, 2013 karen rated it 4 of 5 stars

Shelves: girls-gone-wild

megan abbott knows all the secrets of being a girl, and she keeps on spilling them, book after book."it's fun to be a girl!!" nah, man, it's not. have you ever seen the feet of an actual ballerina? (view spoiler)it's like that - underneath all the pink frills and the careful make-up, there is a horrorshow waiting to be revealed, and it's anything but pretty and elegant.

this book is neither her girl noir nor her coming-of-age style, but some sort of seam where they both meet. the...more

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Jan 23, 2013 Emily May rated it 4 of 5 stars

Shelves: 2013

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

How can I describe this book? Well, if Bunheads had a manic, intense and obsessive older sister, then this would definitely be it. Dare Me is about teenage girls - and cheerleaders in particular - straddling the line between childhood and the big world of adults but it isn't a tale that conjures up the usual images that high school cheerleading brings with it. This is an intense book about obsession, sexuality and competition. I t...more

56 likes · like · see review

Aug 11, 2012 Kemper rated it 4 of 5 stars

Shelves: 2012, crime-mystery, modern-lit

Previously I’d read two Megan Abott books, The Song is You and Queenpin. Both were razor sharp noirs set in the past with cynical hustlers smoking cigarettes and drinking whiskey and basically behaving like the type of people who belong in a black and white movie. This book is about cheerleaders in a modern high school.

It’s not as different as you’d like to think.

Addy has long been the best friend and lieutenant to Beth, the captain of their cheerleading squad. Beth is smart but self centered wi...more

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Sep 13, 2012 kari rated it 1 of 5 stars

Sad,ugly characters doing sad,ugly things to one another. This is supposed to be what is in the heart and mind of the all-American girl? I'm not buying that.
This is how Addy sees herself: p. 258 "You see these glitters and sparkledust and magicks? It's war paint, it's feathers and claws, it's blood sacrifice."
Who the heck is she at war with? Herself? Who are any of them at war with? Why are any of them so angry? If I am expected to care, then explain to me why they are this way. Otherwise don't...more Sad,ugly characters doing sad,ugly things to one another. This is supposed to be what is in the heart and mind of the all-American girl? I'm not buying that.
This is how Addy sees herself: p. 258 "You see these glitters and sparkledust and magicks? It's war paint, it's feathers and claws, it's blood sacrifice."
Who the heck is she at war with? Herself? Who are any of them at war with? Why are any of them so angry? If I am expected to care, then explain to me why they are this way. Otherwise don't waste my time.
There is no character that you have hopes for or care for or even like, other than perhaps the victim, but even there, what that person was doing was wrong. Who in this whole book actually does right?
None of these characters are even fully formed. There is reference made of Beth's issues, but never explained why she behaves as she does, nor why none of these girl's parents seem to give two hoots about their supposedly perfect daughters.
The way the girls tear at one another, bully each other and these are supposed to be their friends? I just don't understand what the author was trying to say with this.
And the big reveal(I don't mean the reveal of the death which you would think is the big reveal, but the actual big reveal) in the final pages? Yeah, saw that coming a mile away, wondered how long it would take to get there. Who cares?
There are some big continuity problems that don't make sense. Coach has her hair in a bob, but then later, only a matter of weeks later, it is described in a ponytail and a French braid. So does she have long hair, long enough for a French braid or ponytail or is it a bob?
At one time, Coach is speaking to the girls in the locker room and they begin to scream with joy, jumping on the bleachers. There aren't bleachers in locker rooms.
The worst one is p. 117: "Clattering the phone against the wall, she catapults it down the toilet."
Addy is there and witnesses this happening, the phone down the toilet. The book is told in first person from Addy's viewpoint. So, then why on page 121 does she say " . . . I can't get Beth to return my texts." Yeah, that would be because her phone went down the toilet four pages ago which Addy witnessed. Stupid. On page 123 Beth asks for her phone back and Addy reminds her that it went down the toilet. So, then why was she texting her two pages ago when she knows Beth's phone went down the toilet? Makes absolutely no sense.
Additionally, the description of the victim/suicide, which Addy saw, says the weapon was lying under the leg, but later Addy reads that it was by the victim's head. p. 191 reading from the newspaper article: "Recoil will usually cause a handgun to land behind the body, the source noted, not next to the head where it was found." Addy is trying hard to figure out what happened and she never thinks to herself that that isn't where the gun was, but was under the leg. She supposedly can't get the image out of her mind, but she doesn't think that this is wrong. So, I'm guessing it is an error on the part of the author. Since all of theses small details do seem to matter to the plot, that is really badly done.
Also, what world do these people live in where the high school cheer coach, in her office, at the high school, smokes? And I mean smokes like a flipping chimney. You can't even smoke outside most schools around here, let alone in the building.
And she gives the girls cigarettes and then serves them alcohol at her home, with no mention whatever that this isn't okay. There is tons of teen drinking, drugging, drinking and driving, drinking while driving, with no mention at all that anyone is at all aware that these things aren't right.
Parents seem to not exist in this world.
Bottom line. One word. Ugly.(less)

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Jan 20, 2013 Anthony Vacca rated it 3 of 5 stars

I’ve been hearing Megan Abbot’s name in certain circles of crime aficionados for a while now, so she has held a comfy spot on my to-be-read backburners for at least a year or so. But then my GR friend Kemper (his review can be found here) sent me this compelling interview with Abbot on story vs. plot. Her very intelligent answers immediately impressed me, and it was obvious how seriously she took writing. So I decided to grab this book, Dare Me, since it was her newest title and because I felt I...more

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Carol Meriam wrote: ""Be aggressive, passive aggressive ! ""
Awesome.

Interesting way of going about finding 'good' female mystery writers. I'm not sure stayi...more
Dec 20, 2012 08:38am

Anthony Vacca Carol wrote: "Interesting way of going about finding 'good' female mystery writers. I'm not sure staying in the female-interest-subject-ghetto is ..."...more
Dec 20, 2012 08:52am

Aug 04, 2012 Moira Russell rated it 4 of 5 stars

Shelves: ebook, on-the-kindle, 2012-50-new-books-challenge

"Noir cheerleaders?" I thought. "Sure, I love Abbott, but no, really, not for me." (The first time I heard about Buffy ever I said "Vampires in high school, are you shitting me? Why would I want to watch that?") But I was powering my way through The End of Everything, slack-jawed, eye-peeled and all agog, and at the back there was a reader's guide (horrible and useless), an author's interview (you're.....glad that Older Lizzie still feels the charm of that family? Uhh. Did you read your own book...more

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Aug 08, 2012 Melissa rated it 4 of 5 stars

Shelves: hell-yeah

This review has been hidden because it contains spoilers. To view it, click here. Let's all have a happy sigh of contentment right now shall we? Since such great books by such great writers have been published this month, books that come along & knock you flat & leave you pretty breathless afterwards. I finished this on Sunday & I am still sad that I'm no longer in the lives of Addy & Beth & Coach & the other cheerleaders. Abbott nails teenage girls in this book so convincingly it's actually a little scary how much I saw myself & my teenage friends...more

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May 11, 2012 Josh rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: own, favorites, read_2012

All that glitters and sparkles; candy-made for thirsting eyes - It's all smoke and mirrors - plumage full of sweet smelling delights, serving as a hideaway for the stingers that lay in wait. 'Dare Me' is home to those stingers. Full of pretty faces with indecent thoughts. These characters of cheer spread terror. While their eyes and sickly sweet mouths promise honey, the bee sting sharpens its point laying in wait for the perfect moment to penetrate normalcy and brandish a bloody streak across t...more

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Jan 26, 2013 Emma rated it 4 of 5 stars

Shelves: favourites-2013

This book is the epitome of what a clique of girls can and will do to each other. The helplessness, the highs, the annoyance, and the power that comes with the territory of social standing. The book delves into a different aspect on cheerleaders which strays far from the colourful, pom pom waving, beautiful, pretty smiling teenage girls. Instead your thrown into the competitive, ruthless and selfish standpoints of young impressionable individual girls, who happen to be cheerleaders.

The writing...more

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Oct 04, 2012 Greg rated it 4 of 5 stars

Sort of surprisingly amazing. It is kind of in the same vein as Rian Johnson's Brick (high school neo-noir), but Abbott doesn't super-stylize her writing, keeping a tight control on plot and tone in an effort to still keep it in some semblance of the "real world." After reading Dare Me, I am filled with respect and admiration for Abbott. At first I questioned the decision to write in first-person because for most of the book Addy does not add particular insight to the characters or story, but as...more

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Jul 20, 2012 Debra Morris rated it 5 of 5 stars

What an amazing book! Abbott seems to be spot on in capturing the voices of the young women in her novel. This is my third Abbot book and I feel like I've discoved a great writer.

5 likes · like · see review

Jan 04, 2013 Go Flash Go! rated it 3 of 5 stars

Shelves: young-adult

Review posted at: Read, Rinse, Repeat

In "Dare Me," a group of high school cheerleaders finds their "Queen Bee" status challenged with the arrival of Colette French, their new coach. The girls had no use and no respect for their previous coach; they "owned" her. When Coach French enters the girls' world, she commands their respect. She breaks them down and whips them into shape. But cracks soon begin to show in Coach's professional facade as she crosses boundaries with these girls, inviting them...more

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Dec 09, 2012 Elaine rated it 3 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: 2012

A brutal and sly noir take on high school cheerleaders, all inner (and some outer) violence, surprising athleticism, taking no prisoners in the war on their primary enemy - food!, parents invisible, and boys nearly so, with lesbian undertones so overamplified that it surprises you that there is supposed to be any surprise in revelations in that vein. While intriguing and a page turner, and admirable in going so wholeheartedly bleak and giving us such an unlikeable little clique to work with (no...more

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Jun 24, 2012 Andrew Nette rated it 5 of 5 stars

Shelves: crime

“At first, cheer was something to fill my days, all our days. Age fourteen to eighteen, a girl needs something to kill all that time, that endless itchy waiting, every hour, every day for something – anything – to begin. There’s something dangerous about the boredom of teenage girls.”

So says Addy Hanlon, narrator of Megan Abbott’s latest book, Dare Me. And you better believe it.

I’ll make no bones about being a huge fan of Abbott’s work (I've previously reviewed her work on this site here and her...more “At first, cheer was something to fill my days, all our days. Age fourteen to eighteen, a girl needs something to kill all that time, that endless itchy waiting, every hour, every day for something – anything – to begin. There’s something dangerous about the boredom of teenage girls.”

So says Addy Hanlon, narrator of Megan Abbott’s latest book, Dare Me. And you better believe it.

I’ll make no bones about being a huge fan of Abbott’s work (I've previously reviewed her work on this site here and here). Her first four books, set in America in the thirties, forties and fifties, took classic noir themes and characters and gave them a mighty twist. The End of Everything, her break out work, was a deceptively simple coming of age tale about a missing girl in an anonymous middle class American suburb in the seventies.

Dare Me takes place in the present, in another part of the great expanse of nameless US suburbia. Addy and Beth have been best friends for years and are the top dogs of their high school cheerleading squad. Beth is the captain, Addy always her faithful lieutenant. Cheerleading and their commanding place in it is the ground zero of their world. “Let’s face it,” Addy says at one point, “we’re the only animation in the whole drop ceiling, glass bricked tomb of a school. We’re the only think moving, breathing, popping.”

Their carefully constructed social hierarchy is thrown into chaos by the arrival of a new cheerleading coach. She is like nobody the girls have ever seen – cool, steely, sophisticated, domineering. After a brief battle of wills Coach French usurps Beth and starts pushing the girls to do more than just look good on the field. She gets them to work as a team, to do things with their bodies they never thought they could. And they start to like it. Even more disturbingly, they even start to look forward to the danger.

Addy finds herself particularly drawn to the new Coach and away from her old friend. But Beth is not a character to be trifled with or take rejection lying down and marshals her considerable resources to plot revenge.

As Addy puts it: “Beth has always known people – friends of her older brothers, sons of her mother’s exes, the brother of the woman from Peru who used to clean her house – that no one else knows or even sees. Her reserves of information, objects, empty houses, designer handbags, driver’s licenses and prescription pads seems limitless.”

When peripheral male acquaintance of the girls is found dead, it’s unclear whether murder, suicide or an accident is to blame. As the final game of the season approaches and the squad plans its attack like a crack group of marines about to hit Fallujah, Addy begins to wonder exactly what her old friend may be capable of.

In the hands of a lesser writer, Dare Me could have so easily been just another tale of teenage angst with a bit of an edge. But Abbott delivers a much more challenging story, one that’s not afraid to question some major sacred cows about young women and what they’re capable of.

Abbott nails all her characters, particularly her two female leads, Addy and Beth. She transforms their cadence, feelings, fears, and secrets into something very sinister, part dark noir, part suburban Lynchian nightmare.

If you're interested in delving a little deeper into Abbott's work, make sure you check out my in-depth interview with her in the latest issue of Crime Factory. The PDF is free or you can download it from our Kindle store for just 99 cents.(less)

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Jun 04, 2012 Marleen rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

I rated this book 4.5 stars, but it's closer to 5 then 4, hence the rating above.

Addy Hanlon and Beth Cassidy have been friends for years, inseparable and invincible they face the world side by side; Beth the leader and Addy her lieutenant. Both girls are tough and both girls are bad, they are in control of their world and the people around them as only teenage girls can be.
When the new school year starts the cheerleading team Addy and Beth are members of has a new coach, Colette French. Young,...more I rated this book 4.5 stars, but it's closer to 5 then 4, hence the rating above.

Addy Hanlon and Beth Cassidy have been friends for years, inseparable and invincible they face the world side by side; Beth the leader and Addy her lieutenant. Both girls are tough and both girls are bad, they are in control of their world and the people around them as only teenage girls can be.
When the new school year starts the cheerleading team Addy and Beth are members of has a new coach, Colette French. Young, pretty and charismatic it isn’t long before the coach has all the girls in her thrall, inspiring them to be better, slimmer, harder and more ambitious. All the girls, that is, except Beth who finds herself upsurged, no longer the captain of the team and losing Addy to Colette.
But Colette is far from the perfect woman with the beautiful house, dedicated husband and cute daughter she appears to be. And when the coach crosses a line that should have been sacred it leads to death and destruction and a world of confusion and pain for Addy.
Torn between her long friendship with the ever darker Beth and her new admiration for the sophisticated coach who seems to favour her, Addy has to figure out not only what has been happening, but also where her loyalties lie and how strong and bad she actually is.

This is a story about growing up. About the time in your life when you discover that actions have consequences and that the only person you can really trust is yourself, if you’re lucky and strong enough to face the truth.
This is a book with a dark aura, a story laced with menace. While on the surface we’re reading about teenage girls being as mean and selfish as they can be, underneath it all is a lurking threat. Dread creeps of the page and into the reader. A feeling of impending doom, and a girl, stuck in the middle, with nowhere to flee to, digging herself deeper into trouble while looking for answers no one is willing to provide.
In this book nothing is quite how it seems. The characters don’t share all available information with each other and even Addy, whose point of view is showing the way, isn’t completely honest; not with herself, not with the other characters and not with the reader.
The answers to the questions are implied at but remain just out of sight. The reader constantly feels as if they should know what is going on and why the story is unfolding in the way it is, and yet they don’t, not completely.
The look this book gives at the carelessness of teenage girls when it comes to loyalty and friendship is chilling. Were we all that callous at one point in our lives? Did we pick up and disregard people with such lack of thought for others and their feelings? Do we really want to know the answer to those questions?
This is a strangely compelling story. The darkness of the interactions between the characters made me want to look away, put the book down and take a break from the feeling of impending doom, and yet I had to keep on reading, needed to find out what was going on, had to discover who or what had caused this downwards spiral.

This is the sort of story that will capture the reader and make them think. It is a tale that will be with you even when you’re away from the book, and will stay with you long after you’ve finished reading it. This story doesn’t come with easy answers, nothing is completely black or white and nobody is exactly who or what they seem.
This is one fascinating novel.
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Aug 17, 2012 Kwoomac rated it 4 of 5 stars

Shelves: 2012, contemporary-lit, dark, reviewed, teen-angst, young-adult

I've always said you couldn't pay me enough to be a teenager again. This book is all the reasons why. These cheerleaders are so caught up in their little world. For some reason, they think everyone is envious of them and that just made me sad. The thing about being a teen is the whole self-centeredness of it all. You really do think you are the center of the world, everything revolves around you, and everything is a Big Deal. At one point, Addy looks down on Tacey's sister, who is on the debate...more

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Aug 16, 2012 Isamlq rated it 4 of 5 stars

Girls can be scary. Dare Me offers a fascinating, confusing, conflict-inducing and sometimes terrifying peek at bonds that are the farthest thing from what’s simple. Think Imaginary Girls. Think Pieces of Us. Then think of those girls perfect from afar, but not quite so, up close.

The girls. Both Beth and Addy are on top and embody that cliché of other girls wanting to be them. This is at least how things seem to Addy for Beth. A little more twisted is how in Addy’s mind, she’s but second fiddle...more Girls can be scary. Dare Me offers a fascinating, confusing, conflict-inducing and sometimes terrifying peek at bonds that are the farthest thing from what’s simple. Think Imaginary Girls. Think Pieces of Us. Then think of those girls perfect from afar, but not quite so, up close.

The girls. Both Beth and Addy are on top and embody that cliché of other girls wanting to be them. This is at least how things seem to Addy for Beth. A little more twisted is how in Addy’s mind, she’s but second fiddle to the other. So, it got complicated how they rooted for each other, set themselves apart from the rest of the school, ruled it… and then set themselves apart from each other. How one linked to the other: there’s this selfishness that’s coupled with sweetness; a wanting of what the other had, but being proud that the other had it to begin with.

Beth. is a complicated character. She’s ballsy and tough. As queen bee, she’s wanted and despised at once. Like the rest of them, I found her fascinating. Some choices of hers were stupid and sad… but a lot of the time I just wanted to know why she was the way she was. It was also an education seeing her pick her words and manipulate every single one of them. Fascinating to witness, but did my gut clench for her. Did I feel her pain? No, I didn’t… her role in this was one part confusing, two parts me needing to know (I mean, how could one girl do that to another?) then three parts infuriating. How many parts does that add up to now?

Addy is no less complicated… at times she could even be more infuriating! Do I say she’s gullible? At times she was. She’d get drawn into things, be blinded by certain other things. And it was a sad thing to see. Her picking her position, and trying to make clear what wasn’t, was a slow and slow process. I was confused with her AND by her. Second fiddle in her own mind; she’s comfortable in the role, so that time again she’d be taken by surprise that others didn’t see her that way. How she’s perceived never jived with the view she had of herself.

The Coach. Tension ratchets up further when the one who they want to be enters the picture, Coach French. All perfect, unaffected, cool… and so unimpressed by the lot of them. So, pulls them in, makes them want to impress her. She is what they want to be after all. But her role in this is but another link that goes too far. Perfect on the outside, the woman is just as insecure as the ones she mentors. Because she's looking for a connection, and it’s that which unfortunately drags more of them under.

She’s a sad figure in this one. Yet, despite the same, she’s embraced by them. Except that though she is their ideal, she’s also so screwed up. So that boundaries get pushed more and more, and then there’s a familiarity that had me feeling all squirm-y and uncomfortable.

So, the complications of proving oneself other right, then finding things out that you’d rather not; then issues of one wanting what the other has… all that’s been mixed up here by people not quite happy with who they are now where they are.

Fascinating stuff.

4/5

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Jul 31, 2012 LAURA KAY A Novel Review rated it 5 of 5 stars

http://anovelreview.blogspot.com/2012...

Addy Hanlon and her best friend Beth Cassidy rule their cheer squad; Beth as captain and Addy her lieutenant. The squad doesn’t just look up to them—their afraid of them. But when Colette French walks into the gym and takes over as cheer coach everything gets flipped around. Coach French has every intention of taking her girls to regionals and she needs to get them ready. First things first she dethrones the cheer captain.

Beth seems to lose interest in che...more

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Oct 17, 2012 Meghan rated it 4 of 5 stars

Different, in the best way. Fun, in the very best way. So stylized that I would close it and find myself narrating my life in Dare Me style, observing with a hard eye. There are no teenagers who talk like this, you will say to yourself, and that is exactly what makes them good, Deadwood-good. They talk like no one you know so they live in their own place, a tough place, a place at the core of youth and women.

Love the detail: the cheer slang, the cell phones, the eating disorders. Love most of a...more

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Jun 12, 2012 Sonia Reppe rated it 5 of 5 stars Recommends it for: cheerleaders

Shelves: fiction-contemporary

Pretty good writing for a plot-driven novel. Abbott rocks the imagery and--I don't want to say Cheerleading metaphors because that sounds too simple and it was more subtle than that--she reveals Addy's cheerleader life, the good and bad. The plot got kind of awesome in the second half; it really kept me guessing. As for characters, Addy and Beth's relationship had depth, so that was cool.

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May 23, 2013 Jenn rated it 1 of 5 stars

Shelves: other, ya, couldnt-finish, thrillers-psych-horror

Full of sound and fury, signifying nothing.

I kept meaning to review this book but kept forgetting, that's how quickly it fell off my radar after I finally, midway through, decided to skip to the end.

Intensely disliked this book. The basic premise surrounds a couple of "mean girl" types and the way in which their relationships and dynamic change after they get a new cheerleading coach. Oh, there is also a whodunit mystery revolving around the death of an Army Sergeant recruiter dude. The resoluti...more Full of sound and fury, signifying nothing.

I kept meaning to review this book but kept forgetting, that's how quickly it fell off my radar after I finally, midway through, decided to skip to the end.

Intensely disliked this book. The basic premise surrounds a couple of "mean girl" types and the way in which their relationships and dynamic change after they get a new cheerleading coach. Oh, there is also a whodunit mystery revolving around the death of an Army Sergeant recruiter dude. The resolution to this mystery portion of the plot is blindingly obvious, which alone would be fine with me, but when combined with all the horrible red herrings, terrible characters, and the prose, it just combined into one hot mess for me.

There are others who have commented on the prose in this book. To that I say see the first line of this review. Abbott's sentences sound beautiful and cool, at times, talking about their "wishbone arms" and such, but right after you read it, there's a moment of "wtf did I just read," and "wtf are you trying to say?" It feels very try-hard. I don't think a writer needs to fill their pages with flowery passages that say, really, nothing at all. It's pretentious and overwhelms the story. You can keep it simple, you know.

I think there were only two characters in this book who even had a semblance of a personality. The rest were background noise. Even the ones who had some personality did not make any sense. Coach, for instance. One day she is mysterious, refined, and reserved around the girls, and like three days later, she's inviting them to her house for wine and gossip? What?!

Most of the girls, too, are almost immediately enamored by her in a pseudo homoerotic way. No relationship development, no character development, just bam! Coach is the goddess of everything in the world, so let's go to her house, drink wine, tell secrets, and help her cover for her secrets. What?!

The worst part is, at the end of the day, this book is about the relationship of two best friends essentially torn apart. the one best friend is queen bitch. Though we get a couple flashbacks, nothing in this book explained to me A) why they were friends; B) why they remained friends throughout the years; C) especially why they remained friends after Coach comes into their lives and Queen Bitch turns into Empress Bitch of the Bitchtonia galaxy.

There's no explanation for this girl's immediate hatred towards Coach throughout the book, other than something to the effect of "I've got a hunch she's hiding something." Then out of nowhere (it's not entirely nowhere, since Abbott telegraphs the hell out of her plot) we find out that all the bitchy and horrible things they do to each other go back to one moment years ago when *maybe* the one friend thought she might be in love with the other? What?!

I hated this book. The plot was terrible. The writing sounded pretty, but meant pretty much nothing.(less)

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Apr 28, 2013 Layne rated it 5 of 5 stars

No one will ever love you as much as your girlfriends. This is the ongoing theme in Dare Me, a brilliant insight into the relationships girls have with other girls. Coaches, friends, teammates--every girl has a relationship with every other girl in their life, but how that living organism is expressed is what defines the characters in this novel.

Blurring lines of friendship and romance, the relationships the girls in this novel have far outweigh the meaningless affairs they have with men. This...more

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Mar 20, 2013 Kim rated it 3 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: audiobooks-read, young-adult, suspense-mystery-thriller, mindless-chic-lit

If you can't stand those snooty high school cheerleader girls, don't read this book. It will make you crazy.

The characters are almost all shallow, selfish people. Typical teens? I SURE hope not! The entire book is based around cheer - at some points I really thought I would never be able to get into it. A book about cheerleaders sounded fun; this was anything BUT that! It was a dark, serious account of relationships, secrets, friendship, love, lust, cheating, social drinking......on and on. The...more

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Mar 15, 2013 Stacy rated it 4 of 5 stars

For sheer originality and the way you feel encased in a bubble, just you and Addy telling you her story, I'm tempted to give it 5 stars. But at the same time, there's something so repulsive about what's related that it's hard to do so. (I think I had the same problem with Gone Girl.)

I picked this up because it was recommended on a B&N blog by Vicki Pettersson. I didn't have any well-defined expectations, but never would have expected this. Part crime novel, part psychological exploration, bu...more For sheer originality and the way you feel encased in a bubble, just you and Addy telling you her story, I'm tempted to give it 5 stars. But at the same time, there's something so repulsive about what's related that it's hard to do so. (I think I had the same problem with Gone Girl.)

I picked this up because it was recommended on a B&N blog by Vicki Pettersson. I didn't have any well-defined expectations, but never would have expected this. Part crime novel, part psychological exploration, but told in a hauntingly lyrical fashion that lends a touch of the surreal, given that our primary subject matter is high-school cheerleading, which you'd expect to be related in a peppy, high-energy fashion. You think you know what cheerleaders are like, and to some extent, this doesn't refute any of those stereotypes--instead, it cuts deeper, like an autopsy or a dissection and peels apart the layers to show the bones and the muscle that make up the foundation of that stereotype. The power struggles, the partying, the binging and purging, and the hard, hard, physicality of it all--all tied up with the strings of a pack mentality, looking to the alpha to keep them all together, whether that be the captain or the coach. In this case, it's the dominance battle between those two that makes up the majority of the tension.

It's those bad behaviors that leave you with the sour taste in your mouth, even as you acknowledge that they have a basis in reality. No woman is going to deny how spiteful, petty, devious, and downright evil a teenage girl can be, given the right motivation (however shallow that motivation may really be), but we don't really like to be reminded of it. And you want to see a coach who's going to fight that tendency, who's going to inspire them to do better, to be better, but this is not an after school special, and that's not what we get. I respect that greatly, and I appreciate it, but I can't embrace it and say "That was awesome! I want to re-read it right now!"

I hope I can be forgiven if I kept picturing the coach as Sue Sylvester, despite the complete lack of physical similarity. :) And Beth, the captain, kept turning into Santana every time she opened her vulgar mouth. But the complexity of Addy, our narrator, defies television identity theft, and that's the beauty of it all.(less)

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Jan 14, 2013 Ann rated it 4 of 5 stars

Shelves: 2013, adults, ya

I like the term "noir cheerleaders" coined by other reviewers. This is a hard book to say I loved. The characters are mean, flawed, and generally unlikable. No one does anything you can truly root for. Yet, it is compelling. The world of cheer is described in such vivid and vicious terms. The girls' relationships with each other and themselves are fierce and uneasy. Adding a new, young and competitive coach into their mix is essentially throwing a match on a pile of firecrackers-when one blows,t...more

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Jan 12, 2013 Beverley Jones rated it 4 of 5 stars

An engrossing, dark tale of teenage obsession.

Abbott skilfully captures that time in a teen’s life when every smile, sneer or perceived slight is a cause for minute dissection. The world of cheerleading is alien to a UK reader but I think the power-play between the ‘top’ girls and underlings is vividly drawn.

The narrator is Addy, torn between the machinations of her ‘alpha girl’ friend Beth and their intriguing new coach which leads her into a whole lot of trouble. There is a sense of sinister...more

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Jan 07, 2013 Kelly Davis rated it 4 of 5 stars

What is it about cheerleaders that so quickly and completely captures the attention of the entertainment-consuming American public? Is it the allure of the in-crowd? The wholesome pleated skirts with hemlines almost short enough to be naughty? The spectacle of physical agility in a series of synchronized backflips? All of the above?

In Dare Me, Megan Abbott tangles her squad of high school pom-pom shakers up in a scandal that would dissolve Kirsten Dunst and her Bring it On brethren into a glitte...more

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Jan 05, 2013 Kelly rated it 1 of 5 stars

Shelves: bad-writing, convoluted, female-lead-i-hated, hated, same-old-mean-girls, why-is-any-of-this-even-happening, what, i-need-to-use-a-lot-of-caps, the-worst-things

I can't even go far enough in this book to find out the premise. I do not even care. This is god awful. This is the worst kind of writing (edit: FINE. THE WORST KIND to me. I suppose you're allowed to like it). So many analogies that don't actually even MEAN ANYTHING. You can't just... say things... and call it writing.

"wishbone arms?" What do you mean by that? What is that? So, what? They're... all bowed out? They're skinny? They're dried out like after it comes out of a turkey and sits for a w...more

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Dec 30, 2012 Kathleen Hagen added it

Shelves: 2012-audio-books

Dare Me, by Megan Abbott, a-minus, Narrated by Khristine Hvam, Produced by Hachette Audio, Downloaded from audible.com.

Addy Hamlon and Beth Cassidy have been best friends since gradeschool—Beth the leader, and Addy the follower. The girls are now juniors in highschool and have for the past three years belonged to “Cheer”, the cheerleaders squad. It’s a very competitive squad with precision maneuvers. This year, a new young coach is hired, Collette French, whom the girls call “Coach”. Beth has be...more

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Dec 27, 2012 Florinda rated it 2 of 5 stars

Occasionally I feel like no matter how closely I'm reading a book, I'm missing something. It may be due to something in the writing style that's eluding me or an important element in the story that I don't quite understand for some reason, but regardless of what causes it, I feel as if I'm somehow a few steps behind. Sometimes I'll get to the end and still feel like I haven't caught up; it feels like waking up from a dream that I was trying to understand while dreaming it, and it's frustrating....more Occasionally I feel like no matter how closely I'm reading a book, I'm missing something. It may be due to something in the writing style that's eluding me or an important element in the story that I don't quite understand for some reason, but regardless of what causes it, I feel as if I'm somehow a few steps behind. Sometimes I'll get to the end and still feel like I haven't caught up; it feels like waking up from a dream that I was trying to understand while dreaming it, and it's frustrating. A re-read might clarify things for me, but reading experiences like this don't usually leave me too inclined to want to re-read. It's disappointing, particularly when it was a book I was initially pretty excited about reading.

Megan Abbott's Dare Me was one of those reading experiences for me. It was fast-moving and gripping, but although the story isn't overly complex, I couldn't seem to shake a sense of confusion throughout. That may have been partly because it's centered on a cheerleading team; I'm a nerdgirl and certified non-jock without much interest in sports and their trappings, and the world of cheer is pretty foreign to me. But there was also something stream-of-consciousness in the first-person narration of Abbott's "lieutenant" cheerleader Addy that kept me off-balance and somewhat outside the story. I don't mind not being able to figure out where a story is going; I actually think that's a good thing, generally. However, it does bother me when I feel like I can't make sense out of where it's been.

With its high-school setting and borderline "mean-girl" characters, Dare Me seems to fall into the "YA-crossover" niche, although its darker story elements--adultery, a suspicious death, underage drinking--are most certainly adult. That said, there's not much adult presence here. Parents barely make an appearance in the novel, while the breaching of teacher/student boundaries is central to its plot; it's a disturbing element, and it's probably intended to be.

To be fair, my expectations may have been out of whack; I had the impression that Dare Me would be a little more like Gone Girl, and it's...not. Based on the blogger reviews that piqued my interest in this novel in the first place, I have the feeling that my response to the novel is a minority opinion, but although I was never bored, I just didn't connect with it.(less)

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About Megan Abbott

Megan Abbott is the Edgar® award-winning author of the novels The End of Everything Queenpin, The Song Is You, Die a Little, Bury Me Deep and her latest, Dare Me (July 2012).

Her writing has appeared in the New York Times, Salon, the Los Angeles Times Magazine, The Believer, Los Angeles Review of Books, Detroit Noir, Best Crime and Mystery Stories of the Year, Storyglossia, Queens Noir and The Spee...more

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“There's something dangerous about the boredom of teenage girls.” — 20 people liked it

“The drone in my ear, it’s like the tornado drill in elementary school, the hand-cranked siren that rang mercilessly, all of us hunched over on ourselves, facing the basement walls, heads tucked into our chests. Beth and me wedged tight, jeaned legs pressed against each other. The sounds of our own breathing. Before we all stopped believing a tornado, or anything, could touch us, ever” — 3 people liked it

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