Dare Me: A Novel [Hardcover]

Megan Abbott (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: July 31, 2012

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.

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com Review

Amazon Best Books of the Month, August 2012: Oh my, these beautiful, terrible girls, with their "Aruba-tanned" legs and their ferocity and fears, for whom the smallest slights become life-and-death matters. This brilliantly dark and uncomfortably real story, sharp and suspenseful and chilling, made me desperately glad I have sons. The author is so attuned to the "witchiness of girls" and the drama of high school, and then she takes us to the darkest corners of that world. These aren't Mean Girls or Breakfast Club teens--more like Glee on steroids. Megan Abbott is a scary genius. Her voice is fierce and fearless. --Neal Thompson

Review

EARLY PRAISE FOR DARE ME:

"A fascinating, almost voyeuristic, glimpse into the power struggle that goes on between teenaged girls. Not just any teenaged girls-cheerleaders-with their own unique hierarchy and fierce code of loyalty, which they'll protect at any cost. There's a dark and twisted love story here, told with a rich sensual undertone that lingers long after you close the last page, still breathing in your ear: Dare me." (Chevy Stevens, New York Times bestselling author of Still Missing and Never Knowing )

"Arresting, original and unputdownable." (Rosamund Lupton, New York Times bestselling author of Sister )

"I dare you not to love this book. You lucky reader." (Tom Franklin, New York Times bestselling author of Crooked Letter, Crooked Letter )

"DARE ME sneaks up on you from behind, pulling on long-forgotten memories of teenaged desperation, obsession, and desire. This is truly masterful storytelling." (Alafair Burke, author of Never Tell )

"Megan Abbott's brilliant new book presents a number of possibilities-the mysterious and the erotic, as well as the inevitable and paradoxical lessons of girlhood-with such illumination that the joyful terrors of adolescence were once again present in me. Abbott's characters, confronted with unaccustomed questions and strange, new difficulties, remind us that the loss of innocence can, if we are fortunate, emerge into a lustrous wisdom." (Susanna Moore, author of In the Cut )

"In Dare Me Megan Abbott guides us into the subculture of athletic and fierce young cheerleaders, who train together, compete, andbond until they form a rugged unit much as Marines form a rugged unit. She finds the nearly sinister underside of everyday events and somehow builds great suspense from ingredients that seem so familiar. Abbott has become expert at revealing truths we thought we knew but didn't, delivered in prose that is by turns elegant and incantatory." (Daniel Woodrell, author of Winter's Bone )

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Hardcover: 304 pages
• Publisher: Reagan Arthur Books; First Edition edition (July 31, 2012)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 9780316097772
• ISBN-13: 978-0316097772
• ASIN: 0316097772
• Product Dimensions: 5.9 x 1 x 8.5 inches
• Shipping Weight: 13.6 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 3.3 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (128 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #57,837 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

MEGAN ABBOTT is the Edgar award-winning author of six novels, including Dare Me, The End of Everything and Bury Me Deep. Her writing has appeared in Detroit Noir, Queens Noir, Phoenix Noir, New York Times and Los Angeles Times Magazine. She is the author of The Street Was Mine: White Masculinity in Hardboiled Fiction and Film Noir and editor of A Hell of a Woman, a female crime fiction anthology. She has been nominated for awards including the Steel Dagger, the LA Times Book Prize and the Pushcart Prize. Currently, she is working on the screenplay for her novel, Dare Me, soon to be a major motion picture.

Born in the Detroit area, she graduated from the University of Michigan with a B.A. in English Literature and went on to receive her Ph.D. in English and American literature from New York University. She lives in Queens, New York City.

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

32 of 35 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars will keep you reading into the night July 31, 2012

By Laura Kay Bolin

Format:Hardcover

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 cheer and begins running more wild than usual. Addy is preoccupied running after Coach. The girls are getting stronger and better at cheer. The coach starts having them over for late night drinking parties. Coach French begins turning her attention to Addy. She begins entrusting her talking to her like she was an adult girlfriend instead of a girl on her cheer squad.

Addy's new bff seems to be Coach French. But we haven't seen the last of Beth. She's been watching and waiting in the wings. Coach French thought she could take away her captain's position on the squad? Beth wants Coach to pay for what she's done.

As the girls prepare for the game of their high school cheer career, there is a suicide. Addy finds herself right in the middle of it all. Entangled in a web of lies.

Dare Me is filled with sex, lies, alcohol, eating disorders and brimming with teenage angst, but that's just the first few chapters!

I have to admit it took me a few pages to connect with first person, Addy. I've read a number of books with a teenage protagonist, but the authenticity of Addy's voice was dead on--I felt like this is how my teenage daughter or her friends would think! Not only did Abbott nail it with the voice, but with Addy's perspective. Addy seems obsessed with her new coach, she wants to replace coach with her best friend Beth.

And Coach! Coach French is an odd one. She seems to be someone who peeked in high school and isn't ready for the grown-up world. The more I read it seemed like her dethroning of Beth had less to do with the squad and was more about replacing herself in Beth's position. She didn't seem coach like, more like one of the girls.

With each page I delved deeper into the dark world of high school. Parents turning a blind eye to what is going on with their kids and the kids being in such a rush to grow up.

Suddenly, the story takes on a dark twist. I actually stopped counting how many times I put the book down in my lap and said, "holy--" yeah, it's that good! I really figured I knew where it was headed, I was wrong. Then I thought something else, yeah wrong again. I no longer knew who or what to believe! I just knew I couldn't stop reading until everything was revealed.

I thought it was an awesome book! Amazing! Loved it! Fresh, different and authentic! I recommend grabbing a glass of wine and get ready for a long night of reading!

33 of 38 people found the following review helpful

2.0 out of 5 stars Just didn't get it August 13, 2012

By melissa

Format:Kindle Edition

Based on the book description alone, I might have waited for the Kindle version of this book to be available at my library. I bought it based on the reviews...and now, I wish I'd waited. I expected a dark, quirky thriller about a cheerleading squad gone haywire. What I got was a story of one cheerleader (Addy) who's spent years as a subservient follower of her cheer captain and "best friend" Beth. Beth is mean, spiteful, and so completely unlikeable that I wanted to light the book (er, Kindle) on fire just to eliminate her from this world. As to why Addy remains so very loyal to her - perhaps that's supposed to be the mystery of the novel. If so, I never figured it out. The other characters, if not necessarily unlikeable, are just uninteresting altogether. The stunning twist of a murder was not twisty and did not stun me. And the writing - I suppose it was good. But. Every chapter, every section within chapters, ended with a seemingly profound statement that I just did not get. And 500 hyphenated adjectives later ("blister-white tennis shoes", "dusty-shouldered geometry teachers and crepy-skinned guidance counselors), it kind of got on my nerves. Really, I just wanted it to end.
I finished it, because it was decent enough that I didn't light my Kindle on fire after all. And I could tolerate it enough to find out how it ended, because, I guess I did want to know how it ended. I'm not saying don't read it. I am saying, wait till you can read it for free.

16 of 17 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars A TAUT PSYCHOLOGICAL THRILLER July 31, 2012

By Gail Cooke HALL OF FAMETOP 500 REVIEWERVINE™ VOICE

Format:Hardcover

Dark, dangerous, innocent, erotic, completely addictive reading as Edgar winner Megan Abbott takes us into the exclusive world of high school cheerleaders. These girls are adolescents, yes, but are told they have the hearts of warriors. Scars and bruises are signs of achievement, and a wanton flip of their skirts signals trouble. For them cheer is not simply an extra curricular activity, it is life As one girl puts it, "God, it must be terrible not to be on cheer. How would you know what to do?"

Beth has been the unchallenged captain of the cheerleaders squad barking orders in a rough voice and ridiculing those who can't comply. Addy, her best friend, has been her lieutenant always following in Beth's wake, never questioning. The girls text each other late into the night bonding, telling secrets and desires.

All of this changes when a new coach, Colette French, arrives. She's in command and going to turn the squad into a regional winner. They'll build up their strength, master stunts they would never have dared - pyramids that send the top girl flying into the air. All the girls save for Beth fall under coach's spell, sharing dreams, experiences, too much wine. Addy is coach's favorite, the one in whom she chooses to confide.

While the squad is being transformed into a top team Beth is on the outside, jealous, vengeful. However, all is not golden as the girls would have it appear - intense rivalries develop, eating disorders plague some, insecurities blossom along with their talent.

Then suddenly just before the important game there is a mysterious death that affects the coach and her girls. Addy finds herself caught between belief, loyalty and conscience.

Abbott has spun one more astute, compelling tale, a taut psychological thriller that reveals the troubled, questing minds of young girls.

- Gail Cooke