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A review by lauraborkpower
Dare Me by Megan Abbott
5.0
It is with this book that I have fallen in literary love with Megan Abbott.
I read The Fever a couple months ago and enjoyed it (thanks for the recommendation, Katy); so I snapped this up in late July when I saw it at a used book store. It was the one book by Abbott that I knew I definitely wanted to read. It's about cheerleaders, after all.
And it's so good. There is something kind of Chuck Palahniuk about the style: its first person present tense narration, its terse, poetic brutality. But Abbott's characters are much more sympathetic (and well drawn) than Palahniuk's ever are, and she paints this world, these girls, with photorealistic brushstrokes.
Addy's narration:
"Oh, to see her fall is to see how everything can fall" (94).
"Slouched against the doorframe, she's eating wrinkly raisins from a small baggie, which is just the kind of thing those kinds of girls are always doing" (245).
And Beth's battle cries:
"'You know who the stars are? We are. Why? Because we don't throw around a fucking rubber ball. You know what we throw around? Live girls. Do you know who flies? We do. You know what we hurl to the rafters? Each other'" (259).
And there's so much more. Abbott gives us so much. She is so much. Once the library is open after Labor Day, my Megan Abbott binge begins.
I read The Fever a couple months ago and enjoyed it (thanks for the recommendation, Katy); so I snapped this up in late July when I saw it at a used book store. It was the one book by Abbott that I knew I definitely wanted to read. It's about cheerleaders, after all.
And it's so good. There is something kind of Chuck Palahniuk about the style: its first person present tense narration, its terse, poetic brutality. But Abbott's characters are much more sympathetic (and well drawn) than Palahniuk's ever are, and she paints this world, these girls, with photorealistic brushstrokes.
Addy's narration:
"Oh, to see her fall is to see how everything can fall" (94).
"Slouched against the doorframe, she's eating wrinkly raisins from a small baggie, which is just the kind of thing those kinds of girls are always doing" (245).
And Beth's battle cries:
"'You know who the stars are? We are. Why? Because we don't throw around a fucking rubber ball. You know what we throw around? Live girls. Do you know who flies? We do. You know what we hurl to the rafters? Each other'" (259).
And there's so much more. Abbott gives us so much. She is so much. Once the library is open after Labor Day, my Megan Abbott binge begins.