Dare Me: A Novel

I'd read The Fever and The End Of Everything last year and really enjoyed them, so I was really looking forward to finally getting to read Dare Me. And now that I have, I think out of those three books, Dare Me was the one that gripped me the most.

Like The Fever and The End Of Everything, Dare Me is also a gritty look into the lives of teenage girls. And like I've said in each of my past reviews of Megan Abbott's books, she is one of the best at capturing the essence of what it's like to be a teenage girl - which, honestly, can be terrifying at times. I don't think the average teenage girl is quite as dark as many of Abbott's characters have been, but even still, don't tell me you've never come close to it at some point, or that you can't relate even in the slightest, even just in thought, because I know I certainly can.

When it came to the characters and who they were and what they did, I loved the dynamic of the cheerleading squad having been so prominent in the story. Meaning, I liked actually reading about what goes on at their practices, the things they have to do in order to get their bodies to do what their minds initially tell them is impossible, rather than just knowing they were cheerleaders and that being that. And I especially liked the different side of cheer that was portrayed in the book than what's usually shown in various forms of media - which is that of the typical dim-witted, bubblegum-smacking popular girly girls. Instead, the girls in Dare Me were angsty, strong-bodied, truly hard-working and talented girls with all sorts of angles to their loaded personalities. They may have been cheerleaders, but 'cheery' is hardly how I'd describe any of them.

The writing is lyrical and prose-y, and has a noticeably visual aspect to it. I'm a very visual thinker and, as a film geek at heart, I read and process my books in a very cinematic sort of way. So for me, Megan Abbott's unique way of writing works well and I find her style of metaphors to be quite brilliant... though I know it's not to everyone's taste. So do keep that in mind if you prefer straight forward writing rather than the sort of writing that comes across as what your inner dialogue would sound like if our brains only functioned in poetry.

As for the heart of the story, it's not especially twist-y (as you might be led to believe from the book's description blurb), but it is really ominous and juicy, and it gets your pulse pounding as you try to get closer to the reveals of how everything will end up playing out. It completely gripped me, just like I hoped it would, and was really hard for me to put down.