This is cheerleading as blood sport, Bring It On meets Fight Club-just try putting it down. Living in an insular world where adults, boys, and other students are largely nonentities, they’re glib about the abuse done to their bodies and psyches, living only for halftime. Much of the novel’s power comes from the way Abbott captures the fierce urgency of the teenagers’ emotional lives. As the cheerleaders train for the final game like Spartan warriors with eating disorders, there is a death, there is a mystery, and its unravelings seem to implicate everyone. Addy’s in, Beth is out, but Addy’s in for more than she bargained, and Beth, an unforgettable villain, lashes back with stunning ferocity. Narrator Addy Hanlon is lieutenant to ruthless cheer-captain Beth Cassidy, and together they rule their high-school cheerleading squad until the arrival of Coach French, who coolly upends the power structure while letting the girls drink at her house.
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.The full range of human experience-from joy, love, and lust to greed, betrayal, and despair-can be expressed in any activity, so why not cheerleading? In this terrific novel, Abbott (an Edgar winner for Queenpin, 2007) takes a plot that seems torn from the headlines and transforms it into Shakespearean tragedy with friendship bracelets. The raw passions of girlhood are brought to life in this taut, unflinching exploration of friendship, ambition, and power. 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. Then a suicide focuses a police investigation on Coach and her squad. 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. Now they're seniors who rule the intensely competitive cheer squad, feared and followed by the other girls - until the young new coach arrives.Ĭool and commanding, an emissary from the adult world just beyond their reach, Coach Colette French draws Addy and the other cheerleaders into her life. 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. Set in a high-school cheerleading squad.Tense, dark, and beautifully written."Īddy Hanlon has always been Beth Cassidy's best friend and trusted lieutenant. The searing novel of friendship and betrayal that inspired the USA Network series, praised by Gillian. : the searing novel of friendship and betrayal that inspired the USA Network series, praised by Gillian Flynn as " Buy a cheap copy of Dare Me book by Megan Abbott.
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