The Ultimate Guide to Cheerleading

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Also because the show is R-rated and my mom would never let me watch it. And anyway it was cancelled. To say I was "hooked" was an understatement. I was landed, gaffed and dressed like the marlin in The Old Man and the Sea. I have SHIT TO DO and now I'm going to spend the entire evening reading about noir cheerleaders. Damn you, Megan Abbott.

Megan Abbott is the Edgar®-winning author of the novels Die a Little, Queenpin, The Song Is You, Bury Me Deep, The End of Everything, Dare Me, The Fever, You Will Know Me and Give Me Your Hand. 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. For those of us who lived outside of the exclusive world of cheerleading, it seemed almost like a secret society. The girls are always popular, always attractive. They are perky and enthusiastic, and of course they can perform all those death defying stunts. So I start with the egg whites and the almonds and the spinach, like wilting lily pads between my teeth. It’s so boring, like not eating at all because you don’t feel the sweet grit on your tongue all day and night, singing on the edge of your teeth.

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This is NOT the Rah Rah cheerleading I remember from my high school, and DARE ME is NOT the YA reading I was doing in my teenage years. I am not a parent- if I was I would cringe a little if I saw this book on my teenager's night stand- but as an adult I loved it. It has been billed as Fight Club for girls...but it reminded me more of Heathers meets Bring It On. The characters started out decently, at least in concept, but I really had no connection to any of them. Even Addy, who is the freaking narrator, was an enigma wrapped in a mystery. As Beth points out at one point, Addy doesn't even know herself. And, lest you get confused, I don't mean that in a good, "Who am I?" YA thematic way. I mean, literally, Addy has no clue who the hell she is, why she's doing any of the things she gets involved in, why she likes anyone at all in the book (when they're all so unlikeable) or basically why she's even alive at this point. En cuanto al tema de misterio, por ejemplo, sí que ha estado mejor llevado de lo que me parecía en un principio. A partir de la mitad el libro mejora, y el último tercio me ha sorprendido gratamente. Eso sí: tampoco nada del otro mundo. Es lo que me jode, porque el libro tiene muy buen potencial, pero creo que se tomaron ciertas decisiones a la hora de escribirlo que le afectan negativamente. First things first. I went into this with a critical eye because I was a competition cheerleader for years. When Abbott first describes the girls, she basically says they do nothing but shake their asses. Yet, magically, after a few weeks with Coach, they are an award-caliber team who can stunt on an expert level. Yeah, that doesn't happen.

This book focused on cheerleading which reminds me of the cheerleading movie called Bring It On. At first the story is fast paced and then there were weird vibes with Addy and her thoughts/conversations on/with Beth, Sarge, Coach, and Casey. This story seems to be about friendship but somehow the relationship is tumultuous. I do like the puzzles Addy was to solve: the lies and the sprinkles of information from Matt. Into a volatile balance of power comes new Head Coach Collette French. Loyalties shift, boundaries are tested, trusts will be broken and amidst all the angst and perpetual drama, a body will be discovered. For Ms. Abbott isn't just writing cheerleaders, she's writing noir cheerleaders, with a rich cast of characters each vying for the role of femme fatale. Tugging the rubber from his tire, her fingernails ripped red, she looked up at me, grinning wide, front-teeth gapped and wild heroic. This is a fiendishly entertaining, very clever, and uncomfortably realistic novel. The dangerous machinations and power struggles between these teenage girls almost eclipse the murder mystery and is a constant diversion, blinding you to even more sinister developments. By the end of the book I was on the edge of my seat!

Customer reviews

Set during a present day of text messaging and social media in a city with no name that could be any city, the lurid, tightly executed tale is the first-person account of Adelaine Hanlon, "Addy," a sixteen-year-old cheerleader, the lieutenant of sorts to the squad captain, her friend since second grade and peewee cheer, Beth Cassidy. All others both on the squad and in their world bow to Beth's will, until the day their new coach Collette French arrives at practice. Inspiring a barrage of texts between Emily, RiRi and the others-- how old u think? looka the whistle, WTF--Coach carries herself like a drill sergeant and is not at all impressed with the attitude or accomplishments of the squad. There's something I wanted to talk about in terms of queerness in this book. In Dare Me, relationships between men and women are a weapon, used for power and for sex. The only relationships that do not revolve around sex are those between women: Addy and Coach, and Addy and Beth. Yet both of these relationships are influenced by attraction, from the one-sided attraction between Addy and Coach to the two-sided attraction between Addy and Beth. It is simply that these are the only relationships into which the characters pour real emotion and genuine love.