You Will Know Me

I am surprised at how much I enjoyed this book. I knew nothing about competitive gymnastics and it was fascinating to read. This was my first book by this author and I loved her narrative style and how she describes everything. It's unusual and compelling. I did not know where this mystery was going but I thoroughly enjoyed the ride and the outcome.

God, I'd forgotten how good Megan Abbott is. She can create suspense and dread that make you feel sick to your stomach. 5 stars.

Gymnastics families protect(and don't protect) their own.
Gillian Flynn-inflected suburban thriller, tore through it.

No. Just no. I keep a running list of books I want to read and Abbott has several entries on it. This book has made me scratch out the other titles. I was physically affected by the endless, relentless, monotonous descriptors and metaphors and adverbs and adjectives - seemingly vomited into the text at random. Scarcely a sentence escapes her 11th grade, look mom and dad, I can write! - I found my calling -writing treatment. In just one novel, how many things can be pink and spattered and meaty and knotted and greasy and shredded and tanned and puckered and rigid and muscled and ponytailed? How many times do we need to discover that Katie's ringtone is Assassin's Tango (we get it, we're not morons!) or how many times do we need to hear that the little gymnasts have powerful legs and perky bottoms and flat chests and taut, glossy ponytails? I just can't with this garbage. And, to top it off, I know that this learned author probably believes and has somehow been reinforced by a smattering of positive reviews, that she has painted a poignant vision of sports parents at the elite level and the endless quest for victory and perfection but, to me, she merely spat out a ridiculous menagerie of characters pockmarked with poorly crafted allusions and allegories and dime-a-dozen descriptions. It added nothing to my reading experience except to leave me simmering with disbelief that this passes for anything that should rise above mass market paperback fame. I hated all of these characters, knew the entire story about 50 pages in and all the “twists” it would take, and just wanted to finish it so I could wallow in it like you do with a movie that is laughably terrible - simply so you can mock it afterward. I hate that this type of schlock can be passed for anything other than a teenage writer's illformed homework. And, finally, I hate that this somehow misses the public gaze of the perpetually offended, as Abbott has managed to pigeonhole her female characters into such offensive caricatures of women and girls that she should honestly have trouble sleeping. I wish scrutinizing eyes would examine this mess and let this author know just what a disaster she has constructed.

Domesticity entangled with the banality of evil. Which is more important, the greater good of the group, or the ethical right? The mores of rich suburbia or justice? Protecting a minor or protecting an even younger minor? When the story starts, you as the reader don't even realize there is a spider's web; by the end, everyone's ensnared...and poisoned by the spider. But you're left pondering who the real spider is.

It was a challenge not to stay up all night finishing this book - I guessed some plot points fairly early on, but Abbott's writing is so compelling I wanted to keep reading to see whether I was right and how things played out. I had a hard time getting into Dare Me, but this was amazing and strangely frightening.