Bring It On in a Blue Velvet world
Megan Abbott’s Dare Me is Bring It On in a Blue Velvet world. Abbott describes a Lynchian speed-and-sex-fueled, rotten-to-the-core suburbia full of maniacally uncheerful high school cheerleaders whose only goals in life are to beat the other team after beating up on each other. Anorexia and sociopathy are as common as beauty products – and given that “it takes a half hour under the showerhead to get all the hairspray out,” that’s saying something.
Dare Me focuses on perennial squad captain – and all-around mean girl – Beth Cassidy, and her vaguely less intimidating sidekick Addy Hanlon. With the introduction Colette French, the new head coach and the first to see Addy’s potential, the years-old balance of power between friends tilts, unleashing a torrent of obsessive and violent behavior by Beth, who keeps a pin-up of a Japanese Zero pilot in her locker where most teenage girls might keep the latest Tiger Beat heartthrob.
Abbott’s meticulously plotted story and turns of phrase will come as no surprise to those fans who followed her to Dare Me from her previous notable work in thrillers (especially the Barry and Poe award-winning Queenpin), though this latest novel is a genre-crossing portrait of modern suburban depravity. Cheerleaders have always been ripe for satire, but Abbott has painted Beth with the darkest of brushes. The girl has the kind of icy personality that’d make Cujo run away with his tail between his legs.