Thursday, September 1, 2016

You Will Know Me by Megan Abbott- Book Review

I always like to be honest with you, my reader, so allow me to be honest for a moment. I had requested this as a galley* about two months before it was published, but didn't hear anything. I wound up buying the hardcover, but had it sitting on the shelf. I saw it went on sale as an ebook for $1.99 for two weeks a few weeks after it was published and I gulped a bit as that isn't usually a good sign, especially for an accomplished writer. The book sat on my shelf longer. A few days ago, I was approved for the galley and I figured- what do I have to lose? So, I started reading the book with a chip on my shoulder. I couldn't keep the characters straight, I don't really watch gymnastics, and I figured it was an older woman cheats with younger guy story and there are so many of those. So, I almost quit You Will Know Me by Megan Abbott. I am also glad to say I am so glad I didn't quit because by the last few chapters, I couldn't put it down!

Devon is a gymnastics prodigy. After a lawnmower accident as a baby, the thought was even though she enjoyed gymnastics, she would never compete because she had lost two toes. It turned out she was a natural and coaches took notice. One coach had a plan- to get Devon to the Olympics. Katie, her mother, and Eric, her father were on board and sacrificed so much for Devon to make it to qualifiers. After a mishap on one of the qualifiers, the decision was to build the best gym ever. This is when a boy walked into the picture.

I will end there with the addition- this isn't what you think, but this is a murder mystery and a good one at that.

As stated earlier, this one took me quite a bit to get into as it seemed to want to go down one path and it was a path that had been traveled so many times. Abbott though is a good storyteller. For example, I felt a party scene took too long to explain in the beginning of the story. This party scene will come into play in someway throughout the book, so it wound up not being a wasted scene as I thought. It was a great story teller telling a story with a slow build up.

While the main characters are pretty well developed, some of the more minor character who play a main part aren't too well constructed which helped take away a bit and led a bit to my beginning confusion, but as they start to fall away and move back to the background, the story really takes off. This wound up being a very fun and page turning read. Pick this one up and don't let it disappear off of your radar.

I gave this one 4 stars.

Here is your Amazon link- You Will Know Me by Megan Abbott

*I want to thank NetGalley and Little, Brown and Company for a copy of this book. I received it for free in exchange for an honest review.

No comments:

Post a Comment

Note: Only a member of this blog may post a comment.