Dare Me by Megan Abbott

Dare Me by Megan Abbott

Publisher: Little Brown & Company, August 2013

Pages: Hardcover, 290 pages

Genre: Young Adult Fiction

Rating: 1.5/5 stars

Summary (from chapters.indigo.ca):

Addy Hanlon has always been Beth Cassidy's best friend and trusted lieutenant. 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. Now they're seniors who rule the intensely competitive cheer squad, feared and followed by the other girls - until the young new coach arrives.

Cool and commanding, an emissary from the adult world just beyond their reach, Coach Colette French draws Addy and the other cheerleaders into her life. 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.

Then a suicide focuses a police investigation on Coach and her squad. 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.

Review:

NOPE! I don't even know where to go with this book. It has been sitting on my shelf for 4 years after having received it for review... I tried to destash it a couple of times but after reading the synopsis, I thought it sounded decent and it was short so what the heck. However, it was horrible!

There was NO plot, NO character development, NO point and it felt like it was a book that was written without a purpose. I couldn't decide if it was trying to be a Mean Girls rip-off or if it wanted to be a murder mystery... I honestly just can't.

Small Great Things by Jodi Picoult

Small Great Things by Jodi Picoult

Publisher: Random House of Canada, October 2016

Genre: Fiction

Pages: Hardcover, 480 pages

Rating: 5/5 stars

Summary (from Chapters.indigo.ca):

A young woman and her husband, admitted to hospital to have a baby, request that their nurse be reassigned - they are white supremacists and don't want Ruth, who is black, to touch their baby.  The hospital complies, but the baby later goes into cardiac distress when Ruth in on duty.  She hesitates before rushing in to perform CPR.  When her indecision ends in tragedy, Ruth finds herself on trail, represented by a white public defender who warns against bringing race into the courtroom.  As the two come to develop a truer understanding of each other's lives, they begin to doubt the beliefs they each hold most dear.

Review:

WOW... another amazing book by Jodi Picoult. I have read every single one of her books and can honestly say that I always walk away feeling like I have learned something new. Her books tackle topics that some authors may shy away from and yet she handles them with such ease that her readers are left with hearts and minds full of new found love for her characters and different social situations.

In Small Great Things, Jodi Picoult tackles the topic of race and discrimination and it's such a relevant thing to talk about given the stories that dominate the news every single day. The story is written so that the readers can see both sides of the story and yet find themselves dealing with the morale issue of what's right. Perhaps you see yourself more in one camp than the other but by the end of the story, you can see the light of both sides.. you understand that the world, for lack of better terms, isn't just black and white.. that there are so many shades of grey in between.

As always, Jodi's novels leave me craving her next story... I highly recommend Small Great Things to anyone but don't stop there, read all of her stories and you will be better for it!