The Cheerleading Book: The Young Athlete's Guide

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The thought of getting older is something that scares the bejesus out of me every day I look in the mirror and see a new gray hair or small wrinkle, but there is noooooo amount of money in the world that would make me want to be a teenage girl in today's society. Girls have found all sorts of new ways to be vicious to one another, high schools have become war zones, and the pressure to be thin, beautiful, and perfect, has surpassed anything I could have imagined as a teenager. Yes the author throws in some typical high school speech {see beyotch etc.} to show the readers that she's down with the lingo, but the majority of the dialogue between the characters was ridiculous. People do not speak like that. "The suns down and the moons pretty," she says, her voice hushed. "It's time to ramble." <--- Just one inane description.

Sure, there are a few awesome quotes and dramatic monologues in the book, but I can’t get past these phrases. Especially when they’re used to describe body parts. I don’t like body part metaphors. They’re uncomfortable and awkward and generally very strange and inaccurate. Dare Me is cheerleading and mean girls who defy their parents and do underage drinking and drugs. I just have little tolerance for characters intentionally bringing trouble upon themselves or purposely do dumb things. Therefore, Beth is my least favorite character. At first I like Addy but later I don't because she's mean too. The Coach thinks their parents don't care for them but it's not true because Addy's dad cared when Addy said he waited up for her. Coach is no better complaining about how the girls' parents don't care and it's her job to care but she served them alcohol when they're together. The crime and suspense is good. I like not knowing who to trust and how little by little it all comes out. Basically that's it. Oh and a suicide thrown in for good measure. And a hint of pseudo lesbianism thrown about which doesn't even materialize into anything, but constantly lingers.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. I'm a graduate in exercise science so the attention given to their bodies and movements really captivated me. I haven't seen that in a lot of texts like this and Abbott portrays it very well. Beth Cassidy and Addy Hanlon have been best friends since childhood. Beth is the tough-as-nails, natural born leader and Addy is her able lieutenant. They are both tanned and beautiful and are the stars of their high school's cheerleader squad.

I don’t understand this. The girls are supposed to wear their glitter as an exterior and a mask, as said in the beginning. But then apparently their insides are hardened by glitter too? The girls run through their best routines for their new coach. She asks them what else they've got. In a demonstration of her aloofness and nerve, Coach grabs the baby fat of one of the other cheerleaders at the waist in front of everyone and commands,"Fix it." She makes the squad run bleacher sprints, but rather than alienate her pupils, motivates them to earn her respect. Offering Addy a ride home from school, Coach remarks, "The days of funyans for lunch and tanning beds--they're over, girl." She calls a special meeting to announce that the squad doesn't need a designated captain. All eyes go to Beth, who gives no reaction. Meanwhile, the others are enamored by Coach. This is the story of cheerleaders and best friends, Addy Hanson and Beth Cassidy. Beth has always been the Captain, and Addy, her lieutenant. Together, they are fierce! Beth has always been as cold as ICE and no one crosses her and no one can get to her, no one except Addy. Then everything changes for Beth, as Addy begins looking up to the new Coach, Ms. Colette French, and not Beth. Tempers rise between everyone involved and the games begin (and I don't mean football games). To make matters worse, something goes awry for Addy and for Coach and its something bad with a capital B. Many secrets are kept and Beth is the middle of all of it and is loving every single second of it - because Beth is bad with a capital B, too. One of the legal liabilities of any sport and certainly any sports injury lawsuit involves the failure to warn the participants in the activity of the dangers of their participation. There seems to be little doubt that cheerleaders, especially young cheerleaders, and their parents are not sufficiently aware of the dangers they are being exposed to by participation in the sport of cheerleading. While we are not in favor of the sometimes recommended scare tactic methods of warning athletes of dangers (don’t create self-fulfilling prophecy psychology), there is no doubt that cheerleaders would be safer if they understood that safety practices are never to be bypassed.I’m going to be honest, that quote there is good. It’s amazing, actually. There are so many parts of the book (as far as I read it/listened to it) that could have been this good if they’d actually made sense. Take this quote for example: I can't even go far enough in this book to find out the premise. I do not even care. This is god awful. This is the worst kind of writing ( edit: FINE. THE WORST KIND to me. I suppose you're allowed to like it). So many analogies that don't actually even MEAN ANYTHING. You can't just... say things... and call it writing. DARE ME is narrated by 16-year-old Adelaine (Addy)- who at the start of the story is best "frenemies" and lieutenant to Beth- the manipulative and emotionally abusive captain of their school's cheerleading squad- until the arrival of an attractive and exciting new coach- Colette French. As Beth starts losing control of Addy and the rest of her team- coach becomes "the enemy" who must be destroyed. It’s not just this one girl. Almost all of the girls on the squad are pulled into this. They stop eating, exercise for hours, make themselves tiny. One of them is described as a “pale eyelash of a girl” (more body part metaphors!) which is… Al final me he quedado como diciendo: jo, qué rabia. La verdad es que era una novela destinada a gustarme por varios elementos, pero que finalmente por varios motivos siento que se queda algo desinflada. Es como que no termina de darme todo lo que podría, aunque es verdad que hay cosas que jamás habría pensado en la historia, pero no sé...

None of us expected it to be as big as it was,” says Aldama, following the release of season two, which shot straight to the top of Netflix charts last week. “We thought maybe the cheer community would watch it. We went from zero to 100 really fast.” But, just like anything else, there is always the possibility of a dark side lurking just beneath the surface. Sad,ugly characters doing sad,ugly things to one another. This is supposed to be what is in the heart and mind of the all-American girl? I'm not buying that.

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Now we are learning the pyramid isn't about girls climbing on top of one another and staying still. It's about breathing something to life. Together. Each of us a singular organ feeding the other organs, creating something larger. We are learning that our bodies are our own and they are the squads and that is all. We are learning that we are the only people in the world when we are on the floor. We will wear our smiles tight and meaningless, but inside, all we care for is stunt. Stunt is all." Dare me es una novela llena de misterio y trucos psicológicos. Beth, Addy o Colette son personajes llenos de luces y sombras que no sabes por dónde van a salir. Son muy humanos en su forma de hablar y de comportarse. Es, probablemente, una de las novelas que mejor muestra la parte de la envidia y los celos de las personas. Creo que la autora tiene un don para los diálogos o para escribir las interacciones entre personas -y más si son enemigas. En ese sentido, el libro es bastante realista. Wow. I've said it before but Megan Abbott makes the politics of teenage girls look as brutal as the Game of Thrones. 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.