"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."

Acquired via PaperBackSwap. (Unabridged on 8 CDs; read by Khristine Hvam)

Addy is a member of the coveted cheerleading squad at her high school. Her friend Beth, bossy and arrogant, is the self-proclaimed leader & captain of the squad. But Addy has always been a loyal friend, even when they were younger. When a young new cheerleading coach is hired, loyalties are tested and boundaries are pushed. A power struggle erupts between Beth and Coach French. Then someone dies, an apparent suicide. But was it really? And who knows more than they're letting on?

Megan Abbott definitely knows how to write stories about cruel teenage girls and unlikable characters. I found the girls in this novel particularly evil and beastly. Yet I had to keep reading. This was a decent plot and there was enough uncertainty that I was never quite sure who the ultimate bad guy/girl was, mostly because all the characters had the potential to be that person. I did have trouble with the lack of parent and family engagement in this novel. Parental figures were pretty much non-existent, and a lot of what was happening here seemed ultimately unrealistic and farfetched. But like I said, I kept reading because I wanted to know how this story was ultimately going to be resolved. Though there were certainly flaws in this novel, I do think maybe I enjoyed this one more than any of Abbott's other novels (this is my 4th). Having a teenage daughter of my own in this age group, some of the things in this novel unsettled me a bit. I can always count on some teenage drama in my own house, but fortunately, nothing nearly as extreme as what was happening in this novel.

Going into an audio bookbox!

Caught in the audio bookbox.