A life-changing secret destroys an unlikely friendship in this “magnetic” psychological thriller from the Edgar Award-winning author of Dare Me (Meg Wolitzer). You told each other everything. Then she told you too much. Kit has risen to the top of her profession and is on the brink of achieving everything she wanted. She hasn’t let anything stop her. But now someone else is standing in her … her.
But now someone else is standing in her way: Diane. Best friends at seventeen, their shared ambition made them inseparable. Until the day Diane told Kit her secret — the worst thing she’d ever done, the worst thing Kit could imagine — and it blew their friendship apart.
Kit is still the only person who knows what Diane did. And now Diane knows something about Kit that could destroy everything she’s worked so hard for.
How far would Kit go to make the hard work, the sacrifice, worth it in the end? What wouldn’t she give up? Diane thinks Kit is just like her. Maybe she’s right. Ambition: it’s in the blood . . .
Shortlisted for the CWA Ian Fleming Steel Dagger Award
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This is Megan Abbott at her very best. Cool, crisp, chilling.
She is an investigator of the human heart and mind, and “Give Me Your Hand” is a fine addition to her body of work — one that should cement her position as one of the most intelligent and daring novelists working in the crime genre today.
Give me your hand by Megan Abbott, psychological thriller, weaves an intricate pattern with the past and present twisting who you can trust into a complex maze to challenge the sleuth in the reader. Highly recommended.
Not just a page-turner, a page burner. Un-put-downable. Abbott is a master of suspense and chilling characterization, hitting the A+ mark again.
No one writes about female relationships like Megan Abbott. Admittedly, I was not initially as drawn to the world of these two female scientists as I have been to the worlds of Abbott’s previous novels. However, it took only one chapter before any resistance gave way. Her writing alone is enough to make the novel worthwhile — raw and edgy and lyrical all at once. But the plot proved to be twisty and delicious as well. And the whole story is underscored by a pervasive rumination on the science of femaleness, and what (if anything) biology has to do with female darkness and rage.
**Thank you to Little, Brown & Co., Netgalley, and Megan Abbott for an advanced reader copy in exchange for an honest review.**
This was a great book! So many twists and it kept me wondering until the end. It was actually spooky, the connection between the two young women.
In Megan Abbott’s “Give Me Your Hand,” she explores what happens when best friends compete, but only one of them has a grip on reality.
Evil found in comfortable settings.
Women murderesses in fractured storylines.
Manipulated stressors on characters who have a hair trigger bridge to traumatic memories.
In Abbott’s “Give Me Your Hand,” the torture is mind-altering PMS taken to extremes. What’s in the body overtakes the mind and leads to a specialized mania.
Beware of women in killer thriller fiction.
Where happily every after is either a mirage or not on their radar.
4.5 stars
#thriller #women #killerfiction
I enjoyed this book. Well written and interesting story.
If you’ve ever been estranged from a childhood friend or had a toxic coworker, you’ll recognize the characters in this novel. An examination of female ambition , this is the perfect book club book, sure to generate a lot of discussion.
This novel is so complex with its psychological underpinnings. The terrible and destructive dance between the two main characters is at times difficult to endure. But by the end it comes together in a way I did not anticipate. Worth the read.
I found the main characters not likeable so I found it hard to be invested in the story. I did finish the book though. I guess it just wasn’t my cup of tea.
How do you go through life knowing that no matter what you accomplish you’ll always be second best. This is what Kit has dealt with since meeting Diane. Diane is no angel, but has somehow convinced society she is the smartest and most reliable person in science right behind the genius Dr. Severin. However, Diane has a dark secret that only Kit knows. Now when Kit is once again running against Diane in her profession, she has some hard choices to make. This book is one twist after another. I could not put it down!
An Excellent Read… Well written.. chilling…. haunting… I love the craft of this author
AMAZING book, couldn’t put it down! Can’t recommend it enough!
Without fail, Megan Abbott’s books slay me in all the best ways. I think Give Me Your Hand is my new favorite. Balancing the “Now” action of Diane and Kit’s adult lives with the “Then” history of their complicated high school friendship, Abbott’s story is full of the taut suspense, jaw-dropping revelations, feminine anger, and beautifully drawn dread that characterize her excellent work. Absolute must-read.
Good book to get lost in, although the ending was a little unbelievable. Easy read
Megan Abbott has carved out her own niche in contemporary fiction–suspense novels that revolve around complex, competitive friendships among young women–and absolutely owns it, with a distinctive style not just of prose but also of structure and tone; you always know you’re reading a Megan Abbott book. And of those I’ve read, I think GIVE ME YOUR HAND is the best.
DNF at 20% I didn’t even get far enough to feel like I could rate it.
I wanted to love Give Me Your Hand, but there was nothing in it to interest me. I got bored! It was a whole bunch of much ado about nothing, so I told Overdrive to take it back. There’s a surprisingly long list of people waiting for it, so it needs to be in the hands of someone who might appreciate it. Sadly I was not a fan.
On to the next book!
At 1:30 Saturday morning, I finished reading GIVE ME YOUR HAND. It was worth every one of those late minutes!
Kit Owens and Diane Fleming are not your normal teen girls. (I’m not sure if Megan Abbott has written any stories about normal teen girls, come to think of it.) They are good students and they both jog. They push each other to be better runners and they both come to realize that they want to be scientists. Every since the beautiful and mysterious Dr. Severin came to their school to talk about her lab work and what it meant to perform studies and to do research, they both dedicate themselves to their goal. Then Diane shares a dark secret with Kit, one that Kit can’t get out of her mind-one that’s eating her alive. But eventually Kit gets past it and they both graduate and move on with their separate lives.
Fast forward a number of years and Kit has achieved her goal. She works in Dr. Severin’s lab and is vying for an important spot on a team studying PMDD, a horrible offshoot of PMS that causes all kinds of problems for women. She’s almost certain to obtain that rare position-that is until she’s told that Diane Fleming is also vying for the same spot. How will Diane’s return affect Kit? Who will get those valuable positions on Dr. Severin’s team? What about the secret they both share, how will it affect them now that they are together again? You’ll have to read this to find out!
Megan Abbott’s writing is pure gold and this book is no different. Inside the warped minds of teenage girls and then again inside their heads as women, she nails it. Not only that, she unflinchingly depicts what it’s like for women in the mostly man’s world of scientific academia. With fierce competition at hand these men are respectful…until they’re not. As a woman in a mostly man’s world, (just cars, nothing hoity toity like science), I could identify with these women and what they went through. In the end though, a scientific world and some chauvinistic attitudes are only a small part of this twisted tale.
I felt that the pacing of this story was fast and I had a difficult time pulling away from it. Just when I thought I’d read one more chapter something else would happen and I was compelled to read on. This is my favorite Megan Abbott book so far, (though I still have a few to read yet), and it was partially because I’m a super fan of the THEN and NOW format and it worked beautifully here. It helped build the tension and suspense and just kept me going on. And on. And on…until the stunning denouement that floored me. Floored me, I say!
GIVE ME YOUR HAND was an excellent mystery/thriller/suspense novel full of interesting and mysterious characters and it was a BLAST! I highly recommend it!
*Thanks to NetGalley and the publisher for the e-ARC of this book in exchange for my honest feedback. This is it!*
Good entertainment reading. I’m not usually into stories which include murder, but this was handled in an interesting way.