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A review by skcoe
Give Me Your Hand by Megan Abbott
3.0
“Because the bad things you do become part of you, literally. This is no metaphor. They become part of you on a cellular level, in the blood.”
I came away from this book wishing it had a clearer final message it wanted to impart. I liked a lot of it, from the allegory of those with less having to try harder to compete against those with more, the PMDD narrative centre, and the focus on the struggles specifically built in to womanhood. What i wished for more was these things to connect to our central relationship, and for the relationship between our main character and her high school friend to be further fleshed out and even have more resolve. I also wished for more chapters set in the past, and more of a/the friendship between Kit and Diane. I loved the way their stories intertwined and I simply wanted more. But altogether it was a good story that surprised me in places and i liked it well enough.
The above quote stuck out to me, especially coming back to it after the final pages. This, i feel, despite the misogyny in science, class struggles/differences, and PMDD focus, is what the book wanted to say: sometimes the bad things are bad things, no matter the surrounds.
I came away from this book wishing it had a clearer final message it wanted to impart. I liked a lot of it, from the allegory of those with less having to try harder to compete against those with more, the PMDD narrative centre, and the focus on the struggles specifically built in to womanhood. What i wished for more was these things to connect to our central relationship, and for the relationship between our main character and her high school friend to be further fleshed out and even have more resolve. I also wished for more chapters set in the past, and more of a/the friendship between Kit and Diane. I loved the way their stories intertwined and I simply wanted more. But altogether it was a good story that surprised me in places and i liked it well enough.
The above quote stuck out to me, especially coming back to it after the final pages. This, i feel, despite the misogyny in science, class struggles/differences, and PMDD focus, is what the book wanted to say: sometimes the bad things are bad things, no matter the surrounds.