I received this book free of charge from NetGalley in exchange for my honest review.

This was an interesting book choice for me. The storyline was OK, although I was a bit frustrated with the ending. It was so abrupt. I didn't really care for the characters, and didn't really feel like you ever really got to know Devon. It seemed more about the parents.

Maybe people who are more interested in gymnastics will find this more compelling. Otherwise, I'm not sure if I'd recommend this to others.

“That’s what parenthood was about, wasn’t it? Slowly understanding your child less and less until she wasn’t yours anymore but herself” .
~ Megan Abbott, You Will Know Me

This is the first book that I have ever read by Megan Abbott, but it certainly won’t be my last! I adore a good suspense and mystery, and Abbott did not disappoint. She is a true storyteller! This book is 4.5 stars!

Even though the book is about a murder, it didn’t just focus on the murder. Abbott does a fantastic job of writing about the real-life intricacies of the Knox family who is the book’s focus. Their life revolves completely around their daughter Devon, a gymnastics prodigy, and is almost as fascinating as the murder and finding out who committed it, which admittedly was not too hard to figure out. Yet, unlike other suspense novels where you figure out the murder plot either the book is ruined or becomes boring, that doesn’t happen in You Will Know Me. Not at all! It almost doesn’t matter who committed the murder in the book since the characters, the plot details, the suspense, and the storytelling makes the book more than worth reading.

Kate and Eric Knox are parents of Devon, age 15 who is a gymnastics prodigy with a real chance at making it to the Olympics. They also have a son Drew who is amazingly smart but often neglected more than anyone realizes as his parents put all their focus on helping Devon achieve her (and their own) dreams. Devon is literally in a competitive sport where one injury could ruin her chances at competing, which will ruin her family since they’ve sacrificed everything they have financially and emotionally to help Devon achieve her gymnastic dreams.

Abbot does a fantastic job of writing about the inside world of gymnastics and portraying the pettiness, drama, and meanness, and dark drama exhibited by teenage girls. That itself was almost scarier than the murder! And she really nailed it because that is exactly how cliquey teenage girls can be when jealousy and pettiness are part of the picture.

What I really loved, especially as a mother to teenagers, is how the story is told in the POV of Kate, the mom. She’s almost an outsider looking into her daughter’s life since she’s never dealt with fierce competitiveness in the way Devon has but at the same time, she’s been a teenager and knows what it’s like to face bodily changes and emotional changes: that transition from girl to woman I think all mother’s dread just a little since we want our little girls to stay little—I know I do.

You Will Know Me is a perfectly written story that delivers more than mystery and suspense. It tells a story worth reading with deep subject matter that is very powerful. I’ll never look at competitive gymnastics the same again! Definitely worth reading!

**Thank you NetGalley, Little, Brown and Company, and Megan Abbott for an ARC of You Will Know Me in exchange for my fair and totally honest review.**

You Will Know Me by Megan Abbott

My rating: 4 of 5 stars

When I was younger, I took dance classes. I started ballet when I was three, adding tap and jazz along the way. I participated in recitals and private lessons and even competed. The world of competitive dance was too much for me, and while I did love dancing, I did not love everything that came with it.

As I read, You Will Know Me, I was reminded of that world all over again.

Of course, I was not as focused or determined as Devon was. Nor were my parents as single mindedly dedicated to dancing as hers were. But to say that this book is solely about competitive gymnastics is doing it a disservice.

Yes, the plot is centered around the Knox family. Specifically Devon and her pursuit of making the Olympic Gymnastic team. However, at the heart of this book is an examination of parenthood and marriage. So much so, that we really see this entire world through the eyes of the mother, Katie.

Both being a parent, and being married are complicated endeavors.

Katie and Eric seem to have a solid marriage. One built on compromise and partnership. One where they both juggle to make sure their children's needs are met. After all, training to become an Olympic athlete takes dedication, hard work and single minded focus. From the entire family.

We see how this pursuit unites them against the world. And then we see how it also threatens to unravel them. "It doesn't matter whose dream it is," she said, "Just that it's a dream."

An accident brought gymnastics into their lives. One where maybe guilt and a feeling of responsibility hold the family hostage to the pursuit of this dream. Another accident threatens to unravel everything they've worked towards.

The use of accident in this book is very interesting to me. The accident that sparked gymnastics to be brought into their lives. The accident that shakes their gymnastic community are the most obvious. But while Katie struggles to keep her family together, the memory of the pregnancy and how that was an accident comes up more than once. That accident not only brought Devon into creation, but also cemented her bond to Eric. Moved him to propose and marry her.

Which I think is important to the character of Katie. She never had a dream. Never had goals. Her life sort of happened to her, was thrust upon her in a series of accidents. Things she didn't necessarily choose, yet she now struggles to desperately hold on to.

"Remember that kind of wanting? That kind that's just for yourself? And you don't even have to feel guilty about it?" "Katie nodded and nodded and nodded, because it felt true even if she couldn't name the thing she'd wanted."

She latches onto the dream of marriage, and then the dream of parenthood, and then the dream of Olympic champion. She pursues them and drives towards them, without ever thinking if she really wanted them to begin with. Without understanding what that type of wanting felt like.

That is what threatens Katie at the core. When events begin to unravel the core of her marriage, and threaten to come between her relationship with her daughter, it is not understanding that level of drive and commitment that is hardest for Katie. She cannot understand it, so she cannot understand the decisions made in blind pursuit of it.

"This is what fearlessness looks like, Katie thought. What desire can do."

We get glimpses of Eric and Devon, of what they see and what they feel and what they want. But only through Katie's eyes. We see that she sees them as the same, multiple times, a team united, where she has to fight to be let in. The irony is she often excludes her own son, Drew, in her fight to be seen by Devon and Eric. She has to remind herself that the Knox family is made up of four members, not three. She is jealous of their closeness but it also scares her. Fear of being left out, of being left behind, or being not included.

This book is listed as a murder mystery, and at the heart, we do unravel a mystery. But it is also unraveling the mystery or life. They mystery of parenthood. The mystery of marriage.

"Married a long time, you think there will never be any surprises again, at least not those kinds. But you are wrong."

Megan Abbott shows us that we can hide the truth about those we are closest with. We can be blind to everything but what we want to see. As Katie plunges deeper to solving the murder, the hard truths about her daughter and her husband become almost too much to bear.

But parenting is ferocious, the love you feel for your child primal and urgent. It becomes a matter of protecting them, even if you don't understand them. "After all, who wouldn't do anything for one's child? Especially when that child worked harder and wanted something more than either of them ever had? Who wanted in ways they'd long forgotten how to want or had never known at all?"

The ending to this book felt anticlimactic. We solve the mystery or the murder, but the rest remains unsolved, open and unsatisfying. Maybe that's because we can solve problems. We can figure out who did a crime. But how do we answer the bigger questions of life? What makes a good marriage? What makes a good parent? When is a dream enough?

"She hadn't learned, no one had taught her - Katie and Eric hadn't taught her - that the things you want, you never get them. And if you do, they're not what you thought they'd be. But you'd still do anything to keep them. Because you'd wanted them for so long."

This book won't give you answers to those questions, but it will make you think about them. What lengths would you go for to protect your child? To help them achieve everything they dream of? What would you endure with your spouse? How far would you go for love? What would you forgive?

The answers may surprise you.

I received this book from NetGalley in exchange for an honest and unbiased review.

</i>You Will Know Me</i> is a book about obsession, a phenomenon known to parents all over the world. Katie and Eric Knox have a child who, at an early age, shows great talent for gymnastics. They give all they have and more to making sure the little girl, Devon, has what she needs to succeed. After years of spending all their time, energy, and money into supporting Devon's talent, a coach mentions the 'O' word and then we have a page turner. Devon is a mystery, never showing her emotions. Her mother, Katie, does that for her. We read about the worry and the work. The money it takes is not a small matter. The whole scenario has been played out in many households around the world. Megan Abbott's care and writing craft make this a memorable story.

ARC courtesy of NetGalley and Little, Brown and Company.

I've only read one other Megan Abbott book before this one, but could still instantly recognize her style: tense, crawling dread pervading the lives of otherwise normal people. It is very propulsive to read. This book is a "thriller" in that sense, a kind of mystery-cum-character study told via the tightly-wound character of Katie Knox, mother of a high-achieving teenage gymnast, Devon. It was also interesting to get a glimpse into a world of gymnastics that most people don't know much about (Abbott must have done a ton of research).

Devon, whom the narrative goes to pains to describe as inscrutable and unknowable (hence the ultimate irony of the title), is one of three pivots around which Katie's life revolves. Another is Devon's father, Eric, who is a rather confusing character, and the third is... not their other child, the younger boy who seems to have been plucked out of a different, more supernatural novel. The third pivot is just plain odd. Without spoilers: it's the person in their community who gets killed, and whose death turns the book into a murder mystery. The problem is that I could never quite understand why Katie was so obsessed about this person's death other than "because it's important to the end of the book!" There didn't seem to be any other reason, which was especially disappointing in a book that was otherwise so character-based, and it slightly kicked me out of the story. By the end, I sort of didn't care who the killer was anymore, so the impact of the big reveal was partly lost.

I enjoyed this book, as I did my previous Megan Abbott book. The writing and atmosphere are generally superb. I just don't buy the plot here, and its such a shame because it could have been so great. Two books is not a large sample size, but I'm also detecting a whiff of the formulaic. I will probably read at least one more of Abbott's books before I decide whether her formula does or does not keep working for me.

Parents and teenagers are equally scary. This was creepy and scary. Parents who act like teenagers, teenagers who think they are grown ups. The secret lives of gymnastics is intriguing. This book is about what goes on behind the glamour of the gymnastics on TV.

You Will Know Me fits into the last few Megan Abbott books centered on the heightened world of teenage girls (see Dare Me, The Fever, and The End of Everything). You Will Know Me is the story of Devon, a gymnast on the cusp of qualifying for elite status and trying out for the Olympics, her parents Eric and Katie, and the death of a guy connected to her gymnastics gym. At first I thought it would be a story more about gymnastics and the level of obsessiveness required to compete at an extremely high level, but it turns into a mystery about the death of Ryan, the boyfriend of a gymnastics coach at Devon's gym. The book starts as a book obsessed with young gymnast's bodies and ends up being a story about the secret inner lives of not only of Devon but of her entire family. And just a note about the title: by the end I realized while I knew more about Devon and her family, there was still a great deal I did not.

The mystery didn't really grab me because my suspicions about what happened were pretty accurate. What was most gripping for me was the sadness of Katie and Eric's lives. They were pretty desperate for Devon to succeed, and as the story went on the details of their lives supporting Devon's training seemed overwhelming to me. And their ignoring their younger son felt extra sad by the end as well. All in all, this is a pretty moody book that didn't really take off as a mystery for me though it was an enjoyable read.

I was interested in reading this novel about a family involved in gymnastics. My daughter did gymnastics and was a level 10 when she decided she wanted to quit to do high school sports. While there is a HUGE difference between a level 10 and a Senior Elite, or even a Junior Elite status, I could relate to some of the craziness in their lives and also the life that gymnastics takes for the entire family. You spend so much time with these people at the gym, they become your family, your friends, your confidants, and I can imagine that is even more true with the Elite level.

The story held my interest and kept me guessing, even though I was pretty sure I had figured it out early, there were enough unanswered questions to keep me guessing.

Over the years, I’ve heard a lot of amazing things about Megan Abbott’s books. I’ve heard that she’s extremely talented at writing women and their relationships with each other. Due to these recommendations, I had high expectations for You Will Know Me. While I enjoyed the novel a lot, I found myself a little underwhelmed with some of it.

I’ve always had a soft spot for books about gymnastics or dance. There’s something about sports competing against other women that cause really dynamic, interesting relationships to write about. This novel was full of those strange interactions, and I have to agree that Megan Abbott has an innate talent for getting to the heart of characters and their motivations. She’s able to get into the heads of each of her characters and having them respond to situations and process emotions in a really complex, yet genuine way. While I didn’t like any of her characters as people, I understood them and saw what made them the way they were. I really thought the characterization was spectacular.

The part that left me underwhelmed was the plot. I knew the resolution to the mystery aspect pretty quickly, and I could see all the red herrings as well. I know that the point of this book isn’t really about what happened with the death, but how everyone got to that point, but it still bugged me. I wanted more from the plot, I wanted there to be more to the story. I wanted something original, and I didn’t get that with this book.

Since Megan Abbott’s writing is so beautiful and poetic, and her characterization so raw and intense, I know I’ll be reading her other works. For the most part, I really enjoyed this novel, and I recommend it to those who want a book with great characters and sharp writing.

I liked this book but it was so predictable! I was hoping for a nice twist at the end. The ending was strange and not what I believed should have happened.

This was a bit of a struggle for me Mostly the characters were unlikable and I thought the mystery was too drawn out.

Boring. I couldn't finish it. Didn't care about the characters and it was too slow moving.

I received this book for free, Via Netgalley, in exchange of an honest review**

I have never read ANY Megan Abbott books, so I went into this book, totally blind. And wow was that the right thing to do. I was blown away by the darkness of something so fun and thrilling to watch on t.v.

I think the author did a great job, of showing us that people can go to dark places to get things they want and think they deserve. It's kind of mind blowing.

You Will Know Me is the newest offering from novelist Megan Abbott of whom I am quickly becoming a big fan. Abbott hops between genres so effortlessly and often within the same book that you are never really sure what kind of book you are getting at first reading. Except that it will be good, it will keep you up at night, it will make your heart pound and it will leave you both excited and disturbed. With You Will Know Me, Megan Abbott shows she is at the top of her game.

"...Mrs. Knox,' the voice was brittle and low and she didn't recognize it. She wasn't even sure if it was male or female. 'Why won't your daughter talk to me?'
'Who is this?'
'You can tell her for me that I know everything.'
'Hailey,' Katie said, just realizing it. 'Hailey, what are you-'
'You can tell her I'm watching her. I know all about her. She can't hide from me.'
'Hey calm down,' Katie said, trying to keep in mind what Tina had said about her niece, all the medication.
'I won't calm down,' she said, that surly tone, clenched jaw. 'People have been telling me my whole life to calm down.'
'Hailey, you're going through a lot right now.'
'I am, Mrs. Knox. I'm going through a lot, and thanks to that stunted little freak daughter of yours, that little monkey-'
A lurch in her chest, her voice rising. 'Don't you dare talk about-'
'I thought you were my friend.' Her voice hard, hammering. 'I thought you were a decent person. Maybe you are. But I'm telling you this: you have no clue about that thing under your roof.'
'Jesus, Hailey, what do you-'
'Your daughter's a fucking animal..."

A gardening accident disfigures the foot of Katie and Eric Knox's young daughter Devon. Looking for an outlet for her energy they try different activities when Devon decides she wants to try gymnastics. To their amazement, their daughter is terrific at the sport and now at the age of fifteen, Devon Knox is considered a prodigy and Olympic hopeful. Their gym and small town rally around Devon as she pursues her dream. But mere weeks before the final competitions, a violent death rocks their small community. Now Katie must fight to hold her family together and keep Devon focused on her goal. But Katie is drawn in to the mystery of the death of the young boy they all knew.

As she begins to unravel the secrets at the center of the mystery, Katie realizes that she may not know her husband, her friends and even her own child as well as she thought she did. Katie Knox realizes she must come to terms with what she is willing to live with to help her daughter Devon achieve her dream.

Megan Abbott writes thrillers. Some of sexual, some are violent, some are eerily suspenseful. But all have a pace that takes the reader by the throat and doesn't let them breathe until they are done. You Will Know Me is the kind of book you read in one sitting and if you don't, you are hoping your day passes you by quick enough so you can get back to it as quick as you can. It is that good and Megan Abbott is just that damn good.

There is a moment here, in the book, an epiphany of sorts when the truth is revealed that the reader as well as Katie, wants to slip back into denial. Then comes the real question, the mystery behind the mystery, how much is the truth worth? If you have sacrificed your family and your life for a dream, are you willing to sacrifice the dream and all your hard work, for the truth? And there, like a stiletto between the ribs, slips in the blade.

Very well done.

This is my first book by this author Megan Abbott so I didnt know what to expect. She is usually pretty low on Goodreads so I never felt compelled to seek her out. This book to me meant a lot because I am the Mom of 2 preteen girls and letting go is so hard. I really understood the Mom. Hopefully I learned a thing or two.

Perfectly paced without a dull or explosive moment. A slow creeping of plot building & intensity.

Posted Jan 23, 2017

Interesting characters and story line but some unbelievable twists and character development. These are not people you would want to know so if you like reading about the type of people who offer no inspiration or optimism, you may like it. Definitely a look at the world of young gymnasts that is far from flattering, but probably fairly accurate in the intensity.

Megan Abbott was recommended to me as an author by a friend. I saw that You Will Know Me was available for review on NetGalley so I figured I would check it out. I really liked Megan's writing style although some of the 'twists' in the book I found to be quite predictable. I also thought it was a bit weird about how she told us the major event that was going to happen very early on and then at times seemed to work backwards from it.

I've seen a lot of questions asking if this book is a Young Adult book. While the main character is a teen named Devon, I think this is more of an adult book. I want to say more about this book but I also don't want to give too much away so I am struggling. But I will say the book revolves around Devon who is a gymnast and her family which have given up everything to support her in her hopes of going to the Olympics. Through the gym they meet a guy and it is his death that ends up being the main piece of the rest of the book where you see how everyone in the community deals with the news and the investigation.

I didn't feel like the book had a really good ending either. It just kind of ended without a lot of closure. But it didn't put me off enough to not consider reading other Abbott books that may end up available.

I received a free e-copy of this book in order to write this review. I was not otherwise compensated.

I was really interested in reading this book after hearing great things about it from one of the Book Riot podcasts, so was psyched to get my hands on it!
Excellent book, compelling story - I literally couldn't put it down and stayed up past my bedtime :)