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From the award-winning author of The Fever and Dare Me,Megan Abbott presents a gripping, edgy, domestic, psychological "noir" suspense, YOU WILL KNOW ME, a fragile family on the brink of obsession, desire, and despair.
Katie and Eric Knox have dedicated their lives to their fifteen-year-old daughter Devon, a gymnastics prodigy and Olympic hopeful.
But when a violent death rocks their close-knit gymnastics community just weeks before an all-important competition, everything the Knox’s have worked so hard for feels suddenly at risk. Everything resolves around one talented girl.
Fifteen-year old Devon Knox is a gymnast with dreams of the Olympics, and the parents are obsessed, rigid, and structured- with achieving this goal, to the point of giving up almost everything- sacrifices; time, practices, to the expense of equipment, credit card debt, and even second mortgaging their home.
When Devon was three-years- old, she lost two toes and a piece of her foot in a freak lawn mower accident. Parents driven by guilt, and a young girl, driven by a deep-seated need to overcome her deformity, she scores one gymnastics triumph after another.
Katie and Eric, parents and little brother Drew's world revolves around Devon. Drew is always in the background, neglected (but observant). How far will you go to achieve a dream?
The town, community, parents, and the coach rely on the star gymnast to attract business, and the Olympic hopeful under their nose. The coach devotes all his time and energy to Devon.
But when tragedy strikes and the local BelStars gym, charismatic Teddy Belfour ‘s (Coach T) niece, Hailey, learns her boyfriend, Ryan, is dead in a hit-and-run; only a couple of months before Elite Qualifiers—everyone begins to unravel. Will the death threaten Devon’s gold medal?
Devon, can't afford any missteps. Her success relies on structure, and Eric promises he’ll do anything to keep Devon on track. When Hailey starts threatening Devon and the Knox’s observant son, Drew, starts talking about things he hears - the whole family, Katie in particular begins to wonder who really killed Ryan? What is one capable of?
The hit-and-run death of Ryan Beck, a young man dating the coach's niece, threatens the community, as jealousies and secrets emerge. A time bomb ready to explode.
In the meantime, Katie (mainly told from her POV), begins to look closely at her family. Is it what she thought it was? From jealousy, ambition, to desire. A crumbling world, as similar our world today – from financial, power, sports, and politics.
As Katie puts the pieces together of what has been really going on behind her back, Drew fills in the missing pieces in a shocking conclusion to how far will you go to protect your family. When the family itself, is more of a mystery to be unraveled, versus the actual crime mystery.
Do you really know those close to you? From spouses, children, to friends.
With a fitting title, you sense an ongoing threat lurking--a darkness, secrets, moral codes, and the murder mystery centered around the ambitious teenage gymnast and her family. From tension, and guilt of the earlier accident, you can see why possibly this would be a driving force to devote, sacrifice, and give themselves to their daughter. From disabilities, prodigies, and power in a family.
Unsettling, haunting, and lyrical - readers will be observing the family and drawing their own conclusions. The focus being primarily on Devon and her inner life, feelings, image, and how others observe from the outside.
A skilled writer, Abbott delivers a masterful setting for a standout psychological thriller. I listened to the audiobook, narrated by Lauren Fortgang for a chilling and entertaining performance.
Abbott explains in an interview that the idea for the current plot grew out of a viral video of a mom and dad so completely possessed by anxiety on the sidelines of a gymnastics meet that they unconsciously mimic their daughter’s moves on the bar.
The novel’s idea of longing is complicated by the insular nature of family, both the Knoxes and the BelStars gym family. The characters go to great lengths to achieve their goals, but they go further to protect one another, often with tragically contradictory results. It’s this fierce parental devotion that forms one of the story’s most painful truths. This kind of love, Abbott remarks, “heals wounds, it creates wounds, it exacerbates wounds, and it salves them.”