Give Me Your Hand by Megan Abbott [Book Review]

Book Review

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BOOK INFO

Title: Give Me Your Hand

Author: Megan Abbott

Publisher: Little, Brown and Company

Publish Date: July 17, 2018

Genre: Psychological Thriller

Series: na

My Rating: 3/5

Give Me Your Hand by Megan Abbott

BOOK BLURB

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 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 . . .


Give Me Your Hand by Megan Abbott

MY REVIEW

Kit and Diane were best friends in high school, until Diane told Kit a disturbing secret one day. Now, 10 years later, the two women are vying for a coveted position on a special project in a research lab. Kit is not pleased to see Diane. When Diane finds out a secret about Kit, things become even more complicated.

The story of what happened between Kit and Diane unfolds with alternate timelines. The “Then” is when they were teenagers, best friends with ambitious futures in science. The “Now” is when they are working in research, and competing for a position on the same research team.

Kit and Diane share some similarities, mainly that they are both very intelligent, ambitious, and driven women. Kit has dreamed of a career in research, and has high hopes of landing a position on a groundbreaking project. Unexpectedly, Diane shows up and is hired to work in the same research lab, and along with her appearance comes memories Kit had put behind her.

The research lab has a small group of people whom Kit has been working with, and developed good working relationships. The leader of the project is an equally ambitious woman, but the other team members are all men. The newly funded project deals with premenstrual dysphoric disorder (PMDD), and the men seem to think Kit is a shoo-in for the project because she is a woman. When Diane shows up, the work dynamic is changed, and no one is sure who the other person chosen for the team will be… which increases tension in the lab.

Give Me Your Hand was an entertaining read, and I especially enjoyed that a good portion of the story deals with science and research. I also like the strong, but flawed, women characters. The story has some intriguing and intense parts, but also fell flat. I was expecting to be gripped by this book, but it never really captured me.

Books by Megan Abbott:
  1. Dare Me
  2. You Will Know Me
  3. Give Me You Hand
  4. The Turnout

2 thoughts on “Give Me Your Hand by Megan Abbott [Book Review]

  1. Because this mirrors a lot of what I went through professionally, I would have a hard time reading this. Although it does sound promising. I’m sorry it fell flat.

    1. It was a good read. I was hoping for something a little more though, but this could be a case of me not being in the right mood for this book.

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