Top ten teenage friendships in fiction

Kate Hamer's new novel is Crushed. "The three girls in the novel are from very different backgrounds," the author writes, "but the various alchemies of home life, coupled with their emotional trajectories, collide and explode and what could have become simply a rueful memory of youthful difficulties turns abruptly toxic and marks them forever."

At the Guardian, Hamer tagged ten top teenage friendships in fiction, including:

Dare Me by Megan Abbott

Abbott is brilliant at depicting teenage girls and this novel takes the stakes between them to new heights. When coach Colette French arrives at a new school she skews loyalties and turns the cheer squad into warriors. This is no anodyne high school story though, it’s a very dark tale that lays bare the power structures and plays between teenage girls and obsessive love that, in this book, proves to be toxically dangerous.

Read about another entry on the list.

Dare Me is among S.R. Masters's seven thrillers that capture some of the darker aspects of tight-knit friendship groups, Jessica Knoll's top ten thrillers, Brian Boone's fifty most essential high school stories, Julie Buntin's twelve books that totally get female friendship, L.S. Hilton's top ten female-fronted thrillers, Megan Reynolds's top ten books you must read if you loved Gone Girl, Anna Fitzpatrick's four top horror stories set in the real universe of girlhood and Adam Sternbergh's six notable crime novels that double as great literature.

--Marshal Zeringue