YMMV / Dare Me

• Alternative Character Interpretation: There's been a lot of debate about whether Colette's overly-friendly behavior towards Addy is just because she's socially inept and immature, or whether she is actively grooming Addy like a predator. Either way, it is definitely an inappropriate amount of emotional intimacy for a coach and a student to have.
• Les Yay: Dear, sweet Lord, the subtext is thick in this series.
  • Beth and Addy act like an incredibly toxic couple, with Beth obsessively monitoring Addy's movements and getting increasingly jealous as Addy's attempts to ingratiate herself with Coach French cut into their hanging out. And of course there was that kiss.
  • While Colette is ostensibly a straight woman, she seems to want to keep Addy around as much as possible, even taking her along to what was supposed to be a secret tryst with her lover and hiring her as a babysitter.
  • Megan Abbott herself in an interview that Addy's feelings are romantic, if not particularly healthy.
  In the development and selling stages, we would hear things like, Can’t Addy have a romantic interest? If you’ve seen the show or read the book, you know that Addy has two romantic interests—one past and one current—that consume her. But because those interests are women, it was as though they didn’t count.
• Nightmare Fuel:
  • In "Surrender at Discretion", the squad bullies Tacy into taking an ice bath. Afraid to leave the bath for fear of losing face, she passes out and nearly drowns.
  • In "Parallel Trenches", Tacy falls and kicks RiRi in the face during a routine gone wrong, leaving the other girl with a bunch of knocked-out teeth and a fat, bloody lip.
• The Woobie: Tacy. She has the misfortune of being the hated half-sister of the resident Alpha Bitch, which means she gets bullied by pretty much everybody.

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