To Take a Dare

by Crescent Dragonwagon, Paul Zindel

A teenage runaway encounters both love and loneliness when she decides to settle in a small Arkansas town.

Genres: Young Adult, Novels, Fiction, Childrens, Teen

Paperback

First published March 1, 1982

About the author

Crescent Dragonwagon is the daughter of the writers Charlotte Zolotow and the late Hollywood biographer Maurice Zolotow. She is the author of 40 published books, including cookbooks, children's books, and novels. With her late husband, Ned Shank, Crescent owned the award-winning Dairy Hollow House, a country inn and restaurant in Eureka Springs, Arkansas, for eighteen years. She teaches writing coast to coast and is the co-founder (with Ned) of the non-profit Writers' Colony at Dairy Hollow.

Reviews

[Kate · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book really affected me as a kid, and it felt like a secret treasure -- simultaneously taboo and comforting. About a prematurely physically developed and sexualized girl who runs away from home because of her wretched parents. She hitchhikes around, passing for older so that she can work. At a restaurant job she takes in a young tough-guy kid, falls in love with a coworker, and reclaims herself. Heartwrenching, dark, and hopeful.

[Stephanie A. · Rating 4 out of 5]

I'm going to be honest with you: at least 60% of the reason I read this is because of its author's cracktastic pen name. In combination with the paperback's cover, the book summary, and a co-writing credit with established YA author Paul Zindel, it absolutely sounds like a 19-year-old human disaster finagled a book deal to turn her life story into a melodrama-laden teen novel, and I was eager to take that trip. (to be clear: I am alluding to the acid trip I expected this reading experience to be)

Now imagine my surprise when I found out that a) it's not a pen name -- it is a name she made up as a teenage hippie, to be sure, but also a name this flower child changed through legal means at that time and carries to this day because it's part of her identity; I gotta respect that -- and b) this book turned out well above my expectations in terms of both the character's maturity and the general seriousness/quality of the writing.

Chrysta has more understandable reasons than the average promiscuous 13-year-old for turning out the way she does (if still not good ones), but I really respect who she becomes once she runs away from home. The book largely skips over her two years on the road -- except to summarize how she avoided major disasters and managed to regularly find jobs and places to stay by lying about her age because she can apparently pass for 18+ -- and only settles down for the real story when she does, at age 16, in an "only slightly fictionalized version" of the author's then-resident city (Eureka Springs, AR).

Something about the ambiance of the small town she passes through calls to her, causing her to abandon her plans to head to New Orleans and instead take up residence here, finding work in the kitchen of a resort hotel and a room in a yellow falling-apart Victorian boardinghouse with several other hotel employees. Both places are beautifully described and made me feel like I was there, but more than anything I just loved watching her find her footing and happily establish herself in her new and more stable life in her new home, rarely if ever seeming like a teenager as opposed to the young adult woman she is purporting to be.

I was also particularly pleased by the development of college-student Luke, acting kitchen manager due to the actual kitchen manager's gross incompetence at anything except sexual harassment, and the gradual bond that emerges between him and Chrysta.

I felt pretty "meh" about the inclusion of Dare and her attempts to reform said utterly out of control child (preteen boys + excessive early exposure to inappropriate adult situations + absentee parents = recipe for disaster), and would have been happy ending at the high point right before she took him in, but in spite of his so-irritating-I-actively-hoped-he-would-die presence, I was still glad there were more chapters to enjoy her job, her colleagues, the town, and her beautiful new living quarters.

This is a substantial book -- a miniature saga, even -- and I'm so glad I had the opportunity to spend time with it and to meet this girl and her found family.

[Jenny · Rating 2 out of 5]

Soooo good-bad. One of those melodramatic coming-of-age YA stories from the mid-80s or so, told from the point of view of a spunky heroine whose eyes are invariably flashing or sparkling or doing something else I've never seen in real life, while dropping some truly terrible dialogue. A surprising amount of sex for a teen novel, including numerous mentions of the main character's problematically huge rack. Really a love it/hate it kind of book: you love it for the exact same reasons that make it so embarrassingly bad. Extra points for the complete and utter unbelievability of the co-author's name - my 13-year-old self could not have come up with a more fake-sounding pen name. Good fun.

[Crystal Clement · Rating 5 out of 5]

Read this book for the first time when I was about 12/13 read it again while deployed at age 23, still one of my all time favorite books. It's this book that no one has ever read but should.

[DeAnna · Rating 5 out of 5]

This was one of those books where I got to the end, sighed deeply at how wonderful the story was, then opened it up at the beginning and started all over again.

[Jeremiah]

I learned what gonorrhea was from this book.

[Amy · Rating 5 out of 5]

I spontaneously decided to go to a lecture from this local author on her 70th birthday a couple of weeks back because I was bored on a Sunday afternoon. What intrigued me was that she used to own a bed and breakfast in Eureka Springs, and it was the 30th anniversary of the cookbook of soups, breads, and salads she served there: Dairy Hollow House Soup & Bread Cookbook. This book is largely set in a fictionalized version of Eureka Springs (Excelsior Springs), where the main character gets a job in a hotel after running away from home at age 12. The author wrote the book in 1981, so it's a window to the past when runaways could more easily hitchhike their way across the US.

The pre-teen in the book runs away because her parents are fairly horrible. Her dad starts to make assumptions about her lifestyle when she starts developing physically, so she decides she'll live the life he assumes since he already accuses her of it. She's able to pass as an adult, so getting work after she leaves home isn't too difficult. And, because it's the 1980s, she can survive on a McDonald's or waitressing job with money to spare. Eventually, she ends up in Excelsior Springs where she decides to live because it finally feels like home.

Overall, it's a story of doing what you can to overcome the raw deals life hands you. Not every character in the book makes good choices, so it's realistic. Of course, I wouldn't suggest the average 12-year-old running away from home, but it ultimately worked out for the main character in this book. I feel like it's a novel that will stay with me in the back of my mind just as a situational template for a type of life I'm glad I never had to experience.

[Tiffany Reynolds · Rating 3 out of 5]

Interesting but unrealistic; I could never believe the narrator could hitchhike across the country without any harm coming to her, and the idea of her starting her own adult life over somewhere when she was only sixteen seemed like a dream. I liked most of the characters, especially the kid Dare, but maybe I was a little too old when I read this (18/19) to completely enjoy the story.

[M · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is definitely a book for mature teenagers since the main character is 16, on her own, and sexually active. I loved this book as a teenager because the main character was such a misfit, and I identified with that.

[Michelle]

i dunno. i read this when i was 12 and haven't forgotten it. it seemed terribly illicit at the time.

[Cindy Dyson Eitelman · Rating 5 out of 5]

Can't say more than what I said here:
http://swampowl.blogspot.com/2013/03/...

[Sarah · Rating 4 out of 5]

This was one of the books I discovered because of Shelf Discovery: The Teen Classics We Never Stopped Reading. I don't think it is a book I would ever have picked up if not for the essay in Shelf Discovery, as neither the subject, the description, nor the cover would have caught my interest.

It's probably odd to recommend a book about a girl who runs away at thirteen, lives on the road, and settles down at around age 16, as this isn't exactly the lifestyle I'd espouse to teenagers. But people age differently, to be fair, and I think it was daring (pun not intended) of the authors to let the book end the way it did, instead of the reconciliation with the family and a return to being a dependent that so many stories would have chosen.

Anyway, it was an interesting book, and I'm glad I was led to it.

[Raquel · Rating 5 out of 5]

Rereading this book, and the plot is simpler and faster than I remember, but the subject matter is still noteworthy. Unfortunately, at halfway through the book, there's a shallowness to the plot that seems to gloss over what Chrysta has been through. Perhaps her experience with raising Dare changes this.

[Lisa]

author rec by Mia Revels

[Juliette · Rating 3 out of 5]

This is another great book that I read multiple times as a pre-teen. I loved the cool, grown up girl on the cover and her ragged, rough story.

[Carrie Hagan · Rating 5 out of 5]

Read this as a teenager in the 80’s. It’s stayed with me all this time

[Riley Coyote · Rating 5 out of 5]

Timeless Classic

I read it as a kid, and I've read it as an adult. Loved it then, and I love it now. I didn't quite get it as an 11 year old, but as a now 50 year old. I get it. Thanks Crescent, thanks Paul.

[Chrissy Jeffery · Rating 5 out of 5]

I read this as a kid and I’ve thought about it over the years. I just recently recalled the name of it and read it again…only to find out that I never finished it as a kid. I completely enjoyed it and maybe ever more so now as an adult. Bravo!

[Josh · Rating 4 out of 5]

Started off strong, but didn't really hold my interest in the second half. Still, a good story in the spirit of Zindel's classic novels.

[munira]

Started off strong but lost momentum shortly after. I loved the first chapters and really wanted more from the book.

[Dichotomy Girl · Rating 5 out of 5]

I read this book incessantly in middle school.

[Jami]

wow. blast from the past!