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Reconstructing Amelia: A gripping and shocking mystery about a mother discovering her daughter's secrets
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Reconstructing Amelia: A gripping and shocking mystery about a mother discovering her daughter's secrets
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Reconstructing Amelia: A gripping and shocking mystery about a mother discovering her daughter's secrets
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Reconstructing Amelia: A gripping and shocking mystery about a mother discovering her daughter's secrets

Rating: 4 out of 5 stars

4/5

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About this ebook

Ever wondered what goes on inside your daughter's head?

Stressed single mother and law partner Kate is in the meeting of her career when she is interrupted by a telephone call to say that her teenaged daughter Amelia has been suspended from her exclusive Brooklyn prep school for cheating on an exam. Torn between her head and her heart, she eventually arrives at St Grace's over an hour late, to be greeted by sirens wailing and ambulance lights blazing. Her daughter has jumped off the roof of the school, apparently in shame of being caught.

A grieving Kate can't accept that her daughter would kill herself: it was just the two of them and Amelia would never leave her alone like this. And so begins an investigation which takes her deep into Amelia's private world, into her journals, her email account and into the mind of a troubled young girl.

Then Kate receives an anonymous text saying simply: AMELIA DIDN'T JUMP. Is someone playing with her, or has she been right all along?
LanguageEnglish
Release dateJun 20, 2013
ISBN9781471111303
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Reconstructing Amelia: A gripping and shocking mystery about a mother discovering her daughter's secrets
Author

Kimberly McCreight

Kimberly McCreight is the New York Times bestselling author of Reconstructing Amelia, which was nominated for the Edgar, Anthony, and Alex Awards; Where They Found Her; and The Outliers young adult trilogy. She attended Vassar College and graduated cum laude from the University of Pennsylvania Law School. She lives in Brooklyn with her husband and two daughters.

Read more from Kimberly Mc Creight

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Rating: 4.0675 out of 5 stars
4/5

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  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    This book reminds us of so many things- among them I think the most important is that everybody, or mostly everybody, makes decisions with the best of intentions. Throughout the book we find out secrets about most major characters in the novel, and even a couple of minor characters by proxy. The one thing that remains constant is that every secret they tried to keep was because they thought it was for the best. It is important to remember that whatever happens, no matter how big or small, it happened for a reason and somebody was doing what they thought was right.

    Second, with the alternating voices of Kate and Amelia, we get the sense that people are evil in high school and people are evil in adulthood. Grudges are often held for quite some time, for whatever reason. People have a very hard time of letting go, and the way they handle those feelings may differ with age, but at the end of the day, everybody is watching out for themselves.

    I loved the way the book was written from so many different perspectives, most notably I believe the choice to incorporate Virginia Woolf references was carefully calculated, and perhaps even a motivation for the novel. It was no mistake that Amelia loved Virginia Woolf and used Virginia Woolf to convey her own feelings. These references were carefully chosen, and were written in in such a way that made them realistic for a high school student. This was an excellent book and I am so glad that I took the time to read it.
  • Rating: 3 out of 5 stars
    3/5
    This book shows another side of bullying and the craziness it is to be a teenager with the technology we have. I have a daughter and thank God she never went through anything like this and she went to a public school instead of a private one. I'm sure stuff like this does happen, maybe not as often as we think or maybe more often. Kids can be cruel and they now have Facebook, Twitter, Texting and the internet to get away with it sometimes anonymously. I would not wish this on any parent. Very well written and I liked how the text messaging was mixed in with the story while Kate tried to find out what really happened to Amelia. It has a nice flow to the story as things are revealed. Just a very sad story.
  • Rating: 3 out of 5 stars
    3/5
    For more reviews, gifs, Cover Snark and more, visit A Reader of Fictions.Going in, I knew that Reconstructing Amelia probably wouldn’t be a Christina book. Mysteries are just not my genre of choice. They’re very plot-based and I’m a character-based reader. It’s hard to care about the resolution if I don’t care about the characters, and mystery readers care about the mystery more than the people, as a general rule. Still, I like to try new things occasionally and I’d heard good buzz about this particular mystery. Objectively, I think it’s a really good mystery, but I was left with pretty mild feelings for it, because, though more character-based than most, it still didn’t bring me the feels.The first half of the book was a bit slow, but really picked up once Kate began seriously investigating her daughter’s death. The book alternates between Kate and Amelia’s third person perspectives, as well as including Amelia’s texts and Facebook statuses. Kate’s timeline runs from the day of the accident until the mystery has been solved. Amelia’s runs from what started everything through her death, where obviously it has to stop. The inclusion of the texts and statuses was a nice touch, a different view into Amelia’s relationships.Personally, I found Amelia’s sections more interesting, because they read like a contemporary YA novel, meaning they were more character-focused. Kate’s sections were the mystery part, and will no doubt be interesting to readers who enjoy that aspect more than I do. The mystery itself is interesting, don’t get me wrong. I definitely wanted to know what had happened, and the book became a real page-turner at about the halfway point.Amelia attends a pompous private school,Grace Hall in New York City. The drama at the school is very Gossip Girl, only more so. There’s actually even a Gossip-Girl style blog called gRaCeFULLY, which discusses the various scandals in the school. That’s not all though; the school has secret societies with hazing and pranks. That was all a bit melodramatic for my tastes at first, but my favorite aspect was the way the book dealt very tastefully with sexuality.The resolution leaves me with a handful of qualms however. First, the actually reason she died really didn’t work for me. Jealous best friend? Really? And if Amelia hadn’t lied to her best friend the whole fucking time that wouldn’t have happened either. Then there’s the gossip blog, which, actually, seems to have been entirely unnecessary to the plot. Nothing ever happens with the person who was writing it. We find out and it’s just dropped. Um, excuse me, but I would like to know about that. View Spoiler » In general, I’d just like a sense about where Kate was left. Did she keep working at her law firm? Will she try to reconnect with that old flame? If not, why were the emails included in the book. If not, why do I care about that?Despite my few hesitations, this is one that I’ll recommend to mystery readers. They mystery itself is compelling, the candidates for murderer many, and the narrative style engaging.
  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    Kate Baron is a single mother to fifteen-year-old Amelia. As a litigation lawyer Kate works long hours and doesn't have as much time to spend with her daughter as she would like. When a phone call from her daughter's private school disrupts the meeting Kate is in with the news that Amelia has been caught cheating, Kate can't believe it. Amelia has been suspended and Kate has to leave work to pick her up. Her daughter is an intelligent, ambitious teenager who has never been in trouble a day in her life. But Kate will never get the chance to ask her daughter what's going on because by the time she arrives at the school Amelia is dead. The police and the school tell Kate that Amelia jumped in an act of spontaneous suicide, unable to cope with what she'd done. Kate accepts what they're telling her but doesn't truly believe that's what happened. When Kate receives an anonymous text saying that Amelia didn't jump, she is forced to sift through Amelia's texts, emails and facebook page to piece together the final days of her daughter's life in an effort to reveal the truth of what happened on the rooftop that day.

    The book is told from Amelia's point of view and Kate's point of view as well as texts, facebook posts and a blog run by someone in the school who doesn't mind spreading vicious rumours. High school life is tough but add in secret clubs with members who want to ruin your life, unrequited love and no one to really talk to you have Amelia's story. I felt so bad for both Amelia and Kate. They did the best they thought they could do. Some things did seem a little convenient at times, but overall the book was good. I didn't believe Amelia jumped but as I read on I went back and forth between maybe she did, maybe she didn't. So I definitely couldn't wait to find out what happened and I wasn't disappointed.
  • Rating: 2 out of 5 stars
    2/5
    The book has an interesting story line, and the methodology of slowly peeling back the layers to reveal the "surprise" ending was fairly well done. However, to be honest, I guessed the true culprit very early in the book. Although the author's reasoning for writing the book might be laudable (bring attention to bullying), I don't know if it really would serve to do that, and I'm not sure who the intended audience really is. On the one hand, if parents read it, I'm not sure if it would provide them with any good techniques to uncover bullying occurring with their child. If meant for middle and high-schoolers, I wonder if it might not turn out to be a nice thriller for them but perhaps a bit advanced for middle-schoolers, a bit boring for high-schoolers. I guess if it raises their awareness to be alert for bullying, then it may have accomplished its purpose.
  • Rating: 5 out of 5 stars
    5/5
    One of those books that you can't stop reading.
  • Rating: 3 out of 5 stars
    3/5
    A somewhat engaging novel about the life of a teen and her single mother -- told in bits and pieces from the lives of Amelia (the daughter) and her mom. Set in New York and a private prep school with evil lurking behind its walls. There are a couple of problems with the storytelling and character development, and the end is especially weak and disappointingly obvious. Told through dialogue, diary entries, Facebook posts, and text conversations.
  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    The story here had a mix of predictable elements and surprises. Kate, an attorney and single mom, tries to balance raising her teen daughter and the demands of her job. Amelia is a good daughter with strong academics, sports activities, and friends. So, when Kate receives a call about Amelia plagiarizing a paper, she is shocked. However, by the time Kate reaches the school to pick Amelia up, Amelia has jumped or fallen from the roof. Using a traditional narrative mixed with blog posts, facebook pages, and texts, McCreight creates an interesting mult-layered, multi-voiced story that slowly "reconstructs" the weeks leading up to Amelia's death. The story and overall execution is strong but would have benefited from stronger editing. Some sentences are a bit clunky and repetitive and some ideas are over emphasized or repeated (how great a person Amelia is, how great a Mom Kate is, etc.) as to become less than realistic.
  • Rating: 3 out of 5 stars
    3/5
    A lot of twists and turns. High school students , secret clubs, that lead to death of a student. Thought to be a suicide, the truth eventually emerges as the details of her life at school is found out. Fast paced not bad.
  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    4.0 out of 5 stars - No matter what she might think, a mother doesn't really "know" everything about her teenaged daughter.Amelia Baron, aged 15, seemed to have everything going for her -- at least that's what most of the adults in her life thought. So how did she end up dead after falling from the roof of a school building? Single mother, Kate, is stunned when she is told of her daughter's death: was it suicide or was Amelia pushed? The police have termed it an "impulsive suicide" because Amelia was caught plagiarizing on an English paper.Grieving Kate is finally ready to try to go back to work when she gets a text message from a blocked caller: Amelia didn't jump.This message drives Kate to delve into Amelia's life -- her text messages, Facebook, emails, phone logs, computer documents -- to attempt to figure out what happened in those last weeks before the tragedy. Kate "reconstructs" the life of a daughter she loved and pieces together a story that touches on many topics important to parents and teens.The novel is not listed as "Young Adult" but it is being marketed to teens in promotional materials I've seen. Subjects in the book include sexuality, sexting, bullying, suicide, cutting, sex, blogging -- you name it. The book also focuses on a private school (Grace Hall) with clubs that reminded me of many others in that genre including "Pretty Little Liars", "The Sixes", "The Raising", "Mean Girls" and "Testimony". I read it in a couple of hours last evening because I wanted to see how the author would handle all these issues and explain how Amelia died.I recommend you read it because everyone else is going to be doing so!
  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    I predict that this book will be the hot summer read of 2013. It was a very compelling story, page-turning, suspenseful and interesting, with a mystery at its heart. It was similar to Gone Girl in that respect, but lacking the essential nastiness of EVERY SINGLE CHARACTER in the book. There were several likable, sympathetic characters in Reconstructing Amelia. And I felt the author did a really good job of balancing the myriad little details and characters she throws in to this story without being overly confusing. In the end, it wasn't a revelation, but it was a damn good story and an enjoyable book to read. Sad and true to the times. It only increased the fear I already have of facing my kids' teenage years in this new digital age. To sum up, I'd say this book was a very satisfying cross between Law and Order, Veronica Mars and Gossip Girl. A perfect escapist read. Sounds good, right?
  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    LOVED this book.  What a great story about bullying, obsessions, friendship, guilt, grief...  It had so many layers to it and so many interesting characters, each with their own issues.  I also loved the use of text messages and Facebook as a part of the novel.  Those things are so ingrained in our children that it made the characters more real and believable.  The only part I questioned was the age of the girls.  It seemed like they should have been older than 15.  Maybe this is just the way of the world with this generation, but, the characters acted much older.   This book would be such a great discussion book for book clubs.
  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    McCreight’s novel is incredibly engrossing, and to start reading it is to make a commitment. I kept coming back to it – wanting to get just a little closer to finding out what happens to Kate and Amelia. Cleverly, there are several threads to be sorted by the end. Some come to more satisfying and plausible conclusions than others, but the emotions and relationships are spot on, and cannot be denied. Reconstructing Amelia is well worth the read and every stolen moment you’ll take to finish it. Highly Recommended.
  • Rating: 5 out of 5 stars
    5/5
    Reconstructing AmeliabyKimberly McCreightMy "in a nutshell" summary...Amelia...dies...is it suicide...an accident...or was she pushed?My thoughts after reading this book...Ok...me? Personally? I love private school stories. Privileged teens mixed with cool kids mixed with not so cool kids...lots of independence...lots of bullying...mixed in with arrogance and way too much freedom. This all usually makes for lots of drama...and this book is packed with drama. The story centers around Amelia and her mom, Kate. Kate is a single mom who works long hours but believes that she and her daughter have a great relationship. And they sort of do...but perhaps Kate trusts Amelia a bit too much. Amelia...lovely, smart, innocent, loyal, trusting...too trusting. Amelia gets involved with a secret club at her school...then falls in love...then gets bullied until her life falls apart. Kate...numb and grieving...is determined to find out what really happened to her lovely daughter.This book is a fast paced mystery so that's all I am going to tell you about it. There is that bad girl character that I loved hating...in fact there are a lot of mean girls in this novel...there are FaceBook scandals and mean texting and notes and a conspiracy contrived to bring Amelia and perhaps even Kate...down. The pages sped by and this book was sometimes heart breakingly sad.What I loved about this book...I loved Kate...I loved Amelia. I loved the way Amelia loved books and looked out for her friends. I loved the plotting. I loved the pace. I even loved the sad parts.What I did not love...Oooh...there were so many bullies and mean girls and even a mean mom or two...and a mean attorney...juicy juicy mean girl stuff...even some mean teachers!Final thoughts...I found this book too be so good...it literally was one of those really yummy books that I had to pry myself away from. It had a nice resounding ending...sort of sad but still good.
  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    It isn't a spoiler to say that Amelia commits suicide in the beginning of this novel. At least according to Grace Hall, her exclusive private school. Her mom, Kate doesn't want to believe that her daughter committed suicide but the school and the detective on the case convince her that it's the truth.

    Until... Kate gets a text that says "Amelia didn't jump." From there, Kate is motivated to find out the truth for sure. She digs through Amelia's electronic life to try to find out more information and is surprised to find out how little she knew about her daughter's life.
    The story is told through Kate in the present and through Amelia in flashbacks from the days leading up to her death. From this and Facebook posts and various texts, we are able to piece together the truth about what happened to Amelia.

    Memorable Quotes:
    "...being a parent is awful ninety-five percent of the time... As far as I can tell, it's that last five percent that keeps the human race from dying out. Four parts blinding terror, one part perfection. It's like mainlining heroin. One taste of life on that edge and you're hooked."

    "...some things you can't outrun, no matter how fast you move your legs."

    "Sometimes it's hard to tell how fast the current's moving until you're headed over a waterfall."

    My Opinion:
    Okay, so I really liked this book. I liked trying to figure out the mystery of how Amelia died and who was sending the texts. I liked the way the story was told from both Amelia's point of view (in flashbacks) and her mom's (in the present). I get why Amelia's mom was so down on herself about not knowing the details of her daughter's life. But, none of us know more than our daughters (or sons) tell us really. Even if we monitor all their electronic activity, there will still be things we don't know. I wanted to tell Kate that, to reassure her that it wasn't her fault.

    I thought this novel would make me very emotional, but most of it didn't. At the end, I found myself feeling sad, but during most of the book I was so caught up in the details, that I kind of forgot about the sadness of what happened. So hard to do now that I have a teenage girl. It is way too easy to imagine how I would feel in such a situation.

    Recommended to:
    This book is for adults. I think anyone who likes mysteries or books about teenage issues would enjoy it.

    Similar books:
    Thirteen Reasons Why by Jay Asher
  • Rating: 3 out of 5 stars
    3/5
    Interesting premise and not badly written at all; but too many stories! There were so many technology-as-dubious-communication-tool cautionary tales going on that I can't believe that kid's phone didnt just blow up. Not bad, just not tight enough.
  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    I read this books straight through without stopping, so...literally, I couldn't put this book down. However, It wasn't that this book was extremely well written, but the plot was definitely above average, and the topic engaging.

    I've noticed that some readers gave this book a low rating since all the characters were unlikeable. I totally agree with the unlikeable characters part. Everyone in the books seemed to be a liar, a cheater, influenced greatly by how others view them, and weak at making the right decisions. However, I still think the author should still receive credit for creating such terrible characters. They are annoying yet believable; unlikeable yet memorable. A few years from now, I could probably still remember some of the characters in this book. They reminded me of some unpleasant people in real life.

    The book begins with Kate Baron, a successful lawyer and single Mother, receiving a call from her daughter's private school notifying her of her daughter Amelia's suspension, and asking her to pick up her daughter. It came as a surprise for her since Amelia is an achiever and well behave student. If not counting all the extra hours she spends work, Kate also have a very close relationship with Amelia and spends enough time together. However, when Kate arrived at the high school, Amelia was dead. Knowing how she mostly put her work before her only daughter’s needs, Kate was heartbroken.

    A few months after the incident, Kate received an anonymous text telling her that Amelia did not kill herself. She embarked on a journey to find the truth for herself and her daughter. The things that she discovered were all unpleasant with lots and lots of betrayal and lies. The discoveries did not only involve secrets of Amelia, but also those of Amelia's best friend, classmates, teachers, and even long buried secrets of Kate herself. Having a teenage daughter myself made me broke out in cold sweats a few times, and wanted to grab a brick and kill someone at other times during the reading of this story. High school is way too cruel for teenagers to handle alone.

    The organization of this book needs a little getting used to, especially for "older" readers like myself. The chapters include texts, Facebook posts, letters, a blog called Gracefully, entries from Kate’s old journals, and two POVs: Kate and Amelia. The chapters also jump back and forth in time from before to after Amelia’s death, and from Kate’s journal. It was particularly difficult to tell which time of her life Kate was talking about. I learned to differentiate her POV by looking at the year on the first page of her chapters. Once we get over this hurdle, the story will become so much easier to read.

    Although some of the pranks were quite impossible to be planned by 15 year-olds girls but more of the style of a professional criminal, and the logic of the story left me with a quite few questions (For example: Amelia was narrating up to the last minute of her life), this book was quite an fast and enjoyable read.
  • Rating: 1 out of 5 stars
    1/5
    A most disappointing book. Poor;y written; Characters never engage the reader - BTW - a papagraph of cliched description when a new character comes along is NOT characterisation. There are so many other (teen espcially) which deal with the issues in a far more realistic, read, genuine way. Perhaps as a film this might have more tension and believable characterisation. It is good to see Thirteen Reason/Jay Archer mentioned another read. I would add Looking for Alaska / John Green. And for cyber bullying Destroying Avalon / Kate McCaffrey is essential reading for both teens and adults.
  • Rating: 5 out of 5 stars
    5/5
    It's rare that I give a book a 5, but I truly enjoyed it from beginning to end. The characters were all well developed and the pace was consistently thrilling. The many twists and turns throughout the book were often unpredictable. This is a good read for even teenagers to learn about bullying, hazing, and high school drama.
  • Rating: 5 out of 5 stars
    5/5
    I guess we have to thank Gillian Flynn for making the literary thriller one of the hot new genres...after I finished reading this book, I couldn't stop thinking about how much this book would appeal to fans of Gone Girl. It's not QUITE as twisted and dark as Gillian Flynn's novels, but the elements are definitely present, and this is a powerful read.The story begins with Kate Baron, a single mother and attorney, receiving a call from her daughter Amelia's exclusive private school, saying that Amelia had plagiarized her latest English essay. Kate can't believe that her intelligent daughter would have done something like this, so she heads to the school to sort everything out. By the time she gets there, however, she finds that Amelia has fallen to her death from the school roof in an apparent act of suicide.Several months after Amelia's death, Kate receives a text message saying "Amelia didn't jump," confirming what she already knew in her heart - that Amelia didn't commit suicide. As Kate begins her own investigation into Amelia's death, she realizes just how many secrets her daughter had, and how she barely knew her daughter at all. This is a thrilling and intense mystery, but it's also a poignant story of high school hazing, love, sexuality, and friendship. One of this book's biggest accomplishments is how well the author was able to recreate the teenage experience. The story may take place at a privileged high school, but the uncertainty, fear, and frustration are definitively universal for anyone who went to an American high school. It certainly brought back powerful memories for me, although I actually haven't been out of high school long enough to realistically forget much. The inclusion of the text messages & Facebook posts also go a long way towards making this feel contemporary and realistic, but never dumbed down. That in itself is a huge accomplishment.The structure of the story is interesting, as it cuts back and forth between flashbacks and the present day, and includes excerpts from text messages, Facebook statuses, and a mysterious gossip-based blog centered around the high school. As a result, the reader is put in Kate's position by having to piece together the mystery using small scraps of information. This makes the book incredibly fast-paced and readable...I finished this one approximately 24 hours after I first started reading. This is a page-turner of the highest order.As I mentioned before, this comparison to Gillian Flynn should be taken with a tiny grain of salt, as Reconstructing Amelia never quite reaches the levels of shock and revulsion that Gone Girl or Sharp Objects seem to manage. But this isn't a downside of the book, just a comment on how the story itself is a bit different. However, there are still plenty of unlikeable characters worthy of the reader's intense dislike, and this portrait of the confused and manipulated high school student is extremely powerful.Recommended for: fans of Gillian Flynn, teenagers looking for relatable yet more mature reading material, and readers looking for a thrilling novel more complex than the average bestselling thriller.Readalikes: Okay, Gillian Flynn's the obvious go-to author. If you enjoy well-crafted, dark mysteries and unlikeable characters, you can't go wrong with any of her three novels. Gone Girl is the most popular (and the most recent), but Sharp Objects and Dark Places are exceptional as well.In the Woods by Tana French. This is definitely much more of a straight-up mystery, but it's exceptionally dark, creates both likeable and unlikeable characters, and reveals bits and pieces of the mystery through flashbacks interspersed in the main narrative. Plus, In the Woods is written with a definite literary style in mind, and the psychological profiles of the characters are remarkably astute.Nineteen Minutes by Jodi Picoult. This book places less emphasis on the darkness of human nature than it does on the moral and ethical issues surrounding school violence, but it accurately portrays the life of a downtrodden and manipulated high school student, pieces together the characters' mysterious backstory through flashbacks, and keeps the reader turning pages well into the night.
  • Rating: 5 out of 5 stars
    5/5
    I rarely give a book a 5 star rating, but I loved this book. It grabs your attention and never lets go.
  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    I thoroughly enjoyed this book about a mother's search for answers of her daughter's death. The suspense was well played and the complicated lives of teenagers was on full display. My only question is how realistic some parts were. Mainly, would the police allow a mother to be so involved in her daugher's murder case. Overall, it was well written and very entertaining.
  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    Reconstructing Amelia is Kimberly McCreight's debut novel. Kate Baron is a single mother to Amelia and a partner in a law firm. Her job keeps her incredibly busy, but when she receives a telephone call from her daughter's exclusive private school, she has to cut her day short. Amelia has been suspended - for cheating. This is completely out of character for her daughter - Kate is annoyed at the faculty and the fact that she has to leave a meeting with an important client. But what she finds when she arrives at Grace Hall is beyond comprehension - Amelia is dead. Suicide the cops say. Kate is on autopilot, dealing with the funeral and trying to come to terms with the fact that Amelia is gone when she receives an anonymous text - "Amelia didn't jump." Kate never believed her daughter would kill herself and now she sets out to prove it. She 'reconstructs' Amelia's life from journals, text messages, Facebook entries, emails and the school's gossip blog. McCreight unravels Amelia's life in alternate chapters from Kate's viewpoint and that of Amelia herself. Reconstructing Amelia is frightening in that it echos many of today's headlines - bullying deaths to be specific. This isn't an easy read/listen - my heart broke for Kate and I just wanted to grab Amelia and protect her. And it made me very afraid for anyone with a teenage daughter. McCreight's plotting keeps us guessing with many red herrings and twists along the way. I did choose to listen to this book - Kristine Hvam was the reader and she was excellent. She has a very versatile voice - easily portraying teenage tones and switching to the adult characters effortlessly. The teen voices were particularly effective. Listen to an excerpt of Reconstructing Amelia. Although not listed as YA fiction, I can see Reconstructing Amelia as a crossover title. And it would spark much discussion between mothers and daughters or in book clubs. A reading guide is available. Nicole Kidman has signed on to produce and star in an HBO film of Reconstructing Amelia.
  • Rating: 5 out of 5 stars
    5/5
    SummarySingle mom, Kate has worked hard to get where she is...a partner in a high powered law firm, she works day and night. She receives a phone call at work one day informing her that she needs to come pick up Amelia. Amelia's been accused of cheating on an English assignment, the very last assignment that Amelia, a successful student, would ever NEED to cheat on. By the time Kate crosses the city and arrives at Amelia's school, the police inform her that Amelia has committed suicide by jumping from an upper window of the building.Kate is devastated and goes through the motions of burying her only child.On her first attempted day back at work, Kate receives a text message that says:"Amelia didn't jump." (49)and then another:"Amelia didn't jump. You know it and I know it." (51) From that point on, Kate knows that she must find out what really happened to her daughter...no matter how many stones she has to overturn, no matter how many embarrassing truths come out, no matter how many toes she has to step on, no matter how much sadness it brings.She has to know.For Amelia.What I LikedNo doubt that the kids in this book are deplorable...but McCreight sheds light on an even bigger problem as far as I'm concerned...some parents. And, I'm not talking about the single parents who work hard for a living, and may or may not spend enough time with their children. I'm talking about the ones who can't seem to grow up, the ones who spend their adult lives acting as if they themselves are still in high school. I also liked that McCreight chose for Amelia to be a good kid...I think a lot of parents like to sit around on their high horses, congratulating themselves at every opportunity on their ability to raise children who haven't gotten into trouble, all the while almost "nah, nanny boo booing" the parents whose children have made a bad decision or two. "Well, if so and so hadn't been doing such and such with you know who, then he/she wouldn't have ended up there and wouldn't have been abducted, raped, killed, etc." "Not that it's his/her fault, of course, but if only..." I swear it makes me want to scream WTF!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!Sometimes so and so is actually completely innocent and STILL gets caught up in the dangerous stuff. These people obviously haven't spent much time with teenagers these days.And, Girls?Girls are MEAN...and I don't mean pull your pigtails mean...I mean throw you to the ground, stomp all over you, leave you there bleeding to death mean and never even think about you after they walk away (figuratively as well as literally in some cases). Wake up, people.Kate questioned her parenting almost continuously and I was right there with her. I think most of us do the very same thing. Even the parents of children who go on to lead long, successful, fulfilling lives still can reach back in time and find at least a few situations they wish they had done differently. Kate was a good parent, and I think deep down she really knew it, but she was still willing to throw her self under the bus at every turn if necessary. Kate's grief - believable, heartbreaking, made my heart beat very fast at times, made me want to pound my fists more than once at the absolute ridiculousness of it all. I wanted to bust into the school and just start punching people. Adults, of course...I would never punch a kid...the kids I would take across my lap and whip their butts bc that's what many of them had missed out on more times than not. And, I'm not actually blaming the kids here...certainly they are responsible...but I've already said it pretty clearly above, the parents, the adults, the teachers, the headmaster, the secretary...all of them need to be punched. And hard.I think I'm still a little angry?Format - alternating perspectives as well as text message format, school gossip blog posts, emails, Facebook status updates and responses for Amelia. I'm gonna be honest here...this format sucked me in quickly and sucked me in so deep that by pg. 98, I skipped ahead to the end to find out what the heck was going to happen, who was who, who was at fault, you name it...I skipped ahead to find it. That's how much suspense is provided by McCreight's weaving in and out of Amelia and Kate's story. I literally couldn't take it...I had to know. The text messages in particular added a truly ominous feeling to the story.The references to great literature...particularly Virginia Woolf, both titles, themes as well as quotes.What I Didn't Like Adele - one word: patheticJeremy, spineless; Daniel, the snake; Zadie, needs to be locked up; Mrs. Pearl, the "b" word; and Liv, stupid.I wish I could tell you why I "didn't like"/hated these characters...but I can't.I can tell you though that almost hated these characters as much as Gone Girl characters.The AuthorFacebookTwitterOverall RecommendationWhether your kids attend private or public, city or rural schools, some semblance of the "clubs" system is in power. And, what probably enables it to survive is the power it gleans from adults placed within the system who also play the game. There's some language here, nothing like Gone Girl, but appropriate language for this particular setting unfortunately. If all moms could read this book and realize that even if their little angel would never possibly be caught up in this kind of tangled web, sometimes their actions, judging, attitudes, and ignorance end up perpetuating the tragedy that other people's children have to endure.And, one child's death is one too many.We are all responsible.
  • Rating: 3 out of 5 stars
    3/5
    This novel tells a story of a grieving mother trying to piece toghether what really happens when her daughter died. There were many twists and turns to this book and is well worth the read.
  • Rating: 2 out of 5 stars
    2/5
    An extremely successful single mother is called out of a work meeting and told that her daughter - the picture of perfect teenage behavior, school work, extra circular activity and intelligence - has been suspended from school and the mother must pick up her daughter, Amelia, immediately. Arriving at the school, the mother is told that her daughter has committed suicide, jumping from the roof of the school building. Maybe her daughter's life was not as perfect as it seemed, or was it? The remainder of the book the mother's attempt to reconstruct the hidden life of her daughter through social media posts, texts and interviews with friends. The reader also gets a first-hand glance into the mind of the daughter, the secrets she has and the ones she has discovered, as well as the causes that led to her death.
  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    A gripping thriller! Layer upon layer of mystery as we read about the "Reconstruction" of Amelia.
  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    Kate, a successful lawyer, is shocked when her daughter dies after falling from the roof of her Brooklyn prep school. The death is ruled a suicide and Kate is left reeling. She begins to question everything she knows about her daughter Amelia and starts to research her life before that fateful day.The story is told from a rotating point-of-view. We see it from Kate’s side, Amelia’s and even a catty blog called gRaCeFULLY. There are emails, texts and personal thoughts combined to have the feel of a slow-burning thriller. It’s a mean-girls style novel that delves deeper into the subjects of bullying and how technology is used in that sense.**SPOILERS**- There were a few things that bugged me about the book. Listening to it on audio was frustrating because you have to hear every single individual time stamp and to/from for every text. I would recommend reading a hard copy.- It really bugged me that Ben was Amelia’s father. That relationship was wildly inappropriate and with all the horrible things she was going through and confiding in him, he should have told Kate what was going on.- When they finally revealed the author of the gRaCeFULLY blog it just wasn’t believable in my opinion.- Sylvia, the best friend, drove me nuts though. The fact that the author kept reminding the readers why the main character was friends with her is not a good sign.**SPOILERS OVER**I really loved the relationship between Amelia and her mother. It felt realistic, both the struggles and the strengths gave a layer of depth to the characters. I also thought that the final reveal at the end made sense in the context of the story and was a satisfying ending. BOTTOM LINE: Fast paced and interesting, read this one when you want something to keep you on your toes. Some of the finer details fell flat for me, but I was definitely entertained throughout the book. 
  • Rating: 2 out of 5 stars
    2/5
    I'd give it 2.5 if that was an option. It started off promising, but got bogged down and never really recovered. Too bad, the reviews I'd read said it was terrific.
  • Rating: 3 out of 5 stars
    3/5
    I gave Reconstructing Amelia 4 stars because I think, for the most part it was a decent book. The story is told backwards, in that we find out almost immediately that 15 year-old Amelia dies. The story is about her single mother digging into the truth about how she died.I was disturbed by the author-implied rampant sex and drug use among young teens in a NYC city private school setting. I know it goes on, but I hope not to this extent. Nevertheless, it was told in a way that intrigued me.The story was easy enough to follow, and I enjoyed reading it. My only beef with it was the culmination of the facts behind the death-Much of it seemed to rely on anonymous and untraceable cell calls. Maybe it's because I'm out in the suburbs, but no one I'm aquatinted with knows how to make their phone calls anonymous and untraceable. The reveal of who was involved in harassing Amelia wasn't substantial enough, and didn't compliment the story.**SPOILER WARNING** I was disappointed when I found out it was the adults sending all those texts. Adele, Jeremy and Daniel, and most of the adults Kate came in contact with, came off as very immature and somewhat unrealistic.