Reconstructing Amelia by Kimberly McCreight

They’re very plot-based and I’m a character-based reader. Mysteries are just not my genre of choice. Read moreįor 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. This was an excellent book and I am so glad that I took the time to read it. These references were carefully chosen, and were written in in such a way that made them realistic for a high school student.

It was no mistake that Amelia loved Virginia Woolf and used Virginia Woolf to convey her own feelings. 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. 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. Grudges are often held for quite some time, for whatever reason. 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. 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. The one thing that remains constant is that every secret they tried to keep was because they thought it was for the best. Throughout the book we find out secrets about most major characters in the novel, and even a couple of minor characters by proxy. But, most of all, it’s the story of how far a mother will go to vindicate the memory of a daughter whose life she couldn’t save.įans of Gillian Flynn's Gone Girl will find Reconstructing Amelia just as gripping and surprising.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. Reconstructing Amelia is about secret first loves, old friendships, and an all-girls club steeped in tradition. Until she gets an anonymous text: She didn’t jump. And clouded as she is by her guilt and grief, it is the one she forces herself to believe. At least that’s the story Grace Hall tells Kate.

And for Kate.Īn academic overachiever despondent over getting caught cheating has jumped to her death.

By then it’s already too late for Amelia. But Kate’s stress over leaving work quickly turns to panic when she arrives at the school and finds it surrounded by police officers, fire trucks, and an ambulance. Amelia has been suspended, effective immediately, and Kate must come get her daughter-now. In Reconstructing Amelia, the stunning debut novel from Kimberly McCreight, Kate's in the middle of the biggest meeting of her career when she gets the telephone call from Grace Hall, her daughter’s exclusive private school in Park Slope, Brooklyn.

Reconstructing Amelia by Kimberly McCreight