Reconstructing Amelia

This book really affected me. As a mother I was horrified by the bullying and secrets of teenagers - and it made me hug my girls even tighter. It's an addictive thriller, with multiple reveals.

I've said it before and I'll say it again: I'm so glad I didn't go to high school.

This book has been on my TBR since 2016 and I finally spotted it at my local used bookstore. I was in the midst of reading my least favorite genre, a classic, but I've been in a slump for about a month and a half. I heard this one was un-put-downabble so I started it in the hopes that it would get me out of my slump. And reader, I chose well. My official rating for this is 3.5 stars, but since we live in 1995 apparently and Amazon hasn't caught up to the fact that we could have half stars on here, three it is.

Let me start by saying I had the impression that this was a psychological thriller and it's not. It's a straight up mystery. And usually, I don't like mysteries as I read so many at a young age that I find them all predictable now. I'm super picky and I'm just gonna admit that's why I didn't give this a great rating. I found it predictable, yes. Definitely. BUT it wasn't boring. I could not, in fact, put it down. It's 1:30 AM and I've just finished it. It's like even though I knew I was not gonna be shocked and scandalized by the final twists, I still had to read it. The writing isn't anything spectacular but it is gripping. I had to know what happened at all times. The storyline is very high school, specifically rich high schoolers, which is maybe worse. There are some emotional moments (even if they seem forced).

But mainly, we all wanna know, why did smart, successful Amelia die that day? Did she jump off the roof of her school or was she pushed? And so ensues the chaos of reading through a teenager's texts/emails/social media to figure out what was missed and what was really going on in her life.
And as always, teenagers lie and live double lives. I truly do not like teenagers (sorry if you are one, pal.) and this was a lil awful to read just because they're kind of the worst and it's the worst part of life. I'm just gonna end this review because I'm just rambling now.

Would I recommend?
If you like mysteries and are not easily bored by them, yes, you'd probably really enjoy this one.

“Let us again pretend that life is a solid substance, shaped like a globe, which we turn about in our fingers. Let us pretend that we can make out a plain and logical story . . . —Virginia Woolf


“The eyes of others our prisons; their thoughts our cages.” Virginia Woolf


“She felt very young, at the same time unspeakably aged.” Virginia Woolf


“Alone, condemned, deserted, as those who are about to die are alone, there was a luxury in it, an isolation full of sublimity; a freedom which the attached can never know.” Virginia Woolf


“I am rooted, but I flow.” Virginia Woolf

Such a good surprise. Amelia and her mom are easy to relate to and to like, (a bit like the Gilmore girls, I must say, in the sense ‘both of us in our own world') and even though I was very sad in the beginning (call me stupid but I didn't know what had happened to the main character) and almost abandoned the book, I'm glad I kept going, because despite the soap opera solutions the author designed for the questions raised, it was well written and made me think of lots of stuff.

Ohhhh my. There is something about teenage, high school, popular rich girls that is so irresistible and when it is mixed with mystery....it is perfection. This was great, very well done. I would've liked to see more done legally about Liv and Adele and some other actors, but I get that it focused more on connections and relationships. I enjoyed this novel a lot.

This book had a lovely ending.

A parent's worst nightmare is the death of their child way before their time. I sit here thinking about Reconstructing Amelia and how I don't know what I would do. Could I survive that? Could I continue on as Kate had?

I would like to think that I would search for answers as she does. That I would not rest until I knew exactly what happened to my child. But then, when you find out what do you do with that information?

I expected the story for Kate's POV. A single, working mother who despite her busy hours tries to make time for her daughter. I didn't expect to see things through Amelia's perspective. It's heartbreaking. To know how Amelia felt about everything that was going on around her, how she truly felt about her mother and Kate would never really know.

Of course, spanning out around Amelia is the hot topic of bullying. I always thought about how much more vicious girls can be than boys. Never is that more true than in Reconstructing Amelia.

There is much about this book that hurts to read. When Kate talks about not being able to remember what Amelia smelled like despite searching desperately on pillows she hadn't washed I started to cry. I remember once hearing a man talking about dealing with the death of his young son. He mentioned that he was down in the basement laundry room where he had kept a bag of his son's clothes that he never washed. Every once in a while he would pull something out of that bag to just inhale, hoping to catch a whiff of that little boy smell. Even now, thinking about that man I cry. It's like the last physical manifestation of your child who is gone is there for a brief time after they have left and you find comfort in being able to hold onto this proof that they had actually existed.

This is not a book that leaves you feeling relived. There is no happy ending. The people who should be punished seem to skate away unscathed while Amelia is still gone. I suppose, like most things in life, it's meant to be not fair.

Kimberly McCreight flutters flawlessly between Kate's voice and Amelia's. Both are believable and smartly fleshed out. Sometimes both do something that just seems nuts, but then you remember that sometimes you do things that are nuts. Some parts of the mystery were obvious, but it didn't deter me from wanting to continue.

But the whole time I was reading I kept thinking, Amelia isn't coming back. This bright, beautiful, loved young girl isn't getting her happy ending. And that was hard.

This book was recommended to my again by my mum, read the blurb on Amazon and thought it sounded an interesting idea for a plot. A high flying lawyer and single mother Kate receives a phone call from her daughters exclusive school saying she's being suspended for cheating. By the time she reaches the school to collect her daughter she finds that Amelia has thrown herself off the school roof. What follow's is Kate's journey to discover what happened, did her daughter commit suicide or did something more sinister happen?

People have compared this book to Gillian Flynn's Gone Girl, personally I didn't see the connection. The storyline's are vastly different. Whereas Flynn wrote a quite twisted storyline in Reconstructing Amelia it's much more realistic and there is more about the intricate social changes in the lives of teenagers today thanks to social media.

I really loved Reconstructing Amelia, it built beautifully as a story. From the moment Kate begins to suspect that her daughter didn't jump we are drawn along as she delves into the mind of her teen. Written through chapters that flit between being told through the eyes of Kate, Amelia, Social Networking snippets and flashbacks it makes for compelling reading. Amelia is a character who you truly like and root for, she's pulled into a difficult situation and makes some questionable choices but you never give up wanting to change the outcome you know is inevitable.

Kate's character is also written incredibly well, a workaholic who's daughter is a troubled teen can sometimes be a hard sell like ability wise but Kate know's her shortcomings and therefore you forgive her and learn to sympathise with her, you can feel her pain at having to learn about her teenage daughter only after she is gone.

If asked to choose which book out of Gone Girl and Reconstructing Amelia I'd recommend I wouldn't hesitate in saying this is the better read. It falls a little more into the teen fiction genre than Gone Girl and again I'd reiterate that subject matter wise they are quite different but this for me was the more satisfying read. it reached a conclusion that was believable and tragic though it was it made sense. It was a gripping and well written read and well worth a try.