Book Review: Reconstructing Amelia

I've actually had time to get to my reading list the last few days, and so as soon as I finished Gone Girl, I picked up Kimberly McCreight's "Reconstructing Amelia", a recommendation from one of my coworkers, and got to reading. A rather short read (I finished it in around 4 hours), Reconstructing Amelia can best be described as Gossip Girl meets Gone Girl: it's a thriller-mystery style novel set in a high school environment of texting, Facebook, clubs, emails, etc. and explores high-school related problems including bullying, acceptance, teenage angst, first love, suicide, and parent-child relationship in a very unique way.

Within pages of beginning the novel, we learn that Amelia Baron, an intelligent, athletic sixteen year old with a promising future and a seemingly wonderful life has jumped off the roof of her expensive, prep school, Grace Hall. As this is happening, we meet Kate Baron, Amelia's extremely overworked but very loving and caring mother, who is beyond devastated and confused by the loss of her only child. The apparent suicide of Amelia leaves Kate wracked with guilt over not being able to spend enough time with her child due to a hectic work schedule, and we delve into Kate's struggles as a single mother slash high profile lawyer in NYC. As the story continues, through a collection of Facebook posts, emails, texts, and actual chapters, we alternate between Kate's version of events both before and after Amelia's suicide and Amelia's own version of tumultuous high school problems leading up to the actual day of her death. Before long, McCreight throws us completely off course with a simple text Kate receives from an anonymous sender: "She didn't jump". Throughout the rest of the novel, Kate unfolds the events leading up to her daughter's death, piecing together all the parts of Amelia's secret life, whilst simultaneously re-examining and learning more about her own past. Kimberly McCreight does a wonderful job of putting together this unique story, allowing it to flow flawlessly and revealing clues and new information at the most perfect times. 

I would highly recommend "Reconstructing Amelia" to anyone looking for a great end-of-summer read. While the novel is deeply emotional and heart-breakingly sad at times, it is also full of twists and turns and will keep you on your toes until the very last page. Like everyone else, I would definitely recommend "Reconstructing Amelia" to all "Gone Girl" fans, but I would caution against reading them back to back like I did, in order to avoid being in the perpetual state of paranoia that I'll be in for the next 48 hours. Reading thrillers always makes me extra paranoid and jumpy and super caution-y, so after two back-to-backs, we'll see how the next few days go!