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!

Book Review: Gone Girl

Yes!!!! I finally, finally finished Gillian Flynn's super popular novel, "Gone Girl". I started this book in January, read like twenty pages, and then never got back around to it. Usually, I'm the type to never put a book down once I start it, especially one that came with such high recommendations, so this was a rather unusual exception. But I FINALLY picked it up again on Tuesday, determined to finish it before the movie is released (October 2nd), and I flew through it. Gillian Flynn is an incredibly engaging and innovative writer, and I literally could not put down Gone Girl again. It's all I've been talking about for the last 48 hours because I'm still so invested and obsessed with it. Every time I find someone else that's read it, I get so excited because I get to discuss my opinion of the ending and how I feel about each character's twisted, complicated personality.

Amy and Nick Dunne are seemingly the picture perfect couple: attractive, wealthy (at one point), intelligent, from New York and so in love. Behind close doors however, they are as far from perfect as a couple can be: disenchanted with one another, nearly broke, childless, jobless, and to top it all off, stuck in the middle of Nowhere, Missouri. On the day of their 5-year anniversary, their worlds are completely thrown off balance when Amy disappears into thin air, and Nick becomes the main suspect in her disappearance. As we, the readers, further our journey through the novel, our perceptions of the main characters are solidified and shattered, our allegiances shift back and forth, and by the end, our brains a complete mish-mash of who to trust and who not to trust. Gillian Flynn does a wonderful job of playing with our emotions and most importantly, with our first impressions.

I particularly enjoyed Flynn's style of alternating the storyteller between Amy and Nick, because it's so interesting to see two completely different (and oftentimes, unreliable) versions of the same event, and to see what one character makes of the other in their version of what happened. I would love to say more about Amy and Nick's individual personalities and how utterly fascinating I find their psyche and their motives and their outlook on life and one another, but I don't want to give too much away and risk ruining the thrill of the novel for anyone. Gone Girl is definitely fully deserving of the title "Thriller of the Year" and is truly a fascinating read for any adult.

I'm definitely excited for the movie, and while it seems as though they did a wonderful job of casting, I'm looking forward to seeing how Ben Affleck and Rosamund Pike portray their deliciously complex, fictional counterparts.