{"id":33454,"date":"2014-06-05T10:22:43","date_gmt":"2014-06-05T14:22:43","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/apa.si.edu\/bookdragon\/?p=33454"},"modified":"2014-06-05T10:30:51","modified_gmt":"2014-06-05T14:30:51","slug":"reconstructing-amelia-by-kimberly-mccreight","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/apa.si.edu\/bookdragon\/reconstructing-amelia-by-kimberly-mccreight\/","title":{"rendered":"Reconstructing Amelia by Kimberly McCreight"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"Reconstructing<\/a>Without a doubt, Kimberly McCreight<\/a>‘s bestselling debut contains every parent’s every\u00a0<\/em>nightmare, beginning with the absolute worst at the end of the first full chapter: “I’m sorry, Mrs. Baron. But your daughter, Amelia, is dead.”<\/p>\n

Her 15-year-old body lies broken\u00a0on the grounds of her posh private school in Brooklyn. The official ruling\u00a0is “impulsive suicide” following a suspension for\u00a0cheating. But “four weeks, two days, and sixteen hours\u00a0since Amelia had leaped off the roof of Grace Hall,” her devastated single mother, Kate, returns to her high-power law firm office, and receives an anonymous text: “Amelia didn’t jump.”<\/p>\n

And so Kate begins ‘reconstructing’ what happened that tragic\u00a0afternoon, and how her bright, talented, well-loved, never-trouble-causing,\u00a0near-perfect daughter ended up a teenage fatality.\u00a0With all the comparisons to megaseller-coming-to-a-multiplex-near-you<\/a>, Gone Girl<\/a><\/em>, a more fitting title might have been Gone Good Girl.<\/em> Because the Amelia that Kate\u00a0was so sure of, isn’t really who her daughter had become in just the few short months before she died. The one detail Kate knows as truth, however,\u00a0is that Amelia didn’t cheat, at least not on that Virginia Woolf paper, whose work Amelia\u00a0knew better than even her favorite teacher. Everything else is another story … and then some.<\/p>\n

All that social media overload proves raw and\u00a0exposing. Thanks to a savvy IT-wizard at her\u00a0office, Kate discovers a\u00a0virtual\u00a0Amelia she never knew: first love, lost love, old friends and new, a vicious blog (I’m still trying to figure out the significance of the lettering in GraCeFULLY: “Because there are 176 definitions of the word loser<\/em>\u00a0on urbandictionary.com. Don’t be a statistic”), and a student (!)\u00a0club that\u00a0takes\u00a0viciousness to unparalleled extremes. And those are just the kids … just\u00a0imagine the adults who created them \u2013 parents, steps, teachers, oh my.<\/p>\n

In spite of a\u00a0few improbable plot twists (a too-conveniently dirty cop, jealous (supposed-to-be-legal)\u00a0partners willing to\u00a0compete\u00a0above the law, unscrupulous teachers, and ‘who’s your Daddy’ indeed), you’ll find any excuse to keep the story going. Choosing\u00a0audible might help you along: narrator Khristine Hvam is mostly fine stuck in the ears \u2013 McCreight’s superb pacing will get you through Hvam’s occasional shrillness, and even her\u00a0cringe-inducing accents. In the quest to learn\u00a0whodunnit sooner than later,\u00a0commuting, dishes, laundry, running another five miles, all become welcome reading opportunities. Whatever your plans for the day, just know you’ll get little else done: you won’t be able to stop\u00a0until Amelia reveals all.<\/p>\n

Readers<\/strong>: Adult<\/p>\n

Published<\/strong>: 2013<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Without a doubt, Kimberly McCreight‘s bestselling debut contains every parent’s every\u00a0nightmare, beginning with the absolute worst at the end of the first full chapter: “I’m sorry, Mrs. Baron. But your daughter, Amelia, is dead.” Her 15-year-old body lies broken\u00a0on the grounds of her posh private…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":33455,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"inline_featured_image":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[5,81,6,60],"tags":[6608,74,58,75,11,1791,5729,50,13,129,39,5728,79],"class_list":["post-33454","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-adult-readers","category-audio","category-fiction","category-nonethnic-specific","tag-bookdragon","tag-bullying","tag-coming-of-age","tag-death","tag-friendship","tag-khristine-hvam","tag-kimberly-mccreight","tag-lgbtqia","tag-love","tag-mother-daughter-relationship","tag-parent-child-relationship","tag-reconstructing-amelia","tag-school-challenges"],"yoast_head":"\nReconstructing Amelia by Kimberly McCreight - BookDragon<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/apa.si.edu\/bookdragon\/reconstructing-amelia-by-kimberly-mccreight\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Reconstructing Amelia by Kimberly McCreight - BookDragon\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Without a doubt, Kimberly McCreight‘s bestselling debut contains every parent’s every\u00a0nightmare, beginning with the absolute worst at the end of the first full chapter: “I’m sorry, Mrs. Baron. 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