Review: Reconstructing Amelia by Kimberly McCreight

Reconstructing Amelia by Kimberly McCreight

Publisher: HarperCollins 

Pages: 384 

Format: ARC 

Buy the Book: Amazon 

Goodreads:  Litigation lawyer and harried single mother Kate Baron is stunned when her daughter's exclusive private school in Park Slope, Brooklyn, calls with disturbing news: her intelligent, high-achieving fifteen-year-old daughter, Amelia, has been caught cheating.

Kate can't believe that Amelia, an ambitious, levelheaded girl who's never been in trouble would do something like that. But by the time she arrives at Grace Hall, Kate's faced with far more devastating news. Amelia is dead. 

Seemingly unable to cope with what she'd done, a despondent Amelia has jumped from the school's roof in an act of "spontaneous" suicide. At least that's the story Grace Hall and the police tell Kate. And overwhelmed as she is by her own guilt and shattered by grief, it is the story that Kate believes until she gets the anonymous text: 

She didn't jump.

Sifting through Amelia's emails, text messages, social media postings, and cell phone logs, Kate is determined to learn the heartbreaking truth about why Amelia was on Grace Hall's roof that day-and why she died.


Kritters Thoughts:  A high school sophomore is found dead on the ground outside of her prep school and from the beginning it is deemed a suicide, stating that she jumped from the roof, but her mother can't believe that her straight A fantastic daughter would ever committ suicide.  So her mom being a lawyer, used her skills and tracks down the true story of the "accident" that left her without her child.

I loved the twists and the turns of this story, they were like driving down a perfect country road, not to sharp.  The final verdict (which I absolutely can not share) was great, it was semi unexpected, but not completely out of left field.  The other thing that I loved was the inclusion of Amelia's text messages and facebook and the school gossip blog, they added dimension and helped create the full story of what was going on in Amelia's word before the day she died.

Although I hesitate to make this comparison and debated for a long time whether I should say this, I found this book to be a great adult version of Gossip Girl - with prep school high schoolers, a few moments of crazy parties and a murder mystery, it had all the ingredients, but it had the extra kick of one of the main narrators being a parent to give it more of a sophisticated adult edge.  I absolutely loved this who dun it and loved the journey to find out if it was a suicide or not and if not, who did it??

Rating: absolutely loved it and want a sequel

Ebook 2013 Challenge: 25 out of 50

Disclosure of Material Connection:  I received one copy of this book free of charge from TLC Book Tours.  I was not required to write a positive review in exchange for receipt of the book; rather, the opinions expressed in this review are my own.

The tour schedule: 

Tuesday, April 2nd: Bookish Habits

Thursday, April 4th: Twisting the Lens

Monday, April 8th: Luxury Reading

Tuesday, April 9th: Book Hooked Blog

Wednesday, April 10th: Jenn’s Bookshelves

Monday, April 15th: A Book Geek

Tuesday, April 16th: In the Next Room

Wednesday, April 17th: Peppermint Phd

Thursday, April 18th: nomadreader

Monday, April 22nd: A Bookish Affair

Tuesday, April 23rd: No More Grumpy Bookseller

Wednesday, April 24th: Speaking of Books

Thursday, April 25th: Tiffany’s Bookshelf

Tuesday, April 30th: Kritters Ramblings

Wednesday, May 1st: Bloggin’ ‘Bout Books

Thursday, May 2nd: Short and Sweet Reviews