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    Reconstructing Amelia
    Reconstructing Amelia
    Reconstructing Amelia
    Audiobook12 hours

    Reconstructing Amelia

    Written by Kimberly McCreight

    Narrated by Khristine Hvam

    4/5

    ()

    About this audiobook

    New York Times Bestseller

    “Like Gone Girl, Reconstructing Amelia seamlessly marries a crime story with a relationship drama. And like Gone Girl, it should be hailed as one of the best books of the year.”  — Entertainment Weekly

    The stunning debut novel from Kimberly McCreight in which a single mother reconstructs her teenaged daughter Amelia’s tragic death, sifting through her emails, texts, and social media to piece together the shocking truth about the last days of her life.

    Kate's in the middle of the biggest meeting of her career when she gets the telephone call from Grace Hall, her daughter’s exclusive private school in Park Slope, Brooklyn. Amelia has been suspended, effective immediately, and Kate must come get her daughter—now. But Kate’s stress over leaving work quickly turns to panic when she arrives at the school and finds it surrounded by police officers, fire trucks, and an ambulance. By then it’s already too late for Amelia. And for Kate.

    An academic overachiever despondent over getting caught cheating has jumped to her death. At least that’s the story Grace Hall tells Kate. And clouded as she is by her guilt and grief, it is the one she forces herself to believe. Until she gets an anonymous text: She didn’t jump.

    Reconstructing Amelia is about secret first loves, old friendships, and an all-girls club steeped in tradition. But, most of all, it’s the story of how far a mother will go to vindicate the memory of a daughter whose life she couldn’t save.

    Editor's Note

    Mystery & drama...

    Kate’s structured world dissolves when her daughter dies in an apparent suicide. As Kate uses social media, e-mail & texts to piece together her daughter’s final days, she realizes the death was not suicide, but murder.

    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherHarperAudio
    Release dateApr 2, 2013
    ISBN9780062237590
    Reconstructing Amelia
    Author

    Kimberly McCreight

    Kimberly McCreight is the New York Times bestselling author of Reconstructing Amelia, which was nominated for the Edgar, Anthony, and Alex Awards; Where They Found Her; and The Outliers young adult trilogy. She attended Vassar College and graduated cum laude from the University of Pennsylvania Law School. She lives in Brooklyn with her husband and two daughters.

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    Reviews for Reconstructing Amelia

    4/5

    994 ratings101 reviews

    What did you think?

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    • 4/5
      I loved how the complexity of the story compounded without being disjointed or confusing. Well told story where new twists are frequently revealed
    • 5/5
      Brilliantly written and very addictive! I could not stop listening. Love it!
    • 4/5
      I liked the pace of the story but the characters were a bit flat. Not every person in a story has to be somehow "strikingly beautiful" in order for the story to be interesting.
    • 4/5
      I liked watching the story unfold. When the cop took the lawyer with him to investigate, that ruined any credibility the story had for me. I liked how it wrapped up.
    • 4/5
      This book reminds us of so many things- among them I think the most important is that everybody, or mostly everybody, makes decisions with the best of intentions. Throughout the book we find out secrets about most major characters in the novel, and even a couple of minor characters by proxy. The one thing that remains constant is that every secret they tried to keep was because they thought it was for the best. It is important to remember that whatever happens, no matter how big or small, it happened for a reason and somebody was doing what they thought was right.

      Second, with the alternating voices of Kate and Amelia, we get the sense that people are evil in high school and people are evil in adulthood. Grudges are often held for quite some time, for whatever reason. People have a very hard time of letting go, and the way they handle those feelings may differ with age, but at the end of the day, everybody is watching out for themselves.

      I loved the way the book was written from so many different perspectives, most notably I believe the choice to incorporate Virginia Woolf references was carefully calculated, and perhaps even a motivation for the novel. It was no mistake that Amelia loved Virginia Woolf and used Virginia Woolf to convey her own feelings. These references were carefully chosen, and were written in in such a way that made them realistic for a high school student. This was an excellent book and I am so glad that I took the time to read it.
    • 4/5
      Started slowly and the tumbled down to the interesting and unexpected conclusion. Enjoyed it. Great story telling.
    • 3/5
      thought this should be a teen book since it's major focus was teenagers. it was a good read and kept me interested until the end
    • 5/5
      so good
    • 1/5
      I wanted to like this, but the writing is really bad. Really bad. Really, really, really bad. Plus, some of the plot points simply made no sense. There are certain things you can suspend your disbelief to and that’s fine and normal when it comes to any form of fiction, as long as it makes sense in their world the author created, but there is a limit. There’s no way a detective would bring the mother of a victim along with him to interview witnesses and get statements. It….. No, just no.

      Unless, he wasn’t really a detective and was only hired to act like one so Kate could find the truth. If this was the case, then I’m fine with it. However, that doesn’t happen. He’s just a cop who is investigating the suspicious death of a girl and decides that it would be fun to let the dead girl’s mom take lead in the investigation.

      Yea...that would never happen. Never.

      Also, the adults sounded and acted like teenagers. Once you get to the end, you’ll understand what I mean. The whole thing was just ridiculous.

      Great potential here, but it’s wasted by bad writing, a plot that falls short, and characters that are just too stupid and not believable.

      I’m seriously disappointed, because I really wanted to like this book and it just fell flat. I could probably write more about how the relationship between Kate and Amelia was mostly showing not telling and despite making it seem like the two were super close, they felt really distant from one another. Or I could write about how the whole Ben subplot was creepy and awkward. Or I could even talk about the Magpies, whose secret circle isn’t really all that secret. Or even about how everyone magically reveals their secrets within the last few pages, wrapping up all of the loose ends in a convenient little bow.

      But I won’t.

      Because the main problem with this novel isn’t really the plot, or the lack of brains the characters seem to have, it’s the writing. I almost feel like with a better author the stupid plot points maybe would have become plot perks or something. Instead, the book is just lackluster and boring. And a novel with this much potential and this kind of plot shouldn’t be boring.

      Overall: I know there are a lot of people who loved this. Loved it to the point that it’s going to be a movie starring Nicole Kidman. But I didn’t like it. It was boring. It was unbelievable. And I just didn’t enjoy reading this. This is McCreight’s debut novel and she did have great ideas, so I’ll probably pick up her next book to see what she’ll come up with next. But yea, this book was bad.
    • 3/5
      A single mother receives a phone call to pick her teen daughter up from school. When she reaches the school, she is notified that her daughter has died after falling from the roof. It is determined a suicide but after receiving mysterious texts, the case is reopened. The mother and police must piece together her daughters last days through her online life which turns out to be very disturbing.
    • 5/5
      Good character development, good suspense, good mystery. I really liked this book.
    • 1/5
      I would not recommend this novel. It was particularly disturbing to have read this book at the same time a 13-year-old girl was kidnapped in Virginia and killed by a 19-year-old male college engineering student with whom she had an on-line relationship. This true story also involved another female 18-year-old engineering student who helped plan the abduction and murder and bury the body. With these types of real events happening all too often, I felt this novel, which is likely to be picked up and read more by teens and young adults than by their parents, can do more harm than offer anything of value.
    • 5/5
      This was an amazing audiobook. I listened to it over a long drive and it kept me on the edge of my seat the entire time. The reader really gets you into understanding the personalities of the characters and has different voices for different characters. I recommend this great read to anyone who likes a little mystery, love, family, and friendship. This book had all the things we are all very familiar with and it was nice to have not only one perspective, but two perspectives in the book.
    • 5/5
      I enjoyed this book. poor amelia
    • 4/5
      I liked the book and the narrator was great! I felt like I was there at times. great story by the author. she did a good job at opening my eyes to the troubles that kid have to face in today's world
    • 3/5
      A good book... but at some point it became too long.
    • 4/5
      I really enjoyed the book but I felt like the end was a bit of a letdown. The author is a great storyteller and hope to read more.
    • 4/5
      Amazing book i definitely recommend!
    • 5/5
      Very interesting and pretty realistic. The way it was written did a great job keeping my attention and interest.
    • 4/5
      kept me interested till last
    • 3/5
      I'd go 3.5 for this one. I enjoyed the beginning and progressively liked it less as it went. There we're a lot of far-fetched connections that pushed the limit of my ability to suspend disbelief.

      The best part of the book for me was Amelia's POV. That kept me hanging on through all the stuff I didn't care for.

      I still recommend it if you know you're going to spend some time eye rolling and sighing. I'm still happy I read it.

      OH! I highly recommend going either ebook or print for this one. The audio left a lot to be desired. The narrator nearly killed it for me the longer I had to listen to her voices for most of the characters.
    • 3/5
      This was kind of a convoluted mess. I've realized that I don't like stories based around teens and I don't want to be unfair, but the plot seemed far-fetched to me. The mom searching for answers to her prep-school daughter's death was way too involved in the investigation to be realistic. And almost every adult in this story was a jerk, a lousy parent, an unscrupulous teacher or school official. There was just too much going on at once.
    • 2/5
      A grieving mother seeks the reason behind her daughter's supposed suicide. I found this book to be very disturbing on very many levels. While not familiar personally with private schools, my husband taught at one for years, and the scandals there were nothing like this. The actions of the girls in this little club are nothing less than evil, a level of evil that is surprising on many levels. More disturbing is the cover-up within the school administration. I was so bothered by all of this that the story itself was secondary. I realize that I am probably not part of the target audience for this book (I'm 60), so perhaps a younger reader would appreciate this more.
    • 4/5
      This is the second book I’ve read from Kimberly McCreight, and I’m finding the review just as hard to review. This book was just so horribly sad. The tragedy was just so pointless, yet I suppose this kind of pointless tragedy occurs daily. It’s just one of those stories that really make you think about how quickly life can end.
    • 4/5
      Teenage Amelia is smart, athletic and pretty. Her shocking death, initially called a suicide, comes into question giving Kate, her mother, an opportunity to look deep into her daughter's life as well as her own. Amelia, more brainy than popular, is invited to join a secret society at Grace Hall, her snooty high school in Park Slope. Against her better judgement, Amelia endures hazing and keeps her invitation to the Magpies a secret from her best friend, Sylvia. Along the way Amelia engages in a platonic friendship via text with "Ben, " someone she's never met in person but who claims to be gay. Kate is a hard working single parent who has not told Amelia who her father is. Ultimately, Kate doesn't know who the father is very present in Amelia's life in the end. After being humiliated with half clothed pictures and a private message confessing her love for a fellow Magpie being broadcast to the entire school, Amelia opts out of the Magpies. The cause of death is an accidental fall from the roof of the school which her best friend Sylvia witnesses. The book keeps the reader (or in my case, the listener) on edge throughout!
    • 4/5
      I ended up liking this a lot more than I even thought I would. It definitely held my interest and kept me guessing. The one thing keeping me from giving this 5 stars is that too many things seemed just implausible. Too many people were plotting against this girl all at the same time. An overabundance of surprises and plot twists takes a story from exciting to far-fetched. However - I still enjoyed the story with all of it's twists, turns, and sketchy characters, and mean-girl secret societies, and baby daddy drama.
    • 4/5
      I thought this was a wonderful novel. Kudos to the author, it kept me coming back for more. 4 stars.
    • 5/5
      Everywhere I look, this book is compared to Gillian Flynn's Gone Girl and I'd say those comparisons are valid. It's emotional and swings back and forth between the relationship and the mystery. At the end, the twists keep coming with each one being more shocking than the next. And I did not guess the ending. Looking back I guess I should have but I missed it. And I so felt for Kate and wanted her to get answers. I highly recommend this book to EVERYONE that loves a mystery with heart.
    • 4/5
      Story of Amelia, who gets caught up in being a teenager with all the drama of High School. Could be any school, and any child, unfortunately. This was an easy read, kept moving. As a parent it was heartbreaking to read.
    • 5/5
      This is a great novel. Its plot and characters were outstanding. I especially loved how it was told. At the beginning, Kate Barton is informed her fifteen year old daughter has been suspended from the private school where she is a student because she cheated. By the time Kate arrives at the private school, her daughter, Amelia, is dead. The cause of death is suicide, or so Kate believes until she gets a text from a blocked number. Amelia didn't jump.
      The story gets interesting after that. It is told through two view points, through Kate (third person), trying to figure out what happened to her daughter and through Amelia (first person), in the days leading up to her death.
      In a way, it is two different novels told in one. I enjoyed it and it was a page turner.