Reconstructing Amelia (2013)

Reconstructing Amelia by Kimberly McCreight
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Everything you have read about Reconstructing Amelia is true especially the part about the inability to put the book down once you start reading.

Bottom Line: Highly recommended

Amelia has apparently committed suicide. How could that be? When a text shows up saying she didn't jump, the search for the truth begins. This mystery kept me up past my bedtime.

Told alternately by Amelia and her mother Kate, additional parts of the story are interspersed through a  student gossip paper and email exchanges. At first the past/present sections can demand extra attention but that becomes a natural part of the progression moving through the story.

If only we didn't keep secrets from each other especially when sometimes those secrets aren't as terrible as we think and may not even be the truth. Unraveling the mystery of Amelia's death is a fascinating study in relationships.

Nicole Kidman has already optioned the book for an HBO project she will star in and produce.

Kimberly McCreight attended Vassar College and graduated cum laude from the University of Pennsylvania Law School. After several years as a litigation associate at some of New York City's biggest law firms, she left the practice of law to write full-time. Her work has appeared in such publications as Antietam Review, Oxford Magazine and Babble. She has lived in Park Slope, Brooklyn, with her husband and two daughters for the past seven years.