Reconstructing Amelia (McCreight)

Book Reviews
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


After her teenage daughter Amelia’s mysterious suicide, litigation attorney Kate Baron becomes an unlikely amateur sleuth in McCreight’s diverting, if busy, debut.... [A] series of anonymous text messages intimating[e] that Amelia was actually murdered.... Amelia’s first-person narration provides the most human note, as McCreight portrays the darkness of adolescence, complete with doomed love, bullies, poisonous friendship, and insecurity. Fans of literary thrillers will enjoy the novel’s dark mood and clever form, even if the mystery doesn’t entirely hold together.
Publishers Weekly


Alternating perspectives from Kate and Amelia reveal the inner lives of a woman trying to balance motherhood with a demanding career and a teenager struggling with her blossoming sexuality while dealing with severe bullying. Despite a plot heavily dependent on coincidence, this is a compulsively readable novel that will appeal to Jodi Picoult fans.  —Michele Leber, Arlington, VA
Library Journal


An elaborately plotted mystery.... A harrowing story.... McCreight does a fne job of building suspense and creating characters, notably Kate and Amelia, whom the target audience—both adults and older teens—will care about and empathize with.
Booklist


Former attorney McCreight pens a multilayered legal thriller. Single mom Kate Baron struggles with the unholy demands that come with being an associate at a high-powered New York City law firm while raising her 15-year-old daughter, Amelia.... Amelia has fallen from the school roof, a victim of her own failure..., but Kate]doesn't believe Amelia killed herself.... The author tells the story in flashbacks, alternating between Kate's and Amelia's point of view, leading up to the day Amelia died.... [T]he book never bogs down and comes to a seamless and unanticipated conclusion.... [A] solid debut novel.
Kirkus Reviews