Reconstructing Amelia by Kimberly
McCreight
Single mother Kate Baron is devastated. Her daughter committed suicide after being caught
plagiarizing a paper. While Kate has
trouble believing not only that Amelia would cheat, but that she would jump off
the roof of her school, she accepts the truth of her daughter’s passing and
tries to pick up the pieces of her life.
Then she receives an anonymous text message: she didn’t jump…
After that text Kate rethinks her
daughter’s death. Why would she copy a
paper when the assignment was about Amelia’s favorite author? Who were her new friends? Why are hate notes stuffed in her daughter’s
desk drawer? As Kate starts to put
together the picture of her daughter’s last few months she learns a lot about the
daughter she thought she knew everything about.
Told through texts, emails and
narrative, the story unfolds in the present with Kate digging into her daughter’s
life and the past with Amelia telling the events that led up to her death. I won’t give anything away, you’ll have to read
it for yourself, but I was surprised to find what really happened on the roof
that fateful day.
