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Overview
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.
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Details
- ISBN-13: 9780062225443
- ISBN-10: 0062225448
- Publisher: Harper Perennial
- Publish Date: December 2013
- Dimensions: 7.9 x 5.3 x 1.1 inches
- Shipping Weight: 0.35 pounds
- Page Count: 400
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New paperback releases for reading groups
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In A Possible Life: A Novel in Five Love Stories, best-selling author Sebastian Faulks spins five very different yet closely linked stories into a larger, moving narrative. Set in different eras, each story focuses on a lone character adrift and in need of love. During World War II, Geoffrey, a British prep-school teacher turned soldier, falls for a French woman who deceives him. Jeanne, an illiterate maid in 19th-century France, leads a work-filled life with few distractions, but she’s also on a remarkable spiritual quest. Elena, a neurobiologist whose story is set in the future, is able to recall scenes from the other stories in the book and find solace in them. Each richly developed narrative stands on its own even as it illuminates and enlarges its companion pieces. Faulks moves effortlessly between eras and locales to create a breathtaking mosaic—a narrative about our innate need for connection and the ways in which the past influences the future.
TEEN SECRETS
In her much-praised debut novel, Reconstructing Amelia, Kimberly McCreight builds a powerful story around a mother’s worst nightmare. Kate, a single mom, is heartsick over the apparent suicide of her 15-year-old daughter, Amelia. Staff at the private academy Amelia attended tell Kate that her daughter was depressed because she’d been caught cheating and jumped off the school roof. But when Kate receives an anonymous text that indicates otherwise, she sets out to redeem her daughter. A career-driven lawyer, Kate is persistent in her quest, and the troubling discoveries she makes about Amelia—her questionable friendships, her membership in an exclusive girls’ club at school—reveal the stresses from which her daughter suffered. This chilling novel is narrated by both Kate and Amelia, whose Facebook posts and emails flesh out the story. McCreight writes with sensitivity about ever-relevant topics like grief, the mother-daughter bond and bullying. A hypnotic mystery from a promising new writer, this is a timely book about the dangers of being a teen in today’s technology-oriented society.
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