Reconstructing Amelia

by Kimberly McCreight

First published 2013

Kate is deep in the most important meeting of her career when Grace Hall calls. Her daughter Amelia has been suspended from the exclusive Brooklyn private school and needs to be picked up immediately. Kate rushes to the school only to find police cars, fire trucks, and ambulances surrounding the building. Amelia is dead. The school tells Kate that her academically gifted daughter jumped from the building after being caught cheating. Kate accepts this explanation through her fog of guilt and grief until an anonymous text arrives: She didn't jump. Kate begins investigating what really happened to Amelia, uncovering secrets about first love, friendships, and a traditional all-girls club. The deeper Kate digs into her daughter's life, the more she realizes how little she knew about Amelia's world. This becomes a mother's desperate quest to clear her daughter's name and discover the truth about what drove Amelia to her death.

Genres: suspense, mystery, contemporary, thriller

Vibes: intimate, suspenseful, thought-provoking

Tropes: investigation, unreliable-narrator

Setting: Brooklyn

382 pages · Hardcover · HarperCollins

Content warnings: suicide

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