Gossip Girl

Entertainment Weekly recommends this book highly, and I recommend as a good read; not outstanding.

Suspended and deceased good girl, Amelia narrates the preceeding events to her alleged suicide. Loving, work-a-holic mom pieces together clues from texts, visits to friends' houses, and examines her own past to determine if her daughter really jumped. Gossip Girl themes run rampant, with secret clubs and hazing, but McCreight is a better writer than Cecily Von Ziegesar.

Interesting listen and worth my credit, but a little hokey at times.

74 people found this helpful

Melodramatic

Any additional comments?

This would have been a better book if the characters were more realistic. This isn't a book with characters as much as it is one with goofy caricatures of rich people.

Kind, sporty, rich, unique, humble, beautiful, incredibly smart Amelia and her incredibly ambitious yet kind-hearted, gentle but tough, beautiful, successful single mother Kate act as the foil to pretty much every other character in the book. Besides Amelia and Kate, every character is portrayed as being so wildly and obviously unlikeable that the ensuing melodrama is predictable and boring. Even Amelia's "likable" best friend is vicious, selfish, vengeful, manipulative, crude, and petty.

For example, dialogue between Amelia and her best friend Sylvia usually seesaws between Sylvia saying something impossibly rude (about Amelia not having a father/Amelia being a virgin/Amelia being smart/Amelia's mom working long hours) and then Amelia apologizing.The relationships between the characters make no sense. Even the relationship between Amelia and Kate is confusing and unrealistic.

A good mystery should allow for some mystery. By blatantly pushing for sympathy toward Amelia/Kate and disdain toward Gretchen/Zady/Zady's mom/Zady's dad/Sylvia/Magpies in general/school administrators/Ms Pearl/the first detective/boys in general/adolescents in general/etc, "Reconstructing Amelia" really allows for no imagination or thought.

The only mercy in this book is that Amelia dies. Unfortunately, it is a slow death (about 12 hours and 15 minutes).

39 people found this helpful

All young women should read this!

This story was powerful and hit close to home as an educator. I see this drama all the time and it makes me so mad that kids continue to do hateful things to each other. If young ladies read this perhaps they will have a little empathy for their fellow humans instead of becoming a husk of a corpse that walks and talks with little to no emotional connection.

15 people found this helpful

What A Disapppointment

Initially I found the book interesting, but then it all went downhill with an ending that was simply ridiculous. There were too many holes, none of the characters made sense, nor did they warrant any sympathy, and the "Epilogue" was so predictable that it was almost not worth reading. In fact, about 3/4 way through the book I thought about returning it, which is not my style. So I finished it and felt like I had been forced to watch some sappy made for TV movie. Sometimes I wonder what publishers are looking for when they read first-time manuscripts.

6 people found this helpful

Redeemed by the Reader

Khristine Hvam could read the dictionary to me and I would be happy! She saved this audiobook from total mediocrity! The story reminded me of a 2013 version of the "afterschool movie of the week" from 30 yrs ago. Same basic premiss of adolescent bullying that went on when I was in HS, just updated with cyberbullying, homosexuality and working parents. It would have been more interesting if it was better edited and a few non-important characters were left out. I think that a teen might enjoy this book and it could open up a discussion for parents to explore boundaries. For my adult bookclub it was a poor selection, thankfully not mine.

13 people found this helpful

What a wonderful book

I am not good at writing book reviews, but this book was wonderful. The story, the narration, both were excellent. Looking forward to reading another book by this author.

6 people found this helpful

Just awful

I'm guessing teenage girls might like this, but after 15 minutes of the snivelling voice actress, I gave up. I don't wanna go back to high school with this group of people.

8 people found this helpful

WARNING TO PARENTS

If this book relates how teens really behave, I am very sad. If this is how it is at the private schools that feed the best universities, than we are truly in trouble.

When did parents and teachers become silly panderers and enablers to unruly, undisciplined, crude, rude, and promiscuous children. When did they give up their right, and yes duty to discipline and teach?

Of course the access to social media is a terrible weapon in the hands of heedless children, but where are the responsible adults????????

Children, and yes teens are minor children, should not be allowed to be responsible for their lives, that is what parents and teachers are for. In this book both groups seem to be afraid of the teens, as well they might be, for they are way past out of control.

Rules, clearly defined, punishments delivered as stated in rules, DO NOT HARM THE YOUNG. They know when it is just, and they know when it is deserved . Parents and teachers are supposed to protect and nurture and teach the young in any society, to become responsible and capable adults, able to survive and provide for themselves. We are not doing that.

1 person found this helpful

VERY Mean Girls

This isn't just listening; it is working a numbing and gutsy jigsaw puzzle...fitting the pieces together, filling in the details, until the whole big picture crystallizes. It is the reconstruction of that cracked picture that is the catalyst for this story. McCreight has crafted each piece to build the suspense, expand the clues, and keep you anxiously waiting for the next piece. The story is impressive for a debut novel, and it is engrossing--laced with hot-button concerns that keep triggering a nagging whisper of plausibility in your head: peer pressure, a sexualized culture, sexual identity, bullying, increased single parent providers, and the ever-present social media. Switching the narration between the mother and daughter heightens the differing perspectives, and allows each character's personality to shine through. This approach also gives an authentic feel to the journals, texts, and facebook conversations used to tell this story and put all the pieces together. All handled very well by narrator Khristine Hvam, who wisely chose not to give a cheesy adolescent voice to the teen characters.

Unless one is a helicopter parent, breaks into journals and diaries, regularly monitors Twitter accounts and facebook pages, etc....how well does a parent really know a child? When successful attorney and single mother Kate receives a call from her daughter's exclusive private school saying that her seemingly perfect girl has been suspended, she begins to question what she thought was an uncommonly close and loving relationship with her daughter. By the time she arrives at the school, things have gone horribly wrong. Amelia's body is crumpled on the grass -- the school says that she was distraught and jumped to her death. Kate is consumed by guilt; nights of overtime, mother-daughter time interrupted by emergency calls from work, those secrets that she kept to protect her daughter... Who is this ambiguous new text-friend Ben? And then, there are the Magpies --a secret exclusive clique of malevolent amoral creatures that make the girls from Heathers/Mean Girls/Gossip Girl look like Tinkerbell and her fairy pals. What Kate sees doesn't fit what she knows in her heart.

Thorny but entertaining listen I enjoyed (in spite of an over reliance on excessive dramatic elements, and some improbable happenings like the author of the school blog--I'm so sure [??] ). It's a choice I recommend with some reservations:
*This seems to be a new trend in books--a book that appeals to YA readers, but is written with language that will get a music CD the Tipper Gore big b&w *Parental Advisory* label. If the language isn't a deterrent, it's possible the flippant sexual encounters and liberal use of drugs and ETOH might be.
Finally, the comparison to Gillian Flynn's Gone Girl is a stretch (and a little optimistic) that I just didn't see, other than the use of a variety of communications. Maybe a case of publisher manipulation?

29 people found this helpful

Interesting & Enjoyable

Reconstructing Amelia was an enjoyable book with some a very interesting premise. The chapters go back and forth between the mother's point of view, and the daughter's narration from before her death. We as the readers do finally know the whole truth, but true to life, the mother can only hope to put together enough information to get the basic outline of what happened to her daughter.

I did read a review that compared this book to "Gone Girl", acting like this was the next big thing. While I did find it interesting and enjoyable, I personally would not compare it to Gone Girl. The stories are required to have very different tones since this is a mother/daughter that were close, and it lacks the dark wit and hard edges that made Gone Girl such a great summer read.

There are some issues with the recording towards the beginning; nothing that hinders your ability to hear any words spoken, just a jump in sound quality a few times from an almost echo-y sound to a more dull and muted tone; it made me wonder if anyone listened to the recording before releasing it. It was like bad splicing. Still, this was only a few times towards the beginning; and while it caused some irritation and concern, it did not continue through the book, so don't worry if you notice it towards the beginning.

Speaking as someone who gobbles up a book about every other day, I enjoyed reading this and it was a good selection for me. If that is you also, and you need to find a high volume of selections, I do recommend this. I liked it. If, however, you have less time for your audiobooks and can therefore be super selective in your purchases, then perhaps there are enough books that are even better than this one to read.

Overall, I liked the story. It got a bit far fetched towards the end, but I still enjoyed it overall.

17 people found this helpful