Author | Kimberly McCreight |
---|---|
Audio read by | Khristine Hvam |
Country | United States |
Language | English |
Publisher | Harper, 2 |
Publication date | 2013 |
Media type | Print (hardback, paperback), e-book, audiobook |
Pages | 400 pages, first edition |
ISBN | 9781483005393 First edition US hardback |
OCLC | 939641350 |
Followed by | Where They Found Her |
Reconstructing Amelia is the 2013 debut novel of American author Kimberly McCreight. [1] [2] It was first published in hardback in the United States on April 2, 2013, through Harper and received a paperback release on December 3 of the same year. An audiobook edition narrated by Khristine Hvam was released the following year through HarperCollins Audio and Blackstone Audio. McCreight did not write the book with a specific age group in mind and after completing the work commented to a friend that she "might have written an adult-YA crossover." [3] The novel is told through three alternating points of view, that of fifteen year old Amelia Baron, her single mother, Kate, and an anonymous blog called gRaCeFULLY.
Film rights for the novel have been optioned by Nicole Kidman's production company Blossom Films, with Kidman set to star as the character Kate and serve as an executive producer. [4]
The book begins with Kate discovering that her daughter Amelia, a hard working honor student, has been placed on academic probation after she was caught plagiarizing a paper on Virginia Woolf, Amelia's favorite author. She's asked to pick Amelia up and promises to be at the school, Grace Hall, in twenty minutes, but runs late because of the demands of her job as a lawyer and associate partner at a prestigious law firm. Once at Grace Hall Kate is horrified to discover that her daughter has committed suicide by jumping off the roof and spends the following days in a haze. She eventually returns to work to resume her life, but is stunned when she receives a text saying that Amelia didn't commit suicide. This causes Kate to investigate her daughter's death with the help of an officer named Lew and discover that the text is correct - Amelia did not commit suicide. Further investigation shows that Amelia was also innocent of plagiarism and that the true paper was swapped out with another one as an act of bullying.
Through Amelia's narrations and Kate's investigations the reader discovers that Amelia was recruited into the Magpies or "Maggies", a secret society that required her to perform several acts as part of a hazing ritual, which includes taking suggestive photographs in her underwear. She keeps all of this secret from Kate and her best friend Sylvia, especially as Amelia and Sylvia had mutually pledged to not join the Maggies unless both were invited. Prior to this Amelia had told her everything, including her online friendship with Ben, a gay teenager who began texting her earlier that year. As a result Amelia is also initially unable to tell Sylvia about her lesbian relationship with a fellow member named Dylan, the animosity that is directed at her by the Maggie leader Zadie, or evidence of Sylvia's boyfriend Ian cheating on her with another woman. Amelia's relationship with Dylan and her membership with the Maggies ends after Zadie enters Amelia's home and discovers the two together, after which point Zadie begins encouraging the other Maggies to bully Amelia. She's told not to tell anyone or the group will do something to hurt Sylvia. She eventually confides in the school counselor, who successfully encourages her to talk to Sylvia. Sylvia is initially resentful that Amelia lied to her, especially as she is so upset over Ian's cheating, but is supportive of her friend. The two write a letter to Dylan asking for explanation, only for Zadie to send it to the entire school, outing her as a lesbian. She's brought into the office by Grace Hall's headmaster Phillip Woodhouse in an attempt to get her to tell him everything about the Maggies, as he had been trying to get rid of the school's secret societies. Amelia chooses not to say anything because she's afraid of what the group will do to Dylan, because while Woodhouse might be able to protect Sylvia he would be unable to protect Dylan.
It is also revealed that Ben is actually Kate's boss Jeremy, Amelia's biological father. She and Jeremy had previously had a one night stand years earlier while Kate was interning at his company, however Kate had mistakenly thought that the true father was Daniel, a fellow student, but had told no one about who she believed the father was. Jeremy had realized that Amelia was his daughter after she showed signs of Waardenburg syndrome, which runs in his family. Kate is initially led to believe that Amelia was pushed by Zadie and confronts the girl at her home, only to discover that not only was Zadie not responsible for Amelia's fall but that Zadie's mother Adele had made her recruit Amelia and that Zadie was conceived during an affair Adele had with Jeremy. Ultimately Kate discovers the truth behind Amelia's death - she was accidentally pushed off by Sylvia during an argument, as the Maggies had sent her a text that implied that Amelia had been having sex with Ian. The book ends with Kate beginning to come to terms with her grief, Zadie getting sent to a school for troubled girls, and the disbanding of the secret societies forever.
Since its release Reconstructing Amelia has received positive reviews and drawn comparisons to Gillian Flynn's 2012 novel Gone Girl and the works of Jodi Picoult. [5] [6] The Pittsburgh Post Gazette and Publishers Weekly both reviewed the work, with the latter stating that "Fans of literary thrillers will enjoy the novel’s dark mood and clever form, even if the mystery doesn’t entirely hold together." [7] [8] Of comparisons to Flynn's work, Entertainment Weekly felt that the book was "this year’s Gone Girl" while the New York Journal of Books felt that it more closely resembled "Megan Abbott’s Dare Me or Carol Goodwin’s [sic] Arcadia Falls". [9] [6]
Nicole Mary Kidman is an American-born Australian actress, model, producer and singer. She has received many accolades throughout her career, including two Primetime Emmy Awards, five Golden Globe Awards, and an Academy Award from four nominations. She was ranked among the world's highest-paid actresses in 2006, 2018, and 2019. Time magazine named her one of the 100 most influential people in the world in 2004 and again in 2018. In 2020, The New York Times ranked her fifth on its list of the greatest actors of the 21st century up to that point.
Zadie Adeline Smith FRSL is an English novelist, essayist, and short-story writer. Her debut novel, White Teeth (2000), immediately became a best-seller and won a number of awards. She has been a tenured professor in the Creative Writing faculty of New York University since September 2010.
A Little Princess is a children's novel by Frances Hodgson Burnett, first published as a book in 1905. It is an expanded version of the short story "Sara Crewe: or, What Happened at Miss Minchin's", which was serialized in St. Nicholas Magazine from December 1887, and published in book form in 1888. According to Burnett, after she composed the 1902 play A Little Un-fairy Princess based on that story, her publisher asked that she expand the story as a novel with "the things and people that had been left out before". The novel was published by Charles Scribner's Sons with illustrations by Ethel Franklin Betts and the full title A Little Princess: Being the Whole Story of Sara Crewe Now Being Told for the First Time.
Nicole Houston Reed is an American actress, screenwriter, producer and singer-songwriter known for her portrayal of vampire Rosalie Hale in The Twilight Saga (2008–2012). She became known in 2003, after the release of the film Thirteen, directed by Catherine Hardwicke, for which she was credited with Hardwicke as a co-writer of the screenplay, and in which she played a lead role. The film earned Reed an Independent Spirit Award for Best Debut Performance, as well as several nominations.
Valentine is a 2001 American slasher film directed by Jamie Blanks and starring Denise Richards, David Boreanaz, Marley Shelton, Jessica Capshaw, and Katherine Heigl. Loosely based on the novel of the same name by Tom Savage, the film follows a group of women in San Francisco who are stalked by a killer wearing a Cupid mask.
Lauren Myracle is an American writer of young adult fiction. She has written many novels, including the three best-selling "IM" books, ttyl, ttfn and l8r, g8r. Her book Thirteen Plus One was released May 4, 2010.
Gillian Schieber Flynn is an American writer. Flynn has published three novels, Sharp Objects, Dark Places, and Gone Girl, all three of which have been adapted for film or television. Flynn wrote the adaptations for the 2014 Gone Girl film and the HBO limited series Sharp Objects, and was co-screenwriter of the 2018 heist thriller film Widows. She was the show-runner of the 2020 science fiction drama series Utopia. She was formerly a television critic for Entertainment Weekly.
Patricia Rooney Mara is an American actress and animal rights activist. Born into the Rooney and Mara sports business families, she graduated from the Gallatin School of Individualized Study in 2010. She began acting in television and independent films, such as the coming-of-age drama Tanner Hall (2009), and first gained recognition for a supporting role in David Fincher's biographical drama The Social Network (2010).
Skim is a Canadian graphic novel written by Mariko Tamaki and drawn by Jillian Tamaki. Set in 1993, in a Toronto Catholic girls high school, it is about an outsider girl called Skim.
Stoker is a 2013 psychological thriller film written by Wentworth Miller, under the pen-name Ted Foulke, and directed by South Korean filmmaker Park Chan-wook, in his English-language debut. It stars Mia Wasikowska, Matthew Goode, and Nicole Kidman, and was released on 1 March 2013. The film is dedicated to producer Tony Scott, who died after production.
An Experiment in Love is a novel by Hilary Mantel first published in 1995 by Penguin Books.
Mistral's Daughter is a 1984 American television miniseries, adapted from Judith Krantz's 1982 novel of the same name.
Fallen is a 2016 American romantic fantasy drama film directed by Scott Hicks, based on Lauren Kate’s 2009 novel of same name. The film stars Addison Timlin, Jeremy Irvine, Harrison Gilbertson, and Joely Richardson.
Swing Time is a novel by British writer Zadie Smith, released in November 2016. The story takes place in London, New York and West Africa, and focuses on two girls who can tap dance, alluding to Smith's childhood love of tap dancing.
The Beguiled is a 2017 American Southern Gothic film written and directed by Sofia Coppola, based on the 1966 novel of the same name by Thomas P. Cullinan. It stars Nicole Kidman, Kirsten Dunst, and Elle Fanning. It is the second film adaptation of Cullinan's novel, following Don Siegel's 1971 film of the same name.
Kimberly McCreight is an American author, known for her debut novel Reconstructing Amelia. Her The OutliersTrilogy marked her first time publishing in the young adult fiction genre. McCreight has also had pieces published in The New York Times, Sunday Times Style Magazine, New York Magazine Online, Babble, and Park Slope Patch.
Bouchercon is an annual convention of creators and devotees of mystery and detective fiction. It is named in honour of writer, reviewer, and editor Anthony Boucher; also the inspiration for the Anthony Awards, which have been issued at the convention since 1986. This page details Bouchercon XLV and the 2014 Anthony Awards ceremony.
Raven Leilani Baptiste is an American writer who publishes under the name Raven Leilani. Her debut novel Luster was released in 2020 to critical acclaim.