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Amelia Anne is Dead and Gone

by Kat Rosenfield (Goodreads Author)

3.49 of 5 stars 3.49 · rating details · 1,306 ratings · 368 reviews

An arresting un-coming-of-age story, from a breathtaking talent

Becca has always longed to break free from her small, backwater hometown. But the discovery of an unidentified dead girl on the side of a dirt road sends the town--and Becca--into a tailspin. Unable to make sense of the violence of the outside world creeping into her backyard, Becca finds herself retreating inw...more

Hardcover, 279 pages

Published July 5th 2012 by Dutton Juvenile

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2012 Debut Authors (Young Adult & Middle Grade)

127th out of 793 books — 4,493 voters

Something Strange and Deadly by Susan Dennard

July 2012

11th out of 56 books — 132 voters

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Jul 23, 2012 Wendy Darling rated it 4 of 5 stars Recommends it for: fans of Imaginary Girls, The Miseducation of Cameron Post

Shelves: 2012-publication, young-adult, mystery-traditional, july, penguin, ala-2012, mature-ya, icky-subjects, read-2012, summery

This has been amazing year for young adult literature for mature audiences. From The Miseducation of Cameron Post to the upcoming Monstrous Beauty, it's been incredibly exciting to find books that aren't afraid to push boundaries, ask questions, and immerse their readers in unusual literary styles. Is this in recognition that more and more adults are reading YA? Perhaps. I just hope the trend continues.

One of my favorite books this year is definitely Kat Rosenfeld's Amelia Anne is Dead and Gone....more This has been amazing year for young adult literature for mature audiences. From The Miseducation of Cameron Post to the upcoming Monstrous Beauty, it's been incredibly exciting to find books that aren't afraid to push boundaries, ask questions, and immerse their readers in unusual literary styles. Is this in recognition that more and more adults are reading YA? Perhaps. I just hope the trend continues.

One of my favorite books this year is definitely Kat Rosenfeld's Amelia Anne is Dead and Gone. It's the story of Amelia Anne Richardson, a girl found brutally murdered on the side of a dirt road--but it's also the story of Becca, who is spending a last summer at home in her small town. It's a mystery without easy answers, it's a snapshot of a girl's coming into her own, and it's a sad, painful testament to the trauma that envelopes the end of a love affair.

Our first meeting was romantic. High school legend-like, it made me yearn to stay with him just for the chance to tell our kids someday about how their father had swept me off my feet at the tender age of sixteen. About the bonfire at Hunter's Point and the coltish-skinny, cigarette-smoking boy with shaggy hair, sitting apart from his friends, who looked across the flames at me with such intensity that he himself seemed to be on fire.

The writing is entrancing, with a slow, rhythmic cadence that captures the moody summer violence that both girls experience. It isn't an easy book or typical page-turning mystery by any means, and it's likely to be very polarizing in its style and its content. I'm not certain we ever get to know either girl as well as I would have liked, either, and I think I would have been more moved by their plight if their stories didn't parallel quite so much. But I still found myself fascinated by the language and the mystery of what happens to Amelia Anne and Becca, whose true fates seem elusive even at the conclusion of the book. Readers who appreciated the writing in Cameron Post or the dreamy smoke and mirrors of Imaginary Girls will likely fall in love with Amelia Anne is Dead and Gone, too.

This review also appears in The Midnight Garden. An advance copy was provided by the publisher. Recommended for mature YA readers only.

Win a copy of this book over on our blog! If you enjoy more mature, literary YA, you'll likely appreciate the author's prose.(less)

87 likes · like · see review

Dec 29, 2012 Emily rated it 2 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: kindle, read-in-2012

2.5 stars

Things I didn't like:
- Purple prose.
- Lengthy, repetitive descriptions.
- Weird tangents that I couldn't connect with the main story. I dunno, what was the main story? Everything was so convoluted and patchy.
- Every character except James.
- Alll the dramatic fight scenes.
- The pointless red herring.
- The lack of a substantial plot.
- Switching from first to third person - so jarring.
- The unbelievable, unsatisfying ending.

Things I liked:
- James.
- The vivid imagery.
- The parallel charact...more

10 likes · like · see review

Jul 03, 2012 Kelly rated it 4 of 5 stars

Shelves: ya-fiction, read-in-2012

Lush, lush writing and a twist I did not see coming. I mean, I sort of thought it could go down as it did, but I didn't think it'd ACTUALLY happen.

This was a dark, twisted, and complex story. I think the flap copy does it little justice, actually. It's a story about being trapped and becoming free, and it's a metaphor played out via not only murder and destruction, but sex and dreams and reaching for the future while feeling completely stuck in the past.

Reminded me so much style-wise of Nova Re...more

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Aug 18, 2012 Donna The Happy Booker rated it 1 of 5 stars Recommends it for: absolutely nobody

Shelves: because-someone-else-liked-it, contemporary, death, read-in-2012

Amelia Anne is dead and gone but she apparently left behind her thesaurus because her story was quite adjective-alicious. But, once I waded through the overabundance of metaphors and descriptive prose, it was a fairly ok read....until the last 30 or so pages. That ending was bullshit. I was so angry about the fact that I had been drawn in to the suspense of this murder/mystery only to be rewarded with some half ass muddle-muck of an ending. Not to mention that it just WOULD NOT, COULD NOT logica...more Amelia Anne is dead and gone but she apparently left behind her thesaurus because her story was quite adjective-alicious. But, once I waded through the overabundance of metaphors and descriptive prose, it was a fairly ok read....until the last 30 or so pages. That ending was bullshit. I was so angry about the fact that I had been drawn in to the suspense of this murder/mystery only to be rewarded with some half ass muddle-muck of an ending. Not to mention that it just WOULD NOT, COULD NOT logically have happened that way.

(view spoiler)

This less than perfect ending, the overly descriptive writing, and the fact that I found the main character, Becca, to be utterly unlikable, left me a rather grumpy reader after finishing this book. I guess one could look at it as Becca was a "flawed" main character, but I just thought she was nothing but angst and asshattery. This is an example of some of her "personality"

"Rebecca Williams?"
"That's me," I said, hoisting my backpack. The fat girl-whose named turned out to be, hilariously, Bonnie Biggs-smiled and waved at me.

Ugh. Needless to say, I did not enjoy Amelia Anne is Dead and Gone and certainly don't recommend it. However, there are other people who thought that this was a wonderful story and if you're at all curious about this book, take a look at Wendy's review here for another perspective.

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11 likes · like · see review

Aug 22, 2012 Isamlq rated it 4 of 5 stars

3.5/5

Amelia Anne is Dead and Gone is my kind of book, even if it really isn’t ever fast paced. It’s writing you either get or don’t; I certainly did since atmospheric and moody are but two of the things that come to mind.

Their two narratives were cleverly wove together. At first glance the leads feel different, with one whose a future that follows a certain path, a path she’s become familiar with AND another who leaves her own for something different. Yet, think on it more, and there's a symmet...more

2 likes · like · see review

Jun 07, 2012 Katy Upperman rated it 4 of 5 stars

Shelves: ya-fiction, favorites

Amelia Anne had me at hello. The beautiful cover, mesmerizing synopsis, and steady stream of rave reviews were initially intriguing. But then there was the first line:

The night before Amelia Anne Richardson bled her life away on a parched dirt road outside of town, I bled out my dignity in the back of a pickup truck under a star-pricked sky.

Amazing, right? I’m happy to report that each line that follows the first is equally stunning. So are the characters, the setting, and the desperate, raw ton...more

6 likes · like · see review

Jul 23, 2012 Eyehavenofilter rated it 5 of 5 stars

Shelves: impossible-young-love

To say this was elequently written, would be the least I could possibly tell anyone who might think of not reading this amazing book. I just fell in love with everything that lay within the covers of this book.
Like nestling down in my bed with a fuzzy cat at my head,
and another purring at my feet, it was both comfy and a little dangerous, if I moved too quickly one cat could attack.
" ....gossip skipped up and down the asile and murmered in the spaces between the worn wood pews, until the blac...more

2 likes · like · see review

Aug 15, 2012 Laura rated it 3 of 5 stars

Shelves: 2012-mt-bookpile

This is one of those book that is gathering a lot of love and I felt rather "meh" about. Why? In part it's the slightly florrid writing ("Stan's gesturing hand passed over the woman - the life wrung out in bruises beneath her eyes, soaking and blooming and drying the dirt, as he waved his palm over her breasts and the curve of her hip and her delicate, motionless face."). Whew! It felt like very other sentence was like that, which is a little tiring.

The other problem I had was with Becca. She's...more

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Oct 23, 2012 Pixie/PageTurners(Amber) C. rated it 4 of 5 stars

Amelia Anne is Dead and Gone has a raw, unrelenting prose that I found refreshing; it truly captures the teen voice and makes Becca & Amelia very relatable characters.

Becca's life is pretty much perfect - she just graduated high school, has a great boyfriend and is about to leave her small town life style behind and head off to college. On the night of her graduation everything changes; two things happen that night that makes Becca question herself and everyone around her - Becca's boyfriend...more

3 likes · like · see review

May 18, 2012 Tatiana marked it as abandoned Recommends it for: fans of Kirsten Hubbard

Shelves: ya

Objectively speaking, Amelia Anne is Dead and Gone is well written. (Hence, no rating from me, even though I didn't finish it.) Kat Rosenfield is (mostly) in control of her very evocative, atmospheric prose:

"Murder in a small town is always more than a paragraph in the local paper. In a place so insulated, where lives are so small and gone about so quietly, violent death hangs in the air - tinting everything crimson, weaving itself into a shimmering heat that rises off the winding asphalt roads...more

19 likes · like · see review

Jul 06, 2012 Sara (sarabara081) rated it 4 of 5 stars

You can see more of my reviews at Forever 17 Books!

Intense and captivating, Kat Rosenfield’s Amelia Anne is Dead and Gone left me breathless. This tells the story of a girl named Rebecca who just graduated from High School and has plans to high-tail it out of her small town and move forward with her life without looking back. On the night of graduation, her boyfriend suddenly dumps her in a cruel manner and the body of a dead girl is found on the road in her town. No one knows who this girl is o...more You can see more of my reviews at Forever 17 Books!

Intense and captivating, Kat Rosenfield’s Amelia Anne is Dead and Gone left me breathless. This tells the story of a girl named Rebecca who just graduated from High School and has plans to high-tail it out of her small town and move forward with her life without looking back. On the night of graduation, her boyfriend suddenly dumps her in a cruel manner and the body of a dead girl is found on the road in her town. No one knows who this girl is or what happened, except that it was murder. This rocks this quiet small town and weighs heavily on the habitants but no one more than Rebecca. She is at a crossroads in her life, wanting to move on but fearing life on the outside at the same time.

What is great about this novel is that it tells the story of both Rebecca and the aftermath of the mysterious murder but also the circumstances of Amelia’s life, leading up to how she ended up on that road. Like Rebecca, Amelia was also at a crossroads in her life. She had just graduated college and made a huge decision about her career path that completely deviated from her original course. She also felt very stifled by her life and wanted freedom and excitement. I loved how parallel their stories were and I absolutely loved both of these girls. They were relatable with realistic circumstances, thoughts and emotions and I found myself immersed in their lives. I was antsy to get to the end, to find out what truly happened to this poor girl and I was not disappointed! I was hanging on the edge of my seat until the very end!

My only complaint would be that I would often find myself confused on the timeline of events. I struggled with keeping track on whether Rebecca was retelling something that happened in the past or if it was currently happening. I would have to reread sections to figure out what was going on and when. There were also parts being told about past occurences in the town and I had a hard time understanding the relevance. I wish those transitions were told a bit better.

I cannot leave this review without expressing my love for the author’s beautiful and eloquent writing. Her words captivated me and left me spellbound.

We sat together, the rushing breeze making rustling sounds in the trees, the branches above our heads creaking, groaning, moving in time with the wind. The air was thick with the scent of wild roses.

So thick, that smell. It stifled, pressed back against the golden thrust of the sun. The wild rose wants to be remembered, wants to color the afternoon with its heady essence, so that every summer recollection is tinted with its sweet, soft-petaled scent. It was a blanket that covered everything, crept into my nose and flooded my eyes with perfume that couldn't be blinked away.

Gorgeous and so vivid! That was probably my favorite piece in the novel but there are many more that gave me chills as well.

Grittier than most contemporary fiction reads, Amelia Anne is Dead and Gone is a standout. I must warn that there is sex in this novel, though not explicitly so. I highly recommend for older teens and up who are fans of realistic and dark thrillers.
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Aug 08, 2012 Lorraine rated it 3 of 5 stars · review of another edition

If I were the type of person who gave out half stars *cough* this book would be a 3.5 star book.

Why? I didn't enjoy it on a four star level BUT it is most certainly not three star caliber.

Amelia Anne is Dead and Gone is beautifully written. The two interwoven stories of Amelia Anne and Becca come together so nicely to paint a portrait of what it means to leave certain things behind. Kat Rosenfield uses these two ladies to expertly comment on heartbreak, second chances, new beginnings, small to...more

3 likes · like · see review

May 06, 2013 Lauren Morrill rated it 5 of 5 stars

A beautiful, haunting, can't-put-it-down read. Southern gothic in New England.

2 likes · like · see review

Feb 04, 2013 Sandy rated it 2 of 5 stars

Becca has just graduated high school and after one last “good time”, her boyfriend dumps her. The next day, a dead girl is found on the side of the road and James wants to get back together with Becca. She then spends the rest of the summer before she goes away for college mourning her broken heart while trying to pretend the break up never happened while the whole town is obsessed with the murder. The last bit of Amelia’s life is told every so often and is way more interesting than the florid d...more

1 like · like · see review

Dec 09, 2012 Christina (A Reader of Fictions) rated it 2 of 5 stars

Oh, that awkward moment where you read a book that's come highly recommended to you from just about everyone you know and then you don't like the book. There seem to be a lot of times where I'm that guy: the one who goes against the grain of popular opinion. I could list a number of books my friends all loved that I didn't like much at all, as well as ones pretty much no one else cared for that I thought were fabulous. Honestly, it's frustrating this divide that leaves me agreeing with others no...more Oh, that awkward moment where you read a book that's come highly recommended to you from just about everyone you know and then you don't like the book. There seem to be a lot of times where I'm that guy: the one who goes against the grain of popular opinion. I could list a number of books my friends all loved that I didn't like much at all, as well as ones pretty much no one else cared for that I thought were fabulous. Honestly, it's frustrating this divide that leaves me agreeing with others no more than 3/4 of the time.

Though I did not particularly enjoy this book, I am not blind to its charms, so do allow me to start there. Kat Rosenfield has, no doubt, a marvelous career ahead of her. With the first sentence, I knew that I would love her writing, and I was right about that at least. If this is how well she writes a debut, she will be going big places. Her style perfectly matched the tone of the novel, a mood of hopelessness, of loss, and of confusion.

Also on the positive side, I give Rosenfield full credit for telling a unique story, one I have never seen the likes of in YA fiction. She parallels the lives of the titular Amelia Anne and Becca, born and raised in the town where Amelia Anne breathed her last. Both girls are in love, or think they are, with boys who fail to please them sexually. Both have big plans that they fear their boyfriends will not support. Amelia Anne graduated from college the same day that Becca graduated from high school. Amelia Anne died, stuck forever in some sense in this town where Becca dreads being trapped.

Moving into what I did not like now, I have to go back to the writing. Much as I loved the way Rosenfield phrased things and put together her sentences, I did not like the storytelling method she used. I did like getting to see both from Becca's perspective in the present and Amelia Anne's perspective in the days leading up to her death, although I really hate the way her chapters weren't given chapter numbers. What drove me crazy, however, was that the narration occasionally either switched to third person omniscient in Becca's section or that she was telling the story from some unidentified date in the future. The numbered chapters often included reflections on things Becca simply could not know or hints at knowledge she could not yet have possessed. These details detracted from the novel for me, rather than adding additional crucial knowledge.

Amelia Anne Is Dead and Gone is one of those books about terrible people. All of them, with the exception of Amelia Anne, are awful. I did not like a single one of them. Of course, sometimes authors can make this work, make you curious about characters you would happily hurl off a cliff. In this case, though, I just did not care about them. When the dramatic twists happened, instead of being shocked and excited, I was more like "whatever, can we please move this along?" and entirely bored with the whole thing. No matter how clever twists are, if you're not emotionally invested, they lack impact.

Were it not for the beauty of the writing, this rating would be a 2. Though I didn't like this, I urge you not to take this book off your list solely based on my review, as so many reviewers I trust implicitly loved it. As it is, I would read something else of Rosenfield's in a heartbeat, because of how incredibly talented I can tell she is.(less)

3 likes · like · see review

Aug 24, 2012 Karin rated it 4 of 5 stars

Shelves: mystery, teen

Really interesting and creepy novel with 2 storylines. Mainly about a girl named Becca in the summer after high school as she prepares to go off to school (and leave her podunk town and boyfriend behin), but also about the life of a young unidentified woman who is found brutally murdered on the side of the road the night of graduation. Unexpectedly lyrical, but gritty and uncomfortable too.
Starred reviews in PW and Kirkus

1 like · like · see review

Mar 26, 2013 Megan rated it 3 of 5 stars

Amelia Anne is Dead and Gone isn't a happy book, a cheery book or something you would read to make yourself feel better. It's dark for young adult literature, but it seems to be the trend these days.

It follows Becca, a new graduate from high school and her last summer before going to college. She can't wait to get out of her small backwater town, but seems to lose her way after the discovery of dead girl in a ditch outside of town. With no identification, the mystery of the girl's death seems to...more

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Mar 15, 2013 Jodi Papazian rated it 3 of 5 stars

Shelves: ya-reads

This book is so beautifully written. Rosenfield did such a beautiful job telling two very tragic tales that involve murder, heartbreak, and one girl's spiral into depression. It's a mystery that, as a reader, you are confident you have all figured out early on (to the point where I couldn't wait til the end just to prove I was right) but then you realize that you really don't know the outcome. I always appreciate a twist and this story definitely had an interesting one. It also had an epilogue...more

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Mar 14, 2013 Ms. Library rated it 4 of 5 stars

This is one of those books that I picked up on a whim at the library. I am so glad I did.
Its about two girls-both on the cusp on something new. Amelia Anne knows what she wants from life and the future, and she's just trying to figure out how to tell her boyfriend what she really wants. Conversely, Becca is suddenly unsure. All her life she has thought she knew exactly what she wanted, but now when she is finally ready to escape the small town to go to college far away, she feels lost. Her boyf...more

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Feb 21, 2013 Alicia rated it 5 of 5 stars

Shelves: boy, chicklit, dysfunctional, multiple-voices, mystery, romance

Rosenfield is masterful. Her sentences, descriptions and story is captivating and haunting. And even though the resolution isn't knock-your-socks-off powerful, it's mysterious and fits the tone of the relationships and situations that two seemingly unconnected girls have.

On one hand James has been dating Rebecca who longs to leave her small-town life after graduation, while James doesn't have a diploma and amounts to almost nothing, though he loves Becca. Then there's Luke and his relationship...more

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Jan 28, 2013 Stephanie rated it 3 of 5 stars

“Amelia Anne is Dead and Gone” by Kat Rosenfield is not for the faint of heart. Young adult fiction is said to be marketed to readers 12-18, but this one is definitely for the higher end of the spectrum and those much older than 18. Now that I’m so interested in being an editor, I have been paying a lot more attention to the editors of novels and their role in the writing process. This novel in particular proves just how talented Julie Strauss-Gabel is because it shows that she can edit everythi...more “Amelia Anne is Dead and Gone” by Kat Rosenfield is not for the faint of heart. Young adult fiction is said to be marketed to readers 12-18, but this one is definitely for the higher end of the spectrum and those much older than 18. Now that I’m so interested in being an editor, I have been paying a lot more attention to the editors of novels and their role in the writing process. This novel in particular proves just how talented Julie Strauss-Gabel is because it shows that she can edit everything from this to all of John Green’s novels to “Hold Still” by Nina Lacour to “Anna and the French Kiss” by Stephanie Perkins. Penguin's got itself some pretty talented designers, too. I mean, just look at that cover.

When it comes to “Amelia Anne is Dead and Gone,” the title is an excellent summary for part of the plot: Amelia Anne is dead and gone because she is murdered. The novel is about Amelia, but it is also about Becca and how a murder affects her and her town. Amelia’s body turns up on the side of a road that winds through the woods in a small town in Connecticut. If the details of a murder aren’t enough to make you feel uncomfortable, don’t worry because something else in this book will. The opening scene takes place after Becca’s high school graduation. She is with her boyfriend, James, in his truck in the middle of the woods. James throws Becca into the truck bed, has sex with her, and then breaks up with her. If that’s still not enough, just wait until the fight that breaks out behind the restaurant Becca works at.

Although the novel made me feel rather uncomfortable, as a novel about murder rightly should, I enjoyed the unique way in which the novel is told. When I first started reading the novel, I thought it was going to be told from the first person perspective of Becca. I soon realized that I was wrong. The novel is actually told in what feels like three different perspectives. Becca’s chapters and the chapters that describe her town are numbered. The chapters that are told from the third person perspective of Amelia that tell of the events leading up to Amelia’s death have her name at the top of them. I think I would have preferred to have the numbered chapters separated into the Becca chapters and the theory chapters, but I understand why Kat Rosenfield left them the way she did. There are some “I”s in the theory chapters, so I think it is really Becca who is doing all of the theorizing.

Despite my hatred of third person, my favorite of the perspectives was Amelia’s. I loved learning about the life she had before she became a cold, dead body on the side of the road. Her relationship with Luke was so interesting. I also loved that she dropped Calculus for an acting class. These two aspects of Amelia’s life showed how passionate she was.

Kat Rosenfield’s writing is so different from the writing I’m used to in young adult fiction. She uses an immense amount of personification and imagery in her descriptions, elements that make this a literary novel. I could appreciate the beauty of the writing, but at times, it just felt like it was overdone. That said, I did appreciate other literary aspects of this novel. I absolutely loved that I liked Luke way more than James throughout the novel only to have my opinions of them completely reversed when I reached the end. It was very clever.

Most importantly, a force propelled me through this novel that I simply could not break free from. That force was curiosity. Simply put, “Amelia Anne is Dead and Gone” is a mystery. I had to know who killed Amelia. I had to know what happened to her. So I kept turning pages and turning pages, waiting for that fateful sentence when the truth was finally revealed. And, boy, does it get wicked tense at the end there until the truth does come out.

“Amelia Anne is Dead and Gone” is a murder mystery that will keep you hooked from beginning to end.(less)

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Jan 26, 2013 Mindy Hardwick rated it 2 of 5 stars

I wanted to like this one more. The writing is breathtakingly beautiful and had me wanting to linger over each word and sentence.

But I had a few issues with the story which caused my low review. First off, the sex is more graphic than needs to be. If it's classified as New Adult, that's fine. But I wouldn't purchase this one or recommend it to teens in a school setting without worry about getting more than a few parents upset.

Second, the murder is predictable. It didn't have to be. If we had no...more

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Jan 21, 2013 Afton Nelson rated it 3 of 5 stars

Shelves: young-adult

I would say this story is dark, but that would negate the strong imagery of orange lights throughout the narrative. The mention of orange lighting was so plentiful--sometimes twice on one page--I started to wonder if I was missing something important. Still, the story was dark. And orange. And like Becca, I too felt like I went through a hot New England summer in a drunken stupor as I read--not quite sure I was picking up on the nuance, not completely sure of what was going on, or whether I was...more

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Aug 30, 2012 Esther Shaindel rated it 4 of 5 stars

Shelves: 2012-debut-author-challenge

Full review on Reader's Dialogue: http://readersdialogue.blogspot.com/2...

The first thing that hits me about this book is the lushness of the writing. It's just so rich, so descriptive, that I felt like I was in the story at every point - not always so pleasant! The dryness of the road, the flecks of dried blood dusting up.... But definitely satisfying.

As for the story, it's brilliantly woven. Becca's story is intercut with chapters of Amelia Anne's story, and though Becca's spans a summer and A...more

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Aug 24, 2012 Ellen rated it 2 of 5 stars

The opening scene is a kicker - on the night of graduation, salutatorian Becca is dumped by her caring, but HS drop-out boyfriend James after they have sex in the bed of his pickup truck. She's confused, he's distant. A few days later, after the discovery of the title character Amelia's bloody body is discovered, he regrets his decision and reconnects with Becca. For some unexplained reason, she takes him back, only to have the narrative go off in a bit too many directions to adequately support....more

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Aug 18, 2012 Jennifer Holovack rated it 5 of 5 stars

Kat Rosenfield's debut novel is a story told in two parts: the current day events surrounding Becca, a small town girl graduating from high school who is determined not to let her love of her dropout boyfriend get in the way of her leaving for bigger and better things at college and it's the story of Amelia Anne, told in recent flashback, about her similar situation and how she ends up dead on the outskirts of Becca's town at the beginning of the book. Rosenfield plays with a lot of themes here:...more

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Aug 17, 2012 Pam rated it 2 of 5 stars

This novel tells two stories that become one. Becca wants more than anything to move away, going so far as to use a protractor to draw a 200 mile radius circle around her town, selecting a college outside of the bounds. But, as our story opens, the body of a young, unidentified woman is found on the side of the highway, and the impact of this discovery ripples through the community and Becca’s own life. Becca has a boyfriend who dumps her as the novel begins, then wants her back, but there’s som...more This novel tells two stories that become one. Becca wants more than anything to move away, going so far as to use a protractor to draw a 200 mile radius circle around her town, selecting a college outside of the bounds. But, as our story opens, the body of a young, unidentified woman is found on the side of the highway, and the impact of this discovery ripples through the community and Becca’s own life. Becca has a boyfriend who dumps her as the novel begins, then wants her back, but there’s something else going on there. Boyfriend James is just full of sadness, stress, confusion. Mom isn’t doing very well, as wine bottles accumulate in the trash. Summertime only resident Craig, known for his antisocial tendencies, is acting even more peculiar than usual. Interspersed with this are short chapters with Amelia Ann’s story. As readers, we don’t know what happens until the town knows, until the end.

I longed for this to be a plot driven book, with a bit of teenage angst and uncertainty as would be normal for a high school girl, particularly the summer before she goes away. Sadly, it was the opposite, so laden with long emotional chapters which weighed it down to the point where I was tempted to put it down – and so I did, reading the last chapter, and then a few before that to figure out what really happened. I love a good mystery, and really like Rosenfield’s story, just not the way it was presented. In addition, there are just too many wordy, overly metaphoric passages like this one:

“The air was thick with the scent of wild roses. [Para] So thick, that smell. It stifled, pressed back against the golden thrust of the sun. The wild rose wants to be remembered, wants to color the afternoon with its heady essence, so that every summer recollection is tinted with its sweet, soft-petaled scent. It was a blanket that covered everything, crept into my nose and flooded my eyes with perfume that couldn’t be blinked away.”

The passage goes on to describe the heat in as many over-flowering, overflowing phrases. These were just a few of so many that made slogging through this book difficult. I appreciate a good description, a well crafted metaphor, a careful turn of a phrase. Just get to the point, please! I’m wondering where the editor was in all of this. Hopefully Rosenfield’s next book will show some writing maturity, as I think she may be a clever storyteller in the long run.
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Jul 27, 2012 Erin Stuhlsatz rated it 3 of 5 stars

I was disappointed by this book--the reviews I'd read made it sound wonderful. It was good, I mean, there was nothing wrong with it, but it just didn't speak to me.

It felt too similar to other books (a danger if you read too much). The book used two timelines--in one, the body of a young woman is discovered outside a small town, in the other, the young woman is still alive and headed toward the incident that will turn her into a body on the road. The first story's protagonist is a high school gr...more

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Jul 23, 2012 Christelle rated it 4 of 5 stars

This book was fantastic.

There was so much about it that I loved.

First, I liked the eerieness of it all. It really is a book that you can't figure out. You can't guess who will do or say what or what will happen next. Very unpredictable. It also has this eerie vibe all throughout it. The whole book it charged with it, like before a storm, where you feel something is coming but aren't sure when.

Second, I love the small town books. I blame being raised on Stephen King for this. But there is a leve...more

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Jul 20, 2012 Barbara rated it 4 of 5 stars

Shelves: bullies, community, death, families, friendship, ncbla2013

Two stories and lives intersect in an unexpected way in this satisfying thriller. Although I had a pretty good idea how the lives of Becca and Amelia Anne would connect and their similarities were clear from the start, the author throws in hints and red herrings that add to this suspense thriller's delight. Small-town girl Becca has plans to leave her town and her lackluster past far behind her when she heads off to college. But she has feelings for James and is confused by his decision to break...more

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Mock Printz 2014: Amelia Anne is Dead and Gone by Kat Rosenfield	1	34	Aug 01, 2012 09:32am

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Young Adult

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Mystery

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Contemporary

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Young Adult > Teen

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Thriller > Mystery Thriller

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Death

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Thriller

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Young Adult > Young Adult Contemporary

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Romance

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About Kat Rosenfield

Kat Rosenfield was born and raised in Coxsackie, New York, and worked as a production assistant, publicist and copywriter in New York City before finding her niche in writing for teenagers. Her first novel, AMELIA ANNE IS DEAD AND GONE, will be released by Dutton in July 2012.

When not writing fiction, she can be found contributing entertainment news and commentary to MTV's Hollywood Crush blog and...more

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“I have learned that knowing where you're going means remembering where you've been. I'm not afraid of what lurks behind me, or ahead.” — 25 people liked it

“I'd seen it happen, how hard it was to get out. Every year, one or two kids would visit from college for a long October weekend and simply never leave. They came home, cocooned themselves in the familiar radius of the town limits, and never broke free again. Years later, you'd see them working in the kitchen at the pizza place, or sitting at the bar in the East Bank Tavern. Shoulders hunched, jaw set, skin slack. And in the waning light of their eyes, the barest sensation that once upon a time, they been somewhere else... or maybe it was only a dream.” — 5 people liked it

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