Amelia: Lying is Bad: Halfway Done

[Andrew, Wound Up]

***Open discussion through the end of the chapter "Amelia: October 14", 53% through the book below, no spoiler marks needed. Be sure you have read through the end of this chapter before reading! Note: if this is your first visit to this topic I recommend you read this post about discussion ideas, then skip down and post your initial response, then read and respond to other people's posts.***

At the very least check in here when you finish the first half and tell us if you are enjoying the book. I'll post specific discussion ideas below, along with some general topics we'll see repeated throughout the book.

First half discussions:

1) Who do you think Amelia's father is? Who is the author of the gRaCeFULLY blog?

2) What do you think of the stylistic differences between this story and Gone Girl? If you haven't read Gone Girl go do that... right now.


General Discussions:

1) Share your favorite quote(s) from this section.

2) Share your favorite word(s) used in this section.

3) Do you have a favorite or most intriguing character at this point in the novel?

Location reminder

If you are returning to this topic after having continued past the listed chapter, here is a plot reminder:

Amelia has told the photographer that she intends to do the photo shoot.

GO!

[Michelle, Overrun By Pets]

I think Daniel Moore from Kate's office is the father. This may just be one of many red herrings since apparently Kate was quite a hoochie back in the day. It seems like at least 4 people are viable options to be Amelia's bio dad.

I think Bethany Kane, the prankster from the Magpies is the author of the blog. She would have access to inside information and is "ballsy". I'm hoping it is not a school administrator, that would be uber-creepy.


I am so far disappointed that this is likened to Gone Girl. The only similarity so far is that there are chapters from different character's perspectives and the chapters are not in chronological order. I feel somewhat mislead by the book description and the title. I anticipated this was going to be about a mother "reconstructing" her daughter's days prior to an untimely death. I take umbrage that somehow we are just re-living past days of a deceased character. How exactly are we getting this information? In Gone Girl we were reading specific journal entries of a purportedly deceased subject. This book feels like we are time travelling and ultimately cheating (due to author laziness) by obtaining first party information from deceased Amelia. It would have made much more sense to me to have the mother/detectives/school administrators contacting friends, investigating e-mails etc. and reliving past days through friend's perspectives. You could still have manipulation of time in terms of going back and forth based upon additional investigative information as it is received from different people.

The story seems like a mashed up combination of the following movies: The Skulls, Heathers, Mean Girls, Wild Things and Clueless .


Quotes that stood out for me "The pressure of her tight, shallow pants". I don't think I've ever had shallow pants, or maybe I have - I'm not quite sure what this is supposed to mean.

"I think they make girls feel awful about themselves under the guise of sisterhood." Agreed.

"Sylvia being mad was bad. Sylvia sad was terrible. She always got all shrunken, like a wrinkled balloon." Hmm.


My favorite words include: metastasizing, chuffed, bollocks, prat, atrium, coquettishly, snappy, mortified, glumly, bobblehead (thank goodness for Ian Green the British kid at least he brings interesting words to the table).


My favorite character hands down is Lieutenant Lewis Thompson. He is one of the few redeeming things in the first part of this book.

[Andrew, Wound Up]

Meh.

Who?!? Dad is Jeremy who is also Ben! The blogger is Woodhouse!

Gone Girl. I got suckered in on the marketing on this one. It is no Gone Girl. The premise could have worked if you had the whole story be from mom's perspective. She could have found out more and more about her daughter as she starts to investigate the death. This wouldn't have required any changes to the plot, just to how the info is relayed.

By having Amelia as a first party narrator we are going to be privy to information Kate would never actually learn. Instead of a twisting and turning investigation where mom has to sort through lies and confusion we are just being doled out information haphazardly.

Gone Girl did an amazing job of keeping you on your toes and making you doubt your own intuitions about characters. There was a constant flux of who to trust and who to doubt that was perfectly balanced. In contrast Amelia was exactly who mom thought she was, then went completely askew in about one month.

Kate's idea about who Amelia is isn't "wrong"... she just couldn't have possibly kept up with the insane amount of transitions her daughter went through in the last few weeks of her life. Amelia literally went from heterosexual to girl crush to 2nd kiss of her life to sexual relationship in approximately one week. It is just silly.

Quote: FYI - I'm hard pressed here.

Kate's character simply doesn't fit my idea of the intelligent power lawyer she is supposed to be. She's constantly late, has the comprehension skills of a dumb baboon, and it takes her 8 pregnancy tests to decide that unprotected sex can actually get her pregnant. It doesn't take a super genius to know that you shouldn't take these tests ...after three glasses of wine for pretty obvious reasons. My implication above that Jeremy is dad has to do with the fact that I've read enough John Grisham books to know that Kate simply is not cut out for the position she has at her job.

Word: LOL. No.

Character: Sylvia. Only because I accidentally saw the post above mine and I don't want to be a copy cat and pick Lew.

Overall: If this book doesn't go somewhere soon I'm going to be very upset that it is our book club selection. I will be forced to take drastic measures. I am bored.