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Reconstructing Amelia
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Reconstructing Amelia by Kimberly McCreight - VBC Jan 2015
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This book I found a tad difficult to read as I was bullied when I was in school from Kindergarten-Graduation. Also I had several friends who struggled to find acceptance from the school and community at large after figuring out that their affections went counter to the socially construcited norms. I found the adults and most of the students of Grace Hall to be despicable. No one appears to be concerned with the responsibility of consequences. The pathology of propriety of appearances and the neurosis of egocentric thinking is heavy. The only character I felt sorry for was Amelia as she seemed to be the only one who had conscience and was attempting to make sense of a world filled with madness and to do right by herself and the adults who little deserve the consideration. Kate does try to be there for Amelia but when her daughter needs her most she cannot read Amelia well enough to discern that her daughter is truly struggling and is out of her depths. There appears to be no love given or received genuinely between any of the characters. Kate tries but she is too caught up in her career to have the time to devote to Amelia and as we find out later does not have a good role models to follow. None of the parents are in tune with their children and the school is just as guilty for allowing the clubs to continue without proper supervision. Also the secret texts sent by who they were was absolutely creepy. All in all, from one with a degree in Psychology and a husband in Law Enforcement this book was a mish mash of worst case scenarios.
I downloaded the book from my library on Tuesday morning and finished it on Thursday night. I was quickly pulled into the story. I was invested in finding out what happened to Amelia. I felt that Kate was a typical overworked single mom trying to have it all. And mostly she was succeeding until it was too late. Amelia seemed to be a good kid who just wanted to be liked and to be part of the crowd. And is so often with teens it went escalated quickly out of her control. Until the end of the story she was willing to be controlled (bullied) by the Maggies to be part of a club and to not be invisible anymore.
I was horrified by most of the adults and teenagers in the story. The parents were clueless,the teachers were too self-involved and the teens were just mean.
As much as I was caught up in the story and with the characters, I was disappointed and underwhelmed by the end of the book. I felt it was anticlimactic with too many things left unanswered. The last scene in the book with Kate sitting by Amelia's grave seemed contrived
and too much of an overused plot development.
What happened to the other characters in the book:
•Do we really believe Sylvia's story of how Amelia fell off the roof?
•What were the legal ramifications to Jeremy of pretending to be a teenaged boy (Ben). We know he will lose his wife and sons but were his actions illegal as well as immoral?
•What happened to Zadie & Dylan? Do either of them get the help they desperately need?
I enjoyed this book but it left lots of unanswered questions.
Mod
Very true, Lesley, I thought that one of the saddest things in this book was the failure of all the adults to act as well, adults. Each person had his/her own agenda and issues and couldn't see past them. As someone who watches "Dr. Phil" occasionally, I fear that this is more common in real life than we would think. And Kate's awakening is very harsh and comes too late.
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I felt th..."
Unanswered questions, true, Laura - perhaps the author didn't feel we needed to know (or could make up our own preferred scenarios). I suspect that what Jeremy did in pretending to be Ben was not legally actionable - it certainly contributed to what happened to Amelia but only in the larger moral sense, not legally. And I certainly hope that ALL the surviving teenagers in the book got the help they needed - there were so many pathologies going on in that school! (And the teachers involved should have been fired!)
I understood Kate's harried attitude growing up in a home with only one parent and being left alone while my mother worked. Is Kate culpable in the death of her daughter? Not legally, as she thought Amelia strong enough to handle whatever was bothering her until Kate could squeeze her into her schedule. Every parent has been distracted at some point and not given their child proper consideration at a crucial moment often not with this disastrous of results. I somewhat fault Amelia for not speaking up for herself to her mother, but whether that is because she knew saying it couldn't wait would not change her mother's response or if it was she wanted to prove to her mother and herself that she was a capable young adult is left up to the reader. As for Jeremy,I wonder if the firm would brush his adolescent actions under the rug along with his abuse of power or not. Though in some ways the loss of Jeremy at the firm ends the protection of Kate and her job too whether or not she was willing to stay once the case of Amelia's death was closed. I feel Jeremy deserves to lose his rank and status at the firm, but don't believe there is anything he can be charged with as he did not suggest or tell Amelia that suicide was an answer to her problems. I wonder if he always had an inkling that Amelia was his and wanted to be part of her life but knew Kate would never let that happen and in desperation took a very sneaky route into Amelia's world.
Mod
Lesley, yes, I think that was exactly his motivation. And of all the adults in the book, I actually think Kate is the most innocent for the reasons you list - she is not only overworked as a single parent, but she respects Amelia and is trying to give her space. Plus, she puts a lot of faith in Amelia's intelligence and maturity and thinks that as they are so close, Amelia woud tell her if she was in any difficulty. I don't have kids myself, but I would imagine that Kate would not be the first parent to discover that her image of her daughter was not the reality (remarkable as Amelia really is).
There is a certain amount of growing up quickly kids do when it is a single parent household. I remember trying to convince my mom I would be OK by myself after school as a 7 year old (this was in the early 80s)! I knew I could go to almost any neighbor if something went wrong and didn't want my mom to be in trouble for missing work due to my sister's irresponsibility. But unlike Amelia my mom didn't work quite the number of hours Kate did so maybe it was that or that I knew my mom not only wanted to but needed to know the good and the not so good going on in my life at school. So maybe that's why I found the non-sharing issue especially disturbing.
Mod
That's true, Lesley - I think often kids try to protect their parents, too, thinking that they can handle a situation themselves and that they don't need to worry Mom or Dad (especially if they know the parents are already overwhelmed by work and stress already).
Mod
This was the relationship I had such a hard time with because we're led to believe that Amelia and Kate have such a great, close relationship; I would have expected Kate to pick up on Amelia's emotions better. But then, it's not like she didn't notice that something was wrong, she just assumes that whatever it is can wait. From a non-parent POV, I can see where she's coming from there; one's own problems always seem much more to the front than that of those around you. But I rather expect that parenting requires you never make assumptions where your kids are involved.
Mod
•Do we really believe Sylvia's story of how Amelia fell off the roof?
•What were the legal ramifications to Jeremy of pretending to be a teenaged boy (Ben). We know he will lose his wife and sons but were his actions illegal as well as immoral?
•What happened to Zadie & Dylan? Do either of them get the help they desperately need? "
Laura, I think this book does what a friend of mine calls "committing an act of literature." It starts out being a pretty clear murder mystery, but has a bit of bait-and-switch by the end and becomes more of a character study. Accidental death is never quite as fulfilling as a clear murder with a bad guy.
You ask some great discussion questions, though!
What are the ramifications of Jeremy's actions? I'd love to hear some of our legal experts opinions on this one, but I'm guessing he couldn't be charged with anything. I wonder if he could have been disbarred for unethical personal behavior if Kate pushed it (is that a thing?).
What happened to Zadie and Dylan? I can only assume that the answer is no, they didn't get any help. Maybe in like ten years after they've screwed themselves up even further they'd either realize they had a problem and seek help for themselves or would just be down that lost-cause kind of road. I can't see Zadie's mom taking a productive role in her daughter's well-being; she seems to self-centered to me.
Mod
This was the relationship I had such a hard time with because we're led..."
I think adolescence is a period where there is a certain tendency to keep secrets, and the art of parenting must be to walk a line between being too intrusive (not giving the kid any privacy) and missing a secret that is really critical. As I mentioned earlier, I don't have kids myself but I certainly have observed a lot of cases where a parent was taken completely off-guard by a child's troubles because there really was a belief that there was a close relationship and "she/he tells me everything.' So in that sense, Kate's situation wasn't that unusual, just much more tragic. I'm sure the problem was compounded all the more by Kate's demanding job.
Mod
I think Kate fell into the belief that so many people hold today, too. That throwing money at your kids will make them happier and more balanced. She didn't need a job that made her work so many hours and it seemed to me that she bought a house in an area that was far from her work so she could be in the perfect family neighborhood, which only made it so she had less time to spend with her daughter.
I think that one of the issues is that Amelia's issues happened so quickly. It is not all Kate's fault as a working mom. They never had a chance to connect in part because Amelia chose to pull away from her mom. Every teen does it in one way or another. Unfortunately this time it had a tragic ending. I think Jeremy's actions were unethical, immoral and creepy. He could have had a positive influence on Amelia by becoming a mentor and real friend not a fake one. And yes I think he always knew Amelia was his child.
The other girls - Sylvia, Zadie and Dylan need so much help. Sylvia will never recover from causing her friend's death. Dylan's family is hiding her "learning disabilities" and Zadie is just a mean-spirited bully who learned to be that way from her mom, Adele
Erin - I love your friend's term "committing an act of literature". It is a good description of what happens when the end doesn't match the book! One of my pet peeves is when a book ends leaving me feeling like the author ran out of ideas and stopped writing. I had that feeling with this book.
I've been away from the discussion,and it was so interesting reading the great comments made and questions raised. Lesley, your insight into being a child with a working mother raising you helped to shed light on why Amelia didn't confide in her mother. Of course, Amelia had to be aware of the stress that Kate was under at work, and she didn't want to add to it. Laura, I think maybe Kate was trying to give it all, as well as have it all. She wanted everything for her daughter, and she just thought the path to ensuring Amelia's success and happiness in life was providing for her financially. I don't think Kate was a neglectful parent in the sense that she didn't care about her daughter. I think Kate simply didn't have much left at the end of the day, and Amelia knew this. I guess the argument could be made for neglect in the form of being too busy, but I have a hard time condemning Kate, even though I know that the pathway to hell is paved with good intentions. I do think that teenagers are very adept at only revealing what they want to parents.
I find it hard to point the finger at Kate and say it is "all her fault" as it clearly isn't. There are a multitude of factors at play in the ending. Yes parents can and do make the mistake of equating money and material possessions with time spent with their children. One thing that struck me was how lonely Kate must have felt as a child and then as a young adult and young mother because her own parents were so distant. One tries to rectify the wrongs done by their own parents by not being as "whatever it is" with their own children. Kate thought since her and Amelia did talk about the mundane and enjoyed each other's company that she was doing so much better than her parents when in fact it still wasn't enough in the end. I want to belive if the Nanny had stayed on more as light housekeeper and companion to Amelia she would have confided in that person. It appears that all of Amelia ' s friendships were fragile or superficial. As there was no one she felt comfortable talking to about the big changed going on in her life. I too felt like the author had too many strands going at the end and just bunched them all into a tangle and tossed the ball to us to try and tease out the various threads that were going to frayed without a satisfying conclusion to any one strand.
Mod
Good and interesting comments all! I don't have a lot to add other than to say on the subject of "unfinished endings," in that sense the book was rather lifelike. In this book as in life, there is no complete resolution to the story - Kate does learn much about who Amelia really was, and solves the mystery of her death, but not all questions are answered including the "why's" of how certain characters behaved (Jeremy's choices seem particularly strange to me). This didn't really bother me, for some reason, as the central mystery of the book was solved.
Mod
I agree that it wasn't all Kate's fault. It was a long series of separate events and lies that pushed Amelia, but Kate definitely didn't make mature choices IMO. I feel like Kate didn't start being Amelia's parent until after her death. I could not understand Kate's reasoning of leaving a 14-15 year old child alone all day without supervision. To me, Amelia never withdrew. How can a child ever feel close to a parent who sees them for 10 minutes a day, except on the weekend?
Which is why I thought the ending was so fitting. The villain was a culmination of all these events, big and small. I loved how Amelia made peace with the bullies at the end. I love that she died because she was trying to be a good friend. And I think that is why Kate was able to find peace as well.
Mod
So true, Merrily. Villains are not caught, justice is laughable, and reason is never found in tragedy.
For the story though, I thought the author was trying to leave her readers in a good place. All that other information seemed like side points to me. I'm sure everyone was either messed up for life, or they told themselves that it wasn't their fault and moved on.
Mod
So true, Merrily. Villains are not caught, justice is laughable, and reason is never found in tragedy.
For t..." Sabrina, your comment reminds me of the old aphorism that "we all ask for mercy, but (karmic) justice is what keeps happening to people." About all you can hope for in a case like this is "what goes around, comes around."
Just finished and I'm still numb. What a ride! At times, I could feel my heart rate increase with the things happening with Kate. As the mother of a two teenage boys, this book is so frightening. The need to be accepted and liked has always been one of the hardest parts of being a teenager, but today with all the immediate reactions and actions with social media, the consequences seem to be so much more dire and long lasting.
Merrily, I also agree that the ending reflected real life where not everything can be fixed or resolved. If the author had tied up the loose ends, it would have seemed too contrived and not in keeping with the messes that took years to make.
Mod
Yes, I think one of the scary things about dealing with teenagers is that they are still too young to imagine the long-term consequences of their actions, or to believe that "this too will pass." Therefore, they are apt to do very silly or risky things on impulse or to deal with an immediate problem, like being popular. I thought Amelia's decision to pose for the "sexy" pictures in order to meet the challenge from the Maggies was very typical of that - and of course these days, social media makes those decisions all the more potentially life-altering.
And Kathy, indeed, I think the fact that Kate solves her mystery and yet still doesn't have all the answers is a lesson in itself.
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Sabrina, how sad, you really do wonder sometimes what the heck is wrong with people! I completely understand this father's anger and frustration. And the other parent is clearly a bigot, big time.
Mod
I agree, Merrily! It also illustrates perfectly how the apple doesn't fall far from the tree. I think that was a running a theme in Reconstructing Amelia. We saw a lot of Kate's acceptance issues in Amelia. And of course Zadie and her mom... well all the kids and their parents.
I normally read while I'm walking to and from work, but in the middle of the winter, it's generally too cold and often too dark for me to carry a book and read. So, I "read" Reconstructing Amelia as an audiobook from the library, and I suspect that my reactions to the book were very much influenced by the fact that I was listening to it. I found Kate's grief one of most convincing and compelling aspects of the book, and I would agree with those who noted that following her gave the investigation a very different valence, but I was a little put off by what seemed like caricatured portrayals of some of the other adults. This might say more about my own preoccupations and motivations than about the characters themselves, but that's how it struck me. (The teenage years often seem like one big caricature, so I was less surprised by kids' behaviors than by some of the adults'.) Largely because of my sense that some of the adults seemed a bit caricatured and because I hadn't held the book in my hand to look at the way it was packaged and blurbed and so on, I found myself wondering whether it was marketed as YA fiction or as "grown-up" fiction. By the end of the book, I'd concluded that it was probably not marketed as YA fiction, but that left me feeling like this was very much a first novel, with some room to grow in terms of characterization. It sounds from some of your comments above as if it is marketed as YA fiction, which maybe makes a little more sense of some of the characterization of the adults. I did enjoy the fact that the book was structured other than as a strictly linear narrative. It was a nice change of pace from what is still the norm in most novels, and it was so important to give the reader a sense of the different avenues of communication between these characters.
Mod
Erin wrote: "Nope, NOT marketed as YA, Gleodream. Though I can see what you're talking about. It was an interesting shift back and forth between an adult perspective (Kate's) and a YA perspective (Amelia's). ..."Well, I was thinking more of the fact that I found some of the adults less believable than some of the teenagers - not a lot of nuance to the adults. I guess there could be people with such lack of self-awareness and lack of moral awareness, but it was very hard to believe that so many adults were so unmoored from what I would regard as basic norms of day-to-day behavior or of moral decision-making. It is really hard for me to believe that practically every adult in the situation (Kate, Lew, and Woodhouse being almost the only exceptions) exhibited a seemingly stereotyped and exaggerated version of what I would recognize as relatively common traits, when they are manifested in more nuanced and less absolute ways. It just seemed over the top, that nearly every adult in the book was the epitome of some specific character trait. I mean, there's no point in the book where Mrs. Pe(a)rl - sorry, listening, not reading means I don't always know spellings! - manages any kind of sympathetic interaction with anyone? We're supposed to believe that a woman puts into action an elaborate plot to get her daughter to end up tormenting the daughter of a supposed romantic rival from years back? Any one of the seemingly over-the-top characterizations could be plausible, but it seemed like most of the adults were portrayed like this. As I said, Kate's grief and increasing understanding of her daughter's life was very touching, and if I'm honest, it was probably thrown into greater relief by my difficulty with the characterization of so many of the other adults. I don't by any means regret reading this book, but I felt like I had to suspend my disbelief throughout. On the other hand, most literature asks us to suspend some kind of disbelief, so perhaps I shouldn't get so worked up about this!
Mod
I think her actions were more jumping on an opportunity than a elaborate plot. She hears that the daughter of a rival is spending time with her own daughter and decides to be mean spirited and send angry cryptic messages.
It's totally petty, and juvenile and definitely had me looking at the women with a "really??" kind of expression, but it I didn't find it that much of a stretch. Suspension of disbelief because I've never interacted with real people who act that way, but I see fictional people acting that way all the time, so it I didn't have to try that hard to suspend my disbelief. If that makes any sense, LOL.
Erin wrote: "I think her actions were more jumping on an opportunity than a elaborate plot. She hears...."I had the impression from what Zadie said that she had only tapped Amelia because her mother had wanted her to do so, but in any case, you are probably taking the most sensible attitude towards the whole thing!
Mod
People are crazy. They get so self absorbed that they get caught up in their own little twisted thinking, like Zadie's mom.
Sabrina wrote: "I didn't think the adults' actions were all that surprising. There are some pretty petty adults out there who never seemed to mature from their teenage selves. Look at the guy who, when some random..."That's what I meant about accepting one or two quite bizarre people, but it seemed like there were very few adults who seemed (to my biased view) reasonable and plausible. But, again, this probably says as much about my expectations for the world as it does about any of those characters, and I definitely don't deny the existence of crazy things, like you mention.
Sabrina wrote: "I didn't think the adults' actions were all that surprising. There are some pretty petty adults out there who never seemed to mature from their teenage selves. Look at the guy who, when some random..."I thought that most of the adults were believable characters. I have seen similar self centered manipulative behavior from adults in several different situations. The one adult that really confused me was the English teacher who wrote the nasty gossip blog about her students. It was a surprise from a person who supposedly wanted to help her students.
Laura wrote: "I thought that most of the adults were believable characters. I have seen similar self centered manipulative behavior from adults in several different situations...."Ugh, that's awful. And, yes, it was especially disappointing to get confirmation on the blog's authorship.
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http://www.amazon.com/Reco..."
I saw that offer too, Laura, excellent timing! You'll enjoy the book, I'm pretty sure!