A Debut Novel Review

I got a copy of this book from work as an advanced reader, and I was pretty excited about the concept. I was also excited about reading something from a brand new author. Without further ado, the review.

Reconstructing Amelia

3 out of 5 (if I’m feeling giving)

It's been a little while since I read this, but I’m honestly still not sure how I feel about it. It was a good for a first novel, but I’m surprised at the hype it’s gotten. I guess I’ll just give my likes/dislikes so you can make up your own mind.

Things I liked:

This novel brings the bullying issue (that does lead to real suicides) to light. It’s an important piece of our society that needs to be brought up in more than just teen series.

It had a compelling storyline. For the most part, I wanted to know what happened to Amelia.

Some of the relationships were portrayed well. I liked Dylan and Amelia’s most of the time. And I liked Sylvia and Amelia’s relationship, it was a pretty realistic portrayal of teenage friends.

The entire book was fast paced.

The book goes back and forth between Kate and Amelia’s perspectives, which I liked, and it was done well, for the most part.

Things I did not like:

I really didn’t like the text message parts. Or some of the other social media type chapters. I think these could have been done much better. It felt like it was written from a mom’s point of view on how they think a teenager types/texts, not how they actually do. This may not be true of all teenagers, but for someone who is very book oriented and smart, it seems silly to me that they would actually text “u r” for your/you’re.

There were a few things that seemed a little ridiculous. Several of these were twists so I don’t want to say what they are and ruin them, but let it suffice to say the twists got to be unnecessary and unbelievable.

As for the ending, it was very anticlimactic and there were far too many loose ends. I think this was due to the vast amounts of twists thrown in.

I would still recommend this book, probably to people who like Jodi Picoult. Picoult is a much more seasoned author and writes on an entirely different level, but McCreight has done a decent job for her debut novel. She is an author that I look forward to reading more from as she builds up experience and perhaps develops her writing a little further.