Book Review: Reconstructing Amelia by Kimberly McCreight

A stunning debut novel in which a single mother reconstructs her teenaged daughter's life, sifting through her emails, texts, and social media to piece together the shocking truth about the last days of her life.

Litigation lawyer and harried single mother Kate Baron is stunned when her daughter's exclusive private school in Park Slope, Brooklyn, calls with disturbing news: her intelligent, high-achieving fifteen-year-old daughter, Amelia, has been caught cheating.

Kate can't believe that Amelia, an ambitious, levelheaded girl who's never been in trouble would do something like that. But by the time she arrives at Grace Hall, Kate's faced with far more devastating news. Amelia is dead. 

Seemingly unable to cope with what she'd done, a despondent Amelia has jumped from the school's roof in an act of "spontaneous" suicide. At least that's the story Grace Hall and the police tell Kate. And overwhelmed as she is by her own guilt and shattered by grief, it is the story that Kate believes until she gets the anonymous text: 

She didn't jump.

Sifting through Amelia's emails, text messages, social media postings, and cell phone logs, Kate is determined to learn the heartbreaking truth about why Amelia was on Grace Hall's roof that day-and why she died.

Told in alternating voices, Reconstructing Amelia is a story of secrets and lies, of love and betrayal, of trusted friends and vicious bullies. It's about how well a parent ever really knows a child and how far one mother will go to vindicate the memory of a daughter whose life she could not save. (Goodreads)

My pace of reading has definitely slowed a bit and it took me a lot longer to read this than I thought it would especially since I loved it!  I read a quick blurb review as I was reading this and the reviewer said it would be the "next Gone Girl".  It definitely had the psychological suspense that Gone Girl had but a completely different type of story line.  I think it will appeal to the thriller lover and the literary lover. I enjoyed it just as much as I enjoyed Gone Girl.

The author really nails the impact of social media has on teens to the point I don't ever want my child to be on Facebook, Tweet or text EVER. Kids are cruel and they use social media as a nasty weapon.

The story goes back and forth in time and is told from Amelia and Kate's perspectives. Some chapters are just texts, others blog posts. All in the all it was intriguing and made me anxious to find out how it was going to turn out. I did not figure much out until the very end which I like.

For a debut book, I think McCreight did a bang up job. I recommend for any reader and fan of thrillers.

Author Website:
Kimberly McCreight

Happy Reading and as always, thanks for stopping by!

red headed book child

Book Review: Six Years by Harlan Coben

Six years have passed since Jake Sanders watched Natalie, the love of his life, marry another man. Six years of hiding a broken heart by throwing himself into his career as a college professor. Six years of keeping his promise to leave Natalie alone, and six years of tortured dreams of her life with her new husband, Todd.

But six years haven’t come close to extinguishing his feelings, and when Jake comes across Todd’s obituary, he can’t keep himself away from the funeral. There he gets the glimpse of Todd’s wife he’s hoping for . . . but she is not Natalie. Whoever the mourning widow is, she’s been married to Todd for more than a decade, and with that fact everything Jake thought he knew about the best time of his life—a time he has never gotten over—is turned completely inside out.

As Jake searches for the truth, his picture-perfect memories of Natalie begin to unravel. Mutual friends of the couple either can’t be found or don’t remember Jake. No one has seen Natalie in years. Jake’s search for the woman who broke his heart—and who lied to him—soon puts his very life at risk as it dawns on him that the man he has become may be based on carefully constructed fiction. (Goodreads)

I have not read all of Harlan Coben's books but the ones that I have have all been outstanding. Maybe it's because I don't overdo myself with one author or maybe it's because he is a kick ass writer. I'm just darn glad I signed on to review this one. I have signed on to review maybe 3 books this year because I'm just plain sick of the obligatory must-review-by-this-time mantra. My life just doesn't support that and I get plain cranky. But Harlan Coben?! I had to say yes.

I've said this before, Coben is the master of having the extraordinary happen to the ordinary. You can relate to his stories, his characters. I pray to goodness that none of his jacked up plots would ever happen to me, however.

His plots are fast paced and full of twists. His characters are fleshed out enough that you feel invested in them yet you don't get their whole entire back story. Every thing you get has a purpose. Just enough info to lure you in and try to figure it all out.

Six Years is a stand alone thriller and one that I was a tad bit terrified at at times. I even texted my fellow mystery loving friend, Cheryl, that she must read it as I was curled up in my bed late one night spooked.

There are a few story lines I enjoy in thrillers. First, the "I Forgot My Memory and I don't know who I am" plot and the "This really happened. Why don't you believe me?!"plot.  They both drive me nuts but I like it. It's suspenseful and aggravating and I just want it all to be solved!

Six Years had the "This really happened. Why don't you believe me?!!!" plot line. Nobody believes Natalie really existed. He can't find any trace of her. People he KNOWS he met in the past suddenly don't remember him. Places he went with her don't exist anymore. It's creepy and I loved it.

Kudos to Coben for delivering another thrilling tale. If you are new to his books, I would start with Tell No One but this one is good too! That one blew me away and got me hooked.

Author Website:
Harlan Coben

Challenge:
A-Z Mystery Author Challenge

Happy Reading and as always, thanks for stopping by!

red headed book child

Review: Always Watching by Chevy Stevens

As a psychiatrist, Nadine Lavoie has a true desire to help people put their demons at rest, but she has demons of her own, some she can barely think about, and some she can’t even remember. Nadine’s mother was a wildly unpredictable manic depressive, her father an alcoholic, and there are whole chunks of Nadine’s life that are black holes. It takes all her willpower to tamp down her recurrent claustrophobia, and her daughter, Lisa, is a runaway who has been on the streets for eight years.

After she’s attacked outside her office, Nadine decides to take a job at a hospital in Victoria as a staff psychiatrist. It’s the perfect opportunity: She won’t get as attached to her patients and she’ll be closer to her daughter. But when a distraught woman, Heather Simeon, is brought in to the Psychiatric Intensive Care Unit after a suicide attempt, Nadine gently coaxes her story out of her—and learns of some troubling parallels to their lives. Digging deeper, Nadine is forced to confront her own history, and the damage that began when she and her brother were brought by their mother to a remote commune on Vancouver Island. What happened to Nadine? Why was their family destroyed? And why does the name Aaron Quinn, the group’s leader, bring complex feelings of terror to Nadine even today?  (Good Reads)

My review:

Chevy Stevens had one of those debut novels that kicked the ass of many readers. Still Missing terrifies me to this day when I think of it. Because of the impact it had on me I have eagerly anticipated each book she has written. Her second Never Knowing packed a punch as well. I was fortunate to receive a galley of her third, Always Watching, due out in June of this year. It didn't take me long to get wrapped up in the crazy story she created.

It seems that Stevens is hitting her stride. The story was a bit more refined, less flashy and startling than her other two. There were still twists and turns and "holy shit" moments but it seemed a bit more fleshed out. More character development, more back story. 

The story included a twisted tale of a cult like leader which for some insane reason always fascinates me. How people could blindly follow the voice of another and have them completely control every aspect of their lives, I'll never know.

Nadine was a tough cookie but still had her vulnerable side. I did figure out some of the secrets within the book over half way through but it really didn't ruin it all for me. Overall, I thought it was a pretty decent thriller. I'm hoping Stevens takes longer breaks between her books so she doesn't get too formulaic. The authors that tend to churn them out lose their flash after awhile, in my opinion.

For readers new to Stevens, I would start out with Still Missing. I think it's her best but they are all worth reading.

Author Website: Chevy Stevens

Happy Reading and as always, thanks for stopping by!

red headed book child 

Book Review: Shadow Creek by Joy Fielding

There’s something deadly lurking in the shadows at Shadow Creek . . . Due to a last-minute change in plans, a group of unlikely traveling companions finds themselves on a camping trip in the Adirondacks. They include the soon-to-be-divorced Valerie; her oddball friends, Melissa and James; her moody teenage daughter, Brianne; and Val’s estranged husband’s fiancée, Jennifer. Val is dealing with unresolved feelings toward her ex and grappling with jealousy and resentment toward his younger, prettier new flame, a woman with some serious issues of her own. Brianne is sixteen and openly rebellious, caught up in a web of secrets and lies.

What Val and her companions don’t know is that a pair of crazed killers is wreaking havoc in the very same woods. When an elderly couple is found slaughtered and Brianne goes missing, Val finds herself in a nightmare much worse than anything she could have anticipated. She was half-expecting it to be the trip from hell, but what she never could have predicted was that this impromptu little excursion (Good Reads)

Yes, there is something deadly lurking in the shadows of Shadow Creek but really it's not that terrifying.  Joy Fielding is one of my favorite mystery thriller writers and I practically read every book she puts out. I am short a handful. She is not the best out there but I have a soft spot because of the impact one of her earlier novels had on me, See Jane Run. I LOVED that one. But after a lunch with my pal Cheryl, who also loves Joy's books, we have determined that her books are staying the same and we as readers are changing. Even though we still "enjoy" them, they are not as WOW as they once were. 

Mostly because that the underlying plot to them all is "helpless annoying woman becomes super kick ass hero and saves the day". Same idea, different plot, different location, different mystery.

She can still weave  tale and most of the time they are on the creepy side and you definitely hate the bad guys and root for the good guys. This one was no different. I hated the daughter, Brianne; was a bit annoyed at the mother, Val but rooted for her, nonetheless and I was charmed my the circle of friends that surrounded them. The bad guys were so easy to hate. I wanted to punch them in the face early on.

Overall, don't dismiss Joy. She's got her comfort book-a-year down. I will still read her. I just may not get AS excited as each year comes along. Though it would be cool if you could blow my mind, Joy, one of these years. Just sayin' (See Jane Run again perhaps?)

Author Website: Joy Fielding 
Purchase: Indie Bound
Challenge: 2013 A-Z Mystery Author Challenge

Happy Reading and as always, thanks for stopping by!

red headed book child