Reconstructing Amelia

Reconstructing Amelia by Kimberly McCreight is a suspenseful story of secrets, friends, lies and bullies at a private school in Brooklyn.  In the beginning, the mother of a fifteen-year-old girl is shocked to find out that her daughter has been caught cheating, she is later devastated when she finds out that her daughter, Amelia, is dead.  But soon after the police tell Kate, the mother, that Amelia committed suicide she receives a text informing her that Amelia, in fact, did not jump.  Throughout the book Kate goes through Amelia’s Facebook, emails, texts and discovers why Amelia was on the roof and how she died.  The author wants the reader to know that you should never keep secrets because when you keep thing from others to “protect” yourself and them, will eventually only cause more harm.

              In the book you learn that keeping secrets is harmful.  For example, in the story Amelia does not tell her best friend, Sylvia, that she has joined a “club”, a secretive and prestigious group known for partying. Yet when she does, she doesn’t tell her everything, so when Sylvia finds out that her boyfriend was cheating on her with one of the “Magpies”--the group Amelia is in--and receives a text from an anonymous source, she suspects it was Amelia, which then causes them to have fight.  This makes me feel that if Amelia did not lie to her in the first place none of this would have happened and Amelia and Sylvia would still be friends.  Another example of how keeping secrets can be harmful is in the book Amelia never tells her mom what is going on with her life, so when she starts having trouble with the Magpies her mother is unaware.  Therefore, soon after when Amelia is being bullied by the club, she ends up getting in more trouble.  All these events add up to the point where Amelia is accused of cheating.  If Amelia had not kept all these secrets she would not have felt so confused and upset. 

              In conclusion, in Reconstructing Amelia by Kimberly McCreight, the author teaches you that keeping secrets and lying will always have consequences, and in Amelia’s case very extreme ones.  This message relates to many teenagers in the world because most people thing it is okay to lie like Amelia did so they won’t get in trouble, I think the message is important because it will teach them that lying will only make it worse.