[Vwoolf] Review of novel that includes Woolf

[Erin M Kingsley]

Dear Woolfians:

A Woolf sighting, just in time for those summer reading lists! And, I'm not
sure I've ever heard Woolf called a "righteous babe" before!

>From http://www.ew.com/ew/article/0,,20685797,00.html:

BOOK REVIEW
Reconstructing Amelia (2013)<http://www.ew.com/ew/article/0,,20685797,00.html>
Kimberly McCreight<http://search.ew.com/results.html?Ntt=%22Kimberly+McCreight%22&Ns=p%5Fpublish%5Fdate%7C1%7C%7Cp%5Fheadline%5Fsort%7C0>

Amelia Baron has thrown herself from her high school's roof after she was
caught plagiarizing a paper on Virginia Woolf...or so it seems. The problem
is that Amelia is obsessed with Woolf in a way that only a hyperintelligent
15-year-old girl can be. And her workaholic single mom, Kate — a brilliant
attorney — has received an anonymous text that reads: ''Amelia didn't
jump.''

And off we go into this year's *Gone Girl* — you remember Gillian Flynn's
best-selling nail-biter of 2012 — which is set against the backdrop of
Grace Hall, a prep school in the tony Brooklyn neighborhood of Park Slope.
Like *Gone Girl*, *Reconstructing Amelia* seamlessly marries a crime story
with a relationship drama. And like *Gone Girl*, it should be hailed as one
of the best books of the year.

Amelia and Kate take turns narrating chapters that reveal the truth behind
their ostensible *Gilmore Girls* life. Amelia is tapped for one of Grace
Hall's secret societies, falls in love for the first time, and has a Manti
Te'o-type correspondence with a gay boy named Ben. None of which she tells
her mom. Meanwhile, Kate, who has deep guilt over Amelia's paternity, copes
with her daughter's ''suicide'' by going all CSI on Amelia's texts and
emails, as well as a hateful school blog called gRaCeFULLY.

To reveal more would require a spoiler alert the size of a Jumbotron. But
in her debut novel, Kimberly McCreight spins a riveting narrative that
somehow delivers thoughtful commentary on working-mom guilt, bullying,
police corruption, and *Gossip Girl*. Every single twist in *Reconstructing
Amelia* is clever, and rightfully earned. As that righteous babe Virginia
Woolf once said, ''Fiction is like a spider's web.'' McCreight is a
masterful weaver. *A*
________________________________
Erin M. Kingsley
Ph.D. Candidate and Digital Pedagogy Instructor
English Department
University of Colorado at Boulder
Hellems 101, 226 UCB
Boulder, CO 80309
303-332-2518

*~ Please excuse any inadvertent typos! ~*
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