Kate Baron is a single mother, working as a corporate lawyer at a high-powered firm in Manhattan. She receives a call from her daughter's expensive private school telling her Amelia, her fifteen year old only child, has been suspended. Kate must leave work immediately to come pick her up. Kate is beyond shocked. Amelia has never been in trouble once. An intelligent, athletic, girl, with a book always in her hand, this is extremely unlike her. What she has been suspended for, plagiarizing an essay about her favorite novel, seems even more unlikely.
Kate immediately takes the train the Brooklyn, where her daughter's school is located, thinking maybe she has spent too much time at work. The case she is working on has kept her extremely busy, and since Amelia insisted she was too old for a nanny, Amelia has been on her own a lot more than Kate would like.
Once she arrives at school, she see ambulances and fire trucks, along with police surrounding the school. She is informed her daughter, distraught over the cheating scandal, committed suicide. The detective on the case calls in open and shut, and Kate goes home to figure out how she will get through this immense darkness.
As Kate begins to go through Amelia's things, she realizes that Amelia has been receiving harassing texts, and messages. She begins to think maybe Amelia didn't commit suicide after all, and with a new detective, begins to investigate the events surrounding Amelia's death. Amelia had a lot of secrets she kept from her mother, which was easy to do with her working so much. One secret seems to lead to another and Kate realizes she didn't really know her daughter at all.
The novel is told through both Kate and Amelia's perspective, so the reader does understand some of the things Amelia had gotten involved in before Kate. I did enjoy this book. I found myself unable to put it down. I would recommend it to friends, but I am not going to purchase it for my high school library. Even though much of the book is told from Amelia's point of view, Kate is a 38 year old mother grieving the loss of her daughter. Students would probably relate to Amelia's angst and loneliness, not so much with Kate's.
I did have some problems with the book. Many of the secrets were very obvious from the beginning. I wasn't very surprised with some of the twists. A character, Dylan, does not seem believable to me. Amelia sees her one way, but her mother's view is directly opposite. I find it hard to believe that their views would be so extremely different. The resolution was also unrealistic. I don't want to give too much away, but it just seemed completely crazy. If you are looking for a thriller, Gone Girl, was a better book, in my opinion.
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