Amelia Anne is Dead and Gone Review

TITLE Amelia Anne is Dead and Gone
AUTHOR Kat Rosenfield
PUBLICATION July 5, 2012 by Dutton Juvenile
READ August 4 - 6, 2012

An arresting un-coming-of-age story, from a breathtaking talent

Becca has always longed to break free from her small, backwater hometown. But the discovery of an unidentified dead girl on the side of a dirt road sends the town--and Becca--into a tailspin. Unable to make sense of the violence of the outside world creeping into her backyard, Becca finds herself retreating inward, paralyzed from moving forward for the first time in her life.

Short chapters detailing the last days of Amelia Anne Richardson's life are intercut with Becca's own summer as the parallel stories of two young women struggling with self-identity and relationships on the edge twist the reader closer and closer to the truth about Amelia's death.

I have to admit, Amelia Anne is Dead and Gone is a book that wasn't even on my radar. I had never even heard of it until one afternoon I opened my email to find that one of my fellow bloggers, Henrietta, had gifted me a copy with a well wish to enjoy it. I was floored by how sweet that was, and in the end it was immensely thoughtful because I really enjoyed this novel. It's the story of Becca who lives in a small town but has big city dreams. It tells the story of the summer after her graduation in which she struggles with her relationship with her high school sweetheart, James, and deals with the town gossip after a dead girl is found on the highway. This is a coming of age story with some sinister thriller/whodunit elements. At the end of each chapter I was forced to continue reading because I just had to know what was happening.

Another part of this story that kept me engrossed was the absolutely stunning writing. It's amazing, the descriptions are so rich and they paint the perfect picture in your head. While it is definitely chalk full of descriptions it doesn't feel overdone, you appreciate the writing and get lost in the little town. I think that due to the descriptions I really felt that the main character of the story was not Becca or even Amelia, it was the town of Bridgeton itself.

"In a small town, murder is three dimensional. We make it that way, elevating it and turning it over until it's more than a simple tragedy. Until it becomes tangible. Murder in a small town is always more than a paragraph in the local paper. In a place so insulated, where lives are so small and gone about so quietly, violent death hangs in the air-tinting everything crimson, weaving itself into the shimmering heat that rises off the winding asphalt roads at noon. It oozes from taps and runs through the gas pumps. It sits at the dinner table, murmuring in urgent low tones under the clinking of glassware."

The descriptions are all encompassing and it is very easy to begin to feel like you are a sheltered member of Bridgeton yourself.

One thing that did lack a little bit for me was the character development. I feel like after following Becca for a whole summer I only brushed the surface of who she really was, and would have appreciated getting to know her character a bit deeper. Events were more so talked about in the way they affected the town, and the descriptions followed suit. Her emotions, I felt, could have been a bit richer and would have made her a more relatable character. The story is told in an alternating POV from Becca's first person experiences to Amelia's story which is told in the third person and even so, I did feel like I connected to her more and understood her motivations much more deeply. There is an ominous feeling each time the story goes to Amelia because you know exactly how her story is going to end.

This is a fantastic story and one that I definitely feel I could read again and again and come away with something new each time. It is by no means a happy story with a happily ever after, but it will make you think and will give you the chills at all the right moments.