Mirkat Always Reading

Kate Baron is in an important meeting with a law client when she receives a call from her daughter Amelia's private school, Grace Hall.  Amelia is being suspended from school, and Kate must pick her up immediately.  Any further information about the situation will not be given over the phone.

When Kate arrives at the school, something terrible has clearly happened.  Police are present, and Kate sees a pair of girls' boots near a sheet that covers something--or someone.  A police officer tells her there has been an "accident"; her daughter has fallen from the roof.  The death is quickly ruled a suicide, but Kate has doubts.  Receiving an anonymous text that "Amelia didn't jump" convinces her to ask police to take another look into her daughter's death.

Along with Kate's perspective, the story is told from Amelia's point of view and also through texts, email, journal entries, and Facebook status updates.  10th-grader Amelia has had certain secrets she's kept from her mother and from her best friend Sylvia, though she has also wanted to reveal them.  Amelia has been "tapped" to join a secret club that requires certain hazing-type activities and its leader knows just how to emotionally manipulate the students she "taps" to follow through on them.  The stakes grow, and amid them, Amelia receives troubling texts from a blocked number, dropping hints about the identify of her father, who has never been a part of her life.

Without giving anything away, I will say that I enjoyed the way the mysteries are unraveled and Amelia is "reconstructed" via her mother's process of pursuing the facts.  There are some interesting twists and turns, as expected in this genre, and well-rounded characters it's easy to care about.