Sunday, August 21, 2016

Finishing Up The Devil in the White City & Starting Reconstructing Amelia


I absolutely loved this book. It has to be one of my all times favorite books that I have ever read. I cannot wait to read more of Eric Larson's book. Simply amazing!! What did you think about The Devil in the White City?

Did you know that this
book is going to be a movie and
Leonardo DiCaprio will be Dr. HH Holmes? WHAT! I can't even wait to see this movie. 

Here are a couple questions about The Devil in the White City. Let me know what you thought about this book. :) 

1. In what ways does the Chicago World's Fair of 1893 change America? What lasting inventions and ideas did it introduce into American culture? What important figures were critically influenced by the Fair?

2. At the end of the book, Larson suggests that "Exactly what motivated Holmes may never be known" [p. 395]. What possible motives are exposed in The Devil in the White City? Why is it important to try to understand the motives of a person like Holmes?

3. How was Holmes able to exert such power over his victims? What weaknesses did he prey upon? Why wasn't he caught earlier? In what ways does his story "illustrate the end of the century" [p. 370] as the Chicago Times-Herald wrote?

4. What satisfaction can be derived from a nonfiction book like The Devil in the White City that cannot be found in novels? In what ways is the book like a novel?

Our next book is Reconstructing Amelia by Kimberly McCreight. We will be starting it August 21st and ending on Sunday September 4th.

Synopsis From Goodreads: Litigation lawyer and harried single mother Kate Baron is stunned when her daughter's exclusive private school in Park Slope, Brooklyn, calls with disturbing news: her intelligent, high-achieving fifteen-year-old daughter, Amelia, has been caught cheating.

Kate can't believe that Amelia, an ambitious, levelheaded girl who's never been in trouble would do something like that. But by the time she arrives at Grace Hall, Kate's faced with far more devastating news. Amelia is dead.

Seemingly unable to cope with what she'd done, a despondent Amelia has jumped from the school's roof in an act of "spontaneous" suicide. At least that's the story Grace Hall and the police tell Kate. And overwhelmed as she is by her own guilt and shattered by grief, it is the story that Kate believes until she gets the anonymous text:

She didn't jump.

Sifting through Amelia's emails, text messages, social media postings, and cell phone logs, Kate is determined to learn the heartbreaking truth about why Amelia was on Grace Hall's roof that day-and why she died.

Lets Get Reading! 

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