Review + Giveaway: Amelia Anne Is Dead and Gone

Amelia Anne Is Dead and Gone

Author: Kat Rosenfield
Pages: 279
Publisher: Dutton Juvenile
Source: Gifted ARC from YA Books Central

Description from Goodreads:
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.

First Sentence: "The night before Amelia Anne Richardson bled her life away on a parched dirt road outside of town, I bled out my dignity in the back of a pickup truck under a star-pricked sky."

Review:

Oh, that awkward moment where you read a book that's come highly recommended to you from just about everyone you know and then you don't like the book. There seem to be a lot of times where I'm that guy: the one who goes against the grain of popular opinion. I could list a number of books my friends all loved that I didn't like much at all, as well as ones pretty much no one else cared for that I thought were fabulous. Honestly, it's frustrating this divide that leaves me agreeing with others no more than 3/4 of the time.

Though I did not particularly enjoy this book, I am not blind to its charms, so do allow me to start there. Kat Rosenfield has, no doubt, a marvelous career ahead of her. With the first sentence, I knew that I would love her writing, and I was right about that at least. If this is how well she writes a debut, she will be going big places. Her style perfectly matched the tone of the novel, a mood of hopelessness, of loss, and of confusion.

Also on the positive side, I give Rosenfield full credit for telling a unique story, one I have never seen the likes of in YA fiction. She parallels the lives of the titular Amelia Anne and Becca, born and raised in the town where Amelia Anne breathed her last. Both girls are in love, or think they are, with boys who fail to please them sexually. Both have big plans that they fear their boyfriends will not support. Amelia Anne graduated from college the same day that Becca graduated from high school. Amelia Anne died, stuck forever in some sense in this town where Becca dreads being trapped.

Moving into what I did not like now, I have to go back to the writing. Much as I loved the way Rosenfield phrased things and put together her sentences, I did not like the storytelling method she used. I did like getting to see both from Becca's perspective in the present and Amelia Anne's perspective in the days leading up to her death, although I really hate the way her chapters weren't given chapter numbers. What drove me crazy, however, was that the narration occasionally either switched to third person omniscient in Becca's section or that she was telling the story from some unidentified date in the future. The numbered chapters often included reflections on things Becca simply could not know or hints at knowledge she could not yet have possessed. These details detracted from the novel for me, rather than adding additional crucial knowledge.

Amelia Anne Is Dead and Gone is one of those books about terrible people. All of them, with the exception of Amelia Anne, are awful. I did not like a single one of them. Of course, sometimes authors can make this work, make you curious about characters you would happily hurl off a cliff. In this case, though, I just did not care about them. When the dramatic twists happened, instead of being shocked and excited, I was more like "whatever, can we please move this along?" and entirely bored with the whole thing. No matter how clever twists are, if you're not emotionally invested, they lack impact.

Were it not for the beauty of the writing, this rating would be a 2. Though I didn't like this, I urge you not to take this book off your list solely based on my review, as so many reviewers I trust implicitly loved it. As it is, I would read something else of Rosenfield's in a heartbeat, because of how incredibly talented I can tell she is.

Rating: 2.5/5 - solely for the writing

Favorite Quote: "Innocence can only last so long, especially the kind that comes from growing up sheltered by quiet neighborhoods, immaculate concrete sidewalks, so much nothingness for miles around. Kids riding plastic Big Wheel biked too fast down dead-end streets; spills taken on sharp corners; asphalt picked out of knees and elbows that bleed, scab over, then heal. Same faces, same streets, day in and day out, eyes that never witness anything more desolate than those empty, gravel-strewn country roads. And then, one day and all at once, the veil lifts."

Giveaway:
Since I know others have loved this, I am passing along my ARC to someone who will no doubt appreciate the book more than I do.
Some other reviews to check out in case mine doesn't make you want the book:
Wendy of The Midnight Garden: "One of my favorite books this year is definitely Kat Rosenfeld's Amelia Anne is Dead and Gone."
Jenni of Alluring Reads: "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."
Kelly J. of Stacked: "Amelia Anne is Dead and Gone is Kat Rosenfield's debut and it is a knock out."

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