Kimberly McCreight Books In Order

Publication Order of The Outliers Books

Publication Order of Standalone Novels

Kimberly McCreight is a New York Times bestselling author, primarily known for her work on the novel ‘Reconstructing Amelia’. The novel earned Kimberly an Edgar Award (Best First time novel) as well as the praise of Entertainment Weekly who called it their Favorite Book of the Year.

+Biography

Kimberly McCreight went to Vassar College and eventually graduated from the University of Pennsylvania. It was during her college years that Kimberly struggled with her attraction towards writing. Considering the tumultuous childhood she had experienced, Kimberly has admitted to having had quite the determination to find security in everything she did.

And writing was simply too unpredictable, filled with obstacles and uncertainties, this being the reason she vowed to forego her interesting writing, instead choosing to pursue Law.

Kimberly has often spoken of seeing the path that often seemed so clear during her days at Law school, and the certainty that, by working hard, applying herself and getting good grades she was assured a great job at the end of the day.

It wasn’t until she finally acquired her coveted degree that Kimberly McCreight began to shudder at the future she had set for herself, the fact that she was $150,000 in debt just one of several things that kept her awake at night.

She quit her job after three months for reasons she will admit weren’t the most sound (she was expected to work hours after running a marathon). She had to spend another two months at another law firm to finally realize the difficult truth.

The Law was not her destiny and being a lawyer was hardly a passion; coming to this conclusion required that she accept the bumpy road she would have to undertake along the way to success if she finally made the decision to leap off the lawyer train.

Thus, while still pursuing her law career, Kimberly McCreight began setting some time aside, outside her 8 hour days, to write short stories that even she admitted were not particularly good. She also began online classes, even while continuing to hone her writing skills and seeking feedback from friends and family. It was a grueling two years.

The sign that she might be on the right path came when her fiance at the time was transferred to London for a year; after deferring her loans for 12 months and taking a leave of absence, Kimberly followed him with the belief that she could write and sell a book within a year (and promising that if she failed to achieve this objective, she would put her dreams of writing to rest once and for all).

Kimberly McCreight finished her first book in six months, took another two months to find an agent and found, in 2001, that her life was suddenly starting to make sense.

Kimberly is married. She has two daughters.

Reconstructing Amelia

Kate Baron is a litigation lawyer. She is also the harried single mother of high achieving 15 year old Amelia whose exclusive private school in Park Slope Brooklyn calls Kate to tell her that her daughter was caught cheating.

Amelia is such an ambitious levelheaded individual that Kate cannot quite believe the accusations. However events take a quick turn for the worst as Kate arrives at Grace Hall only to learn that Amelia had died.

Evidence suggests that a despondent Amelia, unable to cope with her actions, had lept off the roof of the school in what could only be described as spontaneous suicide. Kate is shattered by her guilt and grief. But as she prepares to mourn her child, she receives an anonymous text saying ‘She didn’t Jump’ which changes things.

Kate begins sifting through Amelia’s life, her email, texts, social media postings and even phone logs in an attempt to determine the truth behind Amelia’s suicide. Reconstructing Amelia becomes a story of secrets, told in alternating voices, about love, betrayal and vicious bullies, tackling the hidden world that a parent rarely has the opportunity to glimpse behind their child.

Reconstructing Amelia is like few other novels on the bookshelf. The story written within its pages is poignant in its attempts to chronicle the life of Kate, a single mother, before and after her daughter’s apparent suicide.

Kimberly McCreight explores a multitude of teenage characters and the bonds of friendship, love and loyalty that surround them. The tension within the novel’s pages emanates from the secrets hidden behind Amelia’s life that her mother takes steps to unravel.

The book alternates between Kate and Amelia, shifting between the past and the present and allowing both mother and daughter to tell their respective stories.

This story from Kimberly McCreight tends to appeal to a specific type of reader; while many people will rave about how brilliant the entirety of the story was, others have been known to criticize the overly dramatic approach it took to exploring Amelia’s life, the strange characters that surrounded her, many of them somewhat unauthentic in their dialogue (at least with regards to the age they were supposed to be) and the implausible nature of some of the secrets –and this isn’t taking into account Amelia’s surprising ability to keep the chaos of her life so effectively contained and hidden away.

Where They Found Her

As the long winter begins to end in bucolic Ridgedale, New Jersey, the body of an infant is discovered in the woods at the fringes of the university campus. There are a multitude of opinions, none of which shed any light on the identity of the baby or how she had arrived in the woods.

Molly Anderson is a freelance journalist; having recently moved to Ridgedale, she is called upon by the Ridgedale Reader to cover the story, this despite the impact it could have upon her psyche- having lost her own baby.

However, Molly’s own despair takes a back seat when she begins to discover the town’s dark secrets, including a series of sexual assaults going back two decades.

Sandy, a high school dropout, is searching for the volatile woman that she calls Mother.

Barbara, a PTA president struggles to deal with her son’s recent and highly disturbing outbursts.

Kimberly McCreight tells this tangled story from the perspectives of Sandy, Molly and Barbara as secrets begin to unravel, the death of an infant allowing these three women to realize just how much they have in common.

The expectations for ‘Where They Found Her’ where simply too high following the success of ‘Reconstructing Amelia’, so much so that it is hardly a surprise that so many people found Kimberly McCreight’s follow up a little disappointing, this despite the fact that it is such an easy read.