History Literature / ReconstructingAmelia

* DrivenToSuicide: The official story about what happened to Amelia. Kate strongly suspects this was not the case, and gets some anonymous texts telling her it isn't. [[spoiler:She's right.]]

* {{Jerkass}}: ''Zadie''. Good God, Zadie. Really, you could make a case for Sylvia, too, though Sylvia does at least have the saving grace of genuinely caring for Amelia, even if she sucks at showing it. Zadie ''does'' care for Dylan, but it doesn't stop her from bullying her.

* NamedAfterSomebodyFamous: Zadie Smith is probably a reference to [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zadie_Smith the author of the same name]], and like the author also lives in New York.

* MyBelovedSmother: [[spoiler:Dylan's, whose mother controls nearly every aspect of her life. Conversely, she's perfectly fine with Dylan putting up images of herself in lingerie on the internet. Kate does not hesitate to point out that this means she's fine with her daughter effectively making ''child porn'' of herself.]]

** Ben is Amelia's. Amelia sardonically notes in her narration that right when she thought maybe there ''was'' a guy out there for her, re revealed that he was gay. [[spoiler:Subverted, as Amelia turns out to be a lesbian herself. And then inverted, kind of, when it's revealed that Jeremy ''is'' Ben, and is, of course, not gay. And Amelia's father.]]

* LukeIAmYourFather: Played with multiple times. Amelia was told that her father was a young man her mother had an uncharacteristic fling with prior to him leaving on a mission to Africa, but starts to wonder after she gets an anonymous text saying that's not the case. Kate, on the other hand, knows [[spoiler:or rather, believes, that it's actually Daniel Moore, who she had sex with multiple times, while her boss Jeremy figures out it's actually ''him'' after he realizes that Amelia has Waardenburg Syndrome like he does. Adele Goodwin makes the same connection. Kate thought it was Daniel because she'd had sex with him several times, and with Jeremy only once. Also it turns out the young man on a mission to Africa actually ''did'' exist, but this happened well before Amelia was conceived so there's no way he's her father. Amelia never lives to find out the truth.]]

* PoisonousFriend: Zadie to Dylan. Zadie genuinely cares about Dylan, but it doesn't stop her from doing some nasty things for "Dylan's own good."
* PosthumousCharacter: Amelia's death takes place very close to the beginning of the book and the rest of her scenes are flashbacks.

A novel published in 2013 by Kimberly [=McReight=].

* {{Jerkass}}: ''Zadie''. Good God, Zadie. Really, you could make a case for Sylvia, too.

* AmbiguousDisorder: [[spoiler:Dylan is said by her mother to have some manner of social disorder, heavily implied to be Asperger's, but whether or not her mother is actually telling the truth is left vague.]]

* OnceMoreWithClarity: A number of scenes become this once we see them from Amelia's perspective instead of Kate's, the most prominent being the scene in the first chapter where Amelia asks Kate if she can go to Paris on exchange.

* NotMeThisTime: Despite everything else she ''did'' do, [[spoiler:Zadie did not actually push Amelia off the roof.]]

* MyGodWhatHaveIDone: [[spoiler:Sylvia, literally ''seconds'' after she pushes Amelia. She attempts to save her, but it's too late.]]

* OnceMoreWithClarity: A number of scenes become this once we see them from Amelia's perspective instead of Kate's, the most prominent being the scene in the fist chapter where Amelia asks Kate if she can go to Paris on exchange.

* SkippingSchool: Amelia does this at least twice in the novel. Neither incident ends well.

* GlamorousSingleMother: Kate averts this, in that not only is it clearly very hard to balance her work and life (to the point that it's usually not) but she receives quite a bit of ridicule for it too from the other parents.

* LukeIAmYourFather: Played with multiple times. Amelia was told that her father was a young man her mother had an uncharacteristic fling with prior to him leaving on a mission to Africa, but starts to wonder after she gets an anonymous text saying that's not the case. Kate, on the other hand, knows [[spoiler:or rather, believes, that it's actually Daniel Moore, who she had a one-night stand with, while her boss Jeremy figures out it's actually ''him'' after he realizes that Amelia has Waardenburg Syndrome like he does. Adele Goodwin makes the same connection. Also it turns out the young man on a mission to Africa actually ''did'' exist, but this happened well before Amelia was conceived so there's no way he's her father.]]

* ChekhovsGun: When Kate is visited by a member of the PTO named Adele Goodwin shortly after Amelia dies there's a throwaway line about how she thought Amelia's MismatchedEyes were so pretty. [[spoiler:The woman is actually Zadie's mother, who uses this knowledge to confirm that Amelia's father was also Jeremy.]]
** Also the scene where Zadie specifically introduces her ''step''father become this in hindsight.

* {{Foreshadowing}}: The fact that the gossip blog [=gRaCeFULLY=] is actually run by [[spoiler:Liv, the teacher]] is foreshadowed early on by a fairly innocuous conversation when we find out [[spoiler:Liv submitted a piece by Amelia to a contest, which she won, without her permission. This demonstrates that she's willing to not just bend, but outright ''break'' the rules for her own benefit.]]
** It's also foreshadowed by [[spoiler:the fact that the blog seems to say a ''lot'' of nice things about Liv... not to mention the fact that the blog knows anything about the teachers anyway, information a student likely wouldn't be privvy to.]]

* {{Jerkass}}: ''Zadie''. Good God, Zadie. Really, you could make a case for Sylvia, too.

* GoodParent: Kate, though she obviously has a lot of trouble balancing work with Amelia. She admits she lucked out big time that Amelia's such a good kid.

* ForgoneConclusion: Amelia falls off the roof of her school and dies.

* KidsAreCruel: Grace Hall has a history of unauthorized student clubs doing terrible things to other kids, which is why they are officially banned.