Call number
Collections
Genres
Publication
Description
"A successful film professor and podcaster, Bodie Kane is content to forget her past--the family tragedy that marred her adolescence, her four largely miserable years at a New Hampshire boarding school, and the murder of her former roommate, Thalia Keith, in the spring of their senior year. Though the circumstances surrounding Thalia's death and the conviction of the school's athletic trainer, Omar Evans, are hotly debated online, Bodie prefers--needs--to let sleeping dogs lie. But when the Granby School invites her back to teach a course, Bodie is inexorably drawn to the case and its increasingly apparent flaws. In their rush to convict Omar, did the school and the police overlook other suspects? s the real killer still out there? As she falls down the very rabbit hole she was so determined to avoid, Bodie begins to wonder if she wasn't as much of an outsider at Granby as she'd thought--if, perhaps, back in 1995, she knew something that might have held the key to solving the case."--Publisher marketing.… (more)
User reviews
Makkai is incredible at creating a strong setting. I felt like I was this woman narrator, Bodie, since I'm the exact age that she is. Her retelling of her teenage years in the 1990s, as the last of the Gen Xers before the Millenials took over, is spot on. And then how she works in the modern day, taking how we got here from the 90s into account was astute. She weaves in the #metoo movement without naming it, having Bodie awaken to how what girls accepted as boy behavior that they were expected to put up with in the 1990s set up the current 2020s movement as women more widely begin to say "no more".
Makkai repeats certain phrases/ideas, weaving them into the story, such as the expectation in her teen years that boys deserved to be noticed and watched and idolized by the girls. I certainly remember that. And in Bodie's adult years, being constantly asked by both men and women "who's watching your kids?" as she travels, something I've also experienced as a mother. The answer for myself, as well as Bodie, being "their father" (and why don't you ever ask fathers that?).
This book is a great mix of a readable, engaging mystery and a subtle look at our culture - how we treat women, how the justice system works and doesn't work, and how our recent past has influenced our current times.
This is a #MeToo novel which also explores race, memory, justice, and the nuances of guilt. Even in its indictment of male privilege and the persistent and apparently unshakeable systemic protection of male predatory behavior, it also explores the nuance of guilt and responsibility. If a good man is accused of making a woman feel shamed, silenced, and abused, how do we balance the need to believe with our understanding of the complex dynamics of interpersonal relationships, especially if we happen to love and trust that man? How do we make sense of the cultural shifts that redefine acceptable and change our perspectives on fairness and justice?
The second half of the novel read much more quickly than the first, mostly because the story had shifted into whodunit territory. Sort of. And Makkai almost tried to tackle too many themes. She managed not to overdo any of them. 4.5 stars.
The plot is of a woman, Bodie Kane, who returns to her boarding school alma mater to teach a short “mini-mester” class on podcasting. A couple of students choose
My biggest objection is the number of characters Makkai introduces early on. Many of these characters are there simply to provide context for what it is like to attend an elite boarding school. However, an equal number are critically important later on. For me, keeping track of who was who was confusing.
Makkai occasionally invoked a second person “you” with no indication as to why. I’d suddenly encounter a “you said…” or “you did…”, and I’d find myself searching through the previous few paragraphs to find out what I’d missed and whom she was talking to. I finally figured out her “you” was directed at a specific imagined new suspect, who, by the way, was one of the many, many random characters from early chapters.
A third technique I found distracting was of a sort of “stream of consciousness” cataloguing of what Bodie was listening to on the radio, or watching on TV, or reading. She’d start with “It was the one about…” with a short description of the topic. Then the next eight or ten sentences started with “Or, it was the one about….” I haven’t figured out what Makkai was trying to accomplish with this formula.
The book is long, but the story is engaging. Avid mystery readers will probably enjoy it.
The ending was satisfactory but also disappointing.
The book is way too long, at over 400 pages. It would have
The story’s narrative is convoluted and confusing. The dialogue was unoriginal and confusing with multiple characters speaking with no dialogue tags to identify the speaker. The characters were flat and poorly developed. At the end of the book, I did not feel like I knew any of the characters any better than I did at the beginning. None of the characters.
Bodie, the protagonist, was a horrible and despicable person. She was willing to frame Robbie, an innocent man with a wife and children, so the guilty man (Omar) would go free. There was no evidence against Robbie, only suspicions in Bodie’s mind. However, there was a massive amount of evidence against Omar, who was convicted of the murder. His DNA was found on the deceased’s body, his hair was found on her body and in her mouth, and he had motive and opportunity. Despite the overwhelming evidence against Omar, Bodie never felt he was guilty, and made up lies and evidence against an innocent man to make him look guilty (page 340). She made Omar to appear to be a victim or a horrible murder rather than the murderer.
Bodie left her kids behind with her ex-husband while she spent two weeks at the boarding school to teach a class on film and one on podcasting. During the entire two weeks, she never appeared to miss her children. She never called home to check on them and her children were only mentioned when another character asked about her children. She would only reply they are fine. I’ve never known a mother who did not miss her children when she was apart from them for two weeks. Bodie was an character with no conscious.
The ending was also disappointing. There was no resolution to the problem. After 400 pages, one would think there would be some resolution, but no, there was none.
This book was a total waste of time. Skip it.
During her course, a student wants to revisit the case and do a podcast. This forces Bodie to examine all the things that happened, and the students that treated her poorly. Were they all innocent? And, who is the person that Bodie has questions to ask?
All is revealed. Plus, the violence against women is highlighted many times. I enjoyed the book, I wish it were about 50 pages shorter, though.
This is a reasonably entertaining book, and it does keep you guessing. It seemed to go on longer than it needed to.
One unique aspect Makkai included was having the protagonist speak to a person she referred to as “you.” We quickly figure out who that you is so it’s not confusing.
Actual Rating: 3.4
This book follows Bodie Kane, a successful film professor. When she is invited back to her old school Granby to teach a course, one of her students dredge up her past again in the form
I want to start out by saying that I really appreciate the social topics that the book covers. There’s the obvious issue of femicide — and how most of them are done by known male acquaintances, there’s how the justice system handles these cases, and then there are the power dynamics that allow for these situations to happen in the first place. Not only that, however, but the book also touches a bit on cancel culture from the other side, and it’s just interesting to see our main character at the center of conflicting perspectives. This book truly understands that there’s a lot of nuance around these stories, and it was really able to make me stop and think.
With that being said, I think my biggest comment is that the book would’ve benefited from deciding earlier if it wanted to be a harbinger of social commentary or a whodunnit. Don’t get me wrong, I think it’s perfectly fine to have elements of both, but I felt a little whiplash from the pacing of how they were inserted. The book starts out being pretty clearly the former, with interspersed "whodunnit" chapters imagining different characters as the culprit. Towards the end, however, it becomes more of the latter — and suddenly it’s very difficult to emphasize the issue of “silencing a story” when you’re not even sure what that story is.
In terms of characters, there’s really only one that is fully developed — Bodie — and it actually works in the novel’s favor. She’s not necessarily a likable protagonist but it was very intriguing reading the ENTIRE story from her perspective because all her doubts and anxieties definitely came through in the narration. I did wish I felt more or an emotional connection to Thalia, who definitely comes across as more of a “myth” rather than a real character. It feels intentional, as we’re seeing the the events play out from Bodie’s point of view, but you definitely find yourself more invested in Bodie’s emotions than in the case itself.
Overall, I still enjoyed reading this one and I think it’s good for people who like contemporary women’s mystery fiction.
I'll read Makkai again because she really had me invested for 2/3s of the way.
Bodie was one of the
Nevertheless, Bodie was as shocked as everyone else when Thalia’s body was found in the swimming pool. It was made to look like an accident but was in fact murder. The swim coach, one of the few black men on campus, was charged, convicted and at this point served more than twenty years in prison.
For her class Bodie suggests students pick topics from the school’s history for their podcasts. She lists Thalia’s murder as a possible subject; one boy chooses it and eventually the whole class including Bodie herself are sucked in.
Was the right man imprisoned? This case has continued to be of great interest on the internet and various internet groups are working to get the coach freed and still examining and re-examining evidence.
This is not a typical murder mystery. I loved the fact that Makkai reminds us that, at bottom, all murders are alike; and that so many of them hit the news cycles and true crime newscasts that the details are blurred. It’s also a look into the casual racism that can convict a black man; and how even DNA evidence can point in odd direction.
The author delves into many "true crime" topics as Bodie wonders whether she would have viewed the circumstances surrounding her former roommate's murder differently through today's lenses. However, while Bodie is on campus teaching, her former husband is involved in a scandal involving a lover who has accused him of using his power to seduce her. One wonders about Bodie's mindset and hypocrisy when she publicly jumps to the defense of her ex. Bodie viewed the age disparity in her husband's affair as less troublesome than the teachers' relationships with Thalia, her high school roommate and murder victim.
While reading I Have Some Questions for You, Rebecca Makkai encouraged me to think about how much has changed regarding men preying on women, especially those in power. But it also helped me realize that so much more change is necessary. Bodie encounters students for this winter session who have had antibully training since kindergarten. These modern students have the words to label inappropriate actions. On the other hand, Bodie still thinks and says things such as, "the teacher was "having an affair with Thalia," rather than describing a teacher having sex with a high school student as predatory. The students can easily classify assaults. However, those in power positions still hesitate to accuse and convict popular, accomplished men.