Play Book Tag discussion

I Have Some Questions for You by Rebecca Makkai
4 stars

This was very reminiscent of Serial Season 1.

Bodie attended a posh boarding school in New Hampshire for her high school years. Despite feeling out of place, she existed on the fringes of the popular clique. Seeing the relationships unfold but never really being close enough to witness the inner sanctum.

Now, as an adult with a career co-hosting a popular podcast that investigates and discusses the unsolved or suspicious murders of women, Bodie has been invited back to her high school to teach a course on news and media with each student picking a topic.

It almost seems inevitable that one student will pick the murder of one of Bodie's friends and classmates, Thalia. A murder that occurred Bodie's senior year of high school and for which a black man was immediately arrested and convicted, even though parts of the story don't line up and Bodie remains unconvinced of his guilt.

The book is told in several parts, with Bodie thinking about various people who would have had motive and opportunity to kill Thalia and she weaves a story of what might have happened in each scenario.

The book had threads of stories of real women who have been gruesomely murdered without the murdered being prosecuted, of black men who have been falsely prosecuted and imprisoned, of the injustice served on many fronts.

The book was interesting. It kept me reading and wondering what was going to happen next. But, I think it was a little too on the nose with the Serial parallels and it ultimately lacked so much of the heart that The Great Believers had. I think Makkai was leading us there with Omar, the man convicted of Thalia's murder, but we never actually heard from him directly, we only heard about him through other people -- in fact, everything was filtered through Bodie -- so the connection was not as strong as it could have been.

Oh, but it was narrated by my FAVORITE audiobook narrator, Julia Whelan.

A nice, engaging read that ultimately won't stay with me very long.

I am so looking forward to this!
I love Rebecca Makkai, especially The Great Believers, and I love true crime so I feel like this will be a match made in heaven for me.

It was good! And I recently recommended it to a friend who loves true crime podcasts.

I think I was mainly disappointed because The Great Believers made me feel so much and exposed me to more about the AIDs epidemic in the 80s.

This just suffers by comparison, which is probably not fair to Makkai.

I am interested to hear what you think though. My favorite parts of the book were the twists and turns, which I clearly couldn't put here! I thought the ending was phenomenal.

Based on the synopsis I could tell it likely wouldn't hit in the feels as much, so I'm prepared for that.

I love twists and turns! I am looking forward to this :)
Love to hear the ending was phenomenal!