My first read of the year was a doozy! A bit of true crime, dark academia, and coming to terms with your childhood. Bodie returns to a New Hampshire boarding school she attended as a teen. During her time there, her roommate was murdered, but Bodie thinks the wrong man was imprisoned. This worked so well because of the writing, which was personal and intimate because they are letters to a third person. Also, we're seeing this happen through the eyes of a 40-year-old woman, so there's a maturity and distance that most boarding school murder books don't have. There's a running piece of the book where she theorizes how different suspects would have committed the murder. The author brings in references to many different real life cases where women are murdered or assaulted and justice wasn't served. Honestly, I couldn't put this down. I loved that Bodie was so flawed and she was dealing with her own marriage and normal life issues in addition to the main plot. It felt more realistic. And feeling anger at other examples was so relevant. After being disappointed in Great Believers, I was surprised by how much I loved this one. It runs a bit long in parts and loses some momentum when the trial starts, but it's worth it. ( )

A dark academia mystery in which a prep school alumna goes back to teach podcasting years after graduating there and becomes obsessed all over again with the unsolved murder of her school roommate their senior year.

A pretty good mystery with some solid twists. Recommended if you like that sort of thing. ( )

I Have Some Questions For You is by award winning author, Rebecca Makkai. When I read the description of the subject matter of the book, I knew I would enjoy reading it. The story takes place at a boarding school. Bodie was a former student and returned ~20 years later to teach for a 2-week winter break course. When she was a student, a classmate, Thalia was murdered and a suspect, Omar was quickly tagged as the killer. Bodie has had doubts all of these years if the right person was actually convicted since many of the facts do not add up and her intuition is pointing to someone else. The book’s main story is about trying to piece the facts together and, if possible, point to the real killer.

Having attended boarding school myself, I could see that Rebecca Makkai is very familiar with the common culture and behaviors (aside from murder) that make up the daily life for those living on campus. She, in fact, attended boarding school and later returned to live on campus along with her husband who took a teaching job at the same boarding school that she attended. However, the book is about an entirely different fictitious school but the common culture sounds very familiar.

Makkai is a master storyteller. She easily transitions from the present day to the past and even has Bodie having a one-sided conversation in her head with the person who she thinks is responsible for the murder. She also develops many subplots and character development that weave in and out throughout the book.

One thing that I found chilling was that Makkai mentions several other real cases that are in all of our shared knowledge of violence against women. Seeing the distinguishing facts surrounding real cases show how common this is and nothing really changes. There is a lot of messaging here that is very insightful about our culture in general.

I don’t want to go into the subplots or themes since I think that would become spoilers.

This book is a page turner and holds your interest until the very end. I would highly recommend this book. ( )

3.5 I'm rounding up for all the little quips about women and how they are stalked, hurt, tortured, murdered or not believed. I loved those little parts of paragraphs and sections, just small, powerful statements.

But the story - it was very good even though it was a little. . .long. I liked Bodie. I like that she had to grapple with who she was. Her instinct was "believe the woman" but then, was she consistent? I love that she struggled even if she meddled.

Thalia's story was heartbreaking because it was guesswork. No one knew all of Thalia's secrets. So when she was found dead and then presumed murdered, the small boarding school Bodie went to was rattled but not broken. They all pointed fingers at the one guy - the 'not a teacher' and 'not a student' - the trainer/physical therapist for their sports program. They all rushed to judge the 'outsider' to make it easier to sleep at night. They didn't have to worry, it wasn't someone that was really one of 'them'.

But now it's been years and Bodie is really starting to question what happened. She's back at this small private school to teach a small 'mini' class - a podcast class. And some kids pick the murder that happened right there on campus to investigate and cover. And they start to dig through all statements and get a fresh eye on the case. And they just might figure out who actually did it.

I was hooked but the story did take me a long time to get through. I loved the Podcast part of it and how it was both a blessing and a curse. I liked how much Bodie had to analyze her own bias, interpretations and ideas - how she had to struggle with what she knew and what she assumed. It's a slower story but I was hooked and wanted to know if they'd solve it. This one definitely worked for me, I'll look for more from this author! ( )

Still have some questions, but really enjoyed the story overall. Narration was great. I loved the look at different suspects and the authors use of first person narrative. ( )