I Have Some Questions for You A Novel
Reviews
parts of this were so incredible, so incisive, and i loved the overall structure - the way it's written to one of the characters, the examinations of how each person could have done it... and yet this felt SO long, and often repetitive & circular, idk if this was shorter, it would have been perfect.
I loved it, but I am absolutely the target audience. This is Curtis Sittenfeld’s “prep” mixed with “trust exercise” — both books I really liked. Makkai deftly weaves her themes of rape culture, sexual assault, predatory men, internalized misogyny, the racism of the criminal justice system, (and everyone else) the ethics of journalism, and coming of age. 2% too treacly in image choices, otherwise loved it.
I enjoyed reading this but nowhere near as much The Great Believers. I hate to hold a writer to their previous works but it fell a bit flat for me.
if you read this book you know why i couldn’t give it 5 stars
once I got to the second half I couldn’t put it down and it ripped my heart out, but first half was meh
First 80+ pages covered just the initial 24 hours of the story where NOTHING happens. Like actually nothing. You can literally start the book at page 100 and you would be chilling. 80+ pages of exposition stuck in the head of one of the most annoying main characters who came off as condescending and whiny. She was supposed to be funny I guess? At least that's what the author was telling us to believe, but the banter which was intended to be amusing was rather cringy and bland. I really think this is an ongoing problem with a lot of books where the story is in first person. A lot of writers fall into the trap of constantly telling us instead of showing us inadvertently making their characters insufferable. There was no thrill. No real mystery, because it was buried under the massive pile of unneeded information and thus no stars for me to give except 1.
3.5 rounded up. The book kept me reading in a "could not put it down" way, but I can't say I fully enjoyed the experience. I felt manipulated a lot of the time into making assumptions that turned out either to be wrong or were never addressed. Dear author: I have some questions for you.
This book was just OK. Maybe it's the fact that I haven't read this genre that much or that I listened to it instead of reading, but I was left with no feelings once way or the other.
“it was easier to believe she was lying than that lightning loves a scarred tree.” OH THIS WAS A GOOD BOOK. murder mysteries aren’t usually the type of book that I’m drawn to, and I had reservations about reading this at all but oh my god. From the storytelling to the character building to the way, you see the progression of Bodie’s thought process and learning things she learns things. The way it feels like it’s written kind of like a letter or maybe it’s a podcast to another character after everything has already happened. The slow reveal the twists and turns I would highly recommend this book
A compelling, interesting read that kept me engaged and pushed me to reconsider the ethicality of ‘true crime’ in pop culture. I appreciate that Bodie is somewhat unlikeable at times; it affirmed the realness of Makaii’s reality and at times I forgot this was not in itself a true crime podcast. I’m looking forward to rereading this later, and have been thinking about it since finishing.
need to sit with this one a bit longer to formulate my review. while a little slow, i enjoyed how it was structured. i wish there would have been more of a resolve at the end, but i guess that’s life ! loved alder’s character.
Immersive read - I love the "private school in the woods" setting. A bit too much going on though, as soon as I settled in to one setting/storyline, it rather abruptly switched to another. The ending felt realistic, although left me a little unsatisfied... Still, I will definitely recommend to all my crime podcast addicted friends!
Definitely immersive & well-written. Sometimes things felt a little drawn out. And the ending felt … right but maybe also anticlimactic or disappointing or something.
I Have Some Questions About You is a deep dive into the life of Bodie, years after she left her boarding school, Granby, where her roommate Thalia was murdered.
It's not, at its heart, a mystery/thriller, although the plot revolves around the mystery of Thalia. It's a look at women who are vulnerable, grief-stricken, and tired of being victims. It's long, so about halfway through I switched to the audiobook, brilliantly read by Julia Whelan, and the story came alive.
Highlights
What happens when your only escape is the same thing you're trying to escape? Here's the soundtrack of your tragedy: Dance to it.
“So maybe it’s a lesson learned. Stay off the internet, where everyone’s nuts.”
I wouldn’t say anything else. People would move on. Trump would say something dangerously idiotic any moment now, and everyone’s attention would turn.
I know now that for straight boys at that age, it's less about the girl than the competition. Just as soccer isn't about your love of the ball. And once she was declared the object of collective interest, she became the ball.
I thought of a friend in LA who’d said recently, of her own daughter, “It feels wrong to give her all this happiness and confidence when we know what’s coming. Seventh grade’s gonna hit like a wall. It feels like fattening a pig for slaughter.”
But what was the alternative? Starving the pig?
But I’d learned long ago not to counter people’s trauma with my own.
“I don’t blame anyone for believing it. Even now, with my own kids, it’s confusing as hell. I tell them not to believe rumors, and then my daughter is like, But rumors are how we know if someone’s an abuser. She has that vocabulary at twelve, which blows my mind. So I’m supposed to say, Yes, believe those rumors, but not the other ones? Only believe rumors about men?”
You don’t have to have been friends with someone to be old friends with them later.
How could any woman truly be shocked by predation?
no longer felt like a trapdoor to anxiety; it felt more like the single rope on hand as every life raft around me sank. If holding on tight meant staying up till the sky lightened, so be it.
The one where the men finally told about the priests, decades later, and everyone lauded their bravery. The one where the women came forward after five years, and everyone asked why they hadn’t spoken sooner.