I Have Some Questions for You by Rebecca Makkai on February 21, 2023
Genres: Fiction / Literary, Fiction / Psychological, Fiction / Women
Pages: 448
Format: Audiobook
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This one reads like a literary mystery. How important can podcasts be in solving cold cases? Can one person’s memory of a past event really hold the key to solving a case? Can adolescent memory be trusted? What if the person who should speak up, never does? These are all questions that I thought about and were asked while reading this book.
Bodie Kane is a professor and infamous podcaster who was recently asked back to her former New Hampshire boarding school to teach a class on podcasting. Her former roommate, Thalia Keith, was murdered their senior year. Going back to Granby reminds Bodie of her past and she is drawn back into Thalia’s case. She also remembers her time at Granby as being an outcast, a poor kid who was trying to fit in with the rich kids who bullied her. It was a lonely time in her life when she was surrounded by the Granby woods inside a big, cold building with very few people she could talk to. You can just feel the gothic school vibe when reading about Granby.
Omar Evans, the school’s athletic trainer, was convicted of Thalia’s murder but Bodie always felt off about that. There were too many unanswered questions. She wonders if the wrong person is in jail and the killer is still free. He was the young, black trainer who joked around. His connection to Thalia was thin and she feels guilty about how it was made.
This one is narrated by Bodie as she is talking to a former music teacher, Denny Bloch. He mentored her and other various students at Granby. The title relates to him, as she has some questions for him. (This might be a bit of a spoiler, but it took me a while to figure this out and I think it would be helpful knowing this going in. I felt it was distracting to not know this.)
Bodie assigns her students to do a podcast and one of them choses to do it on Thalia’s case. Bodie encourages this, as she wants to also dig into it more. She finds her students are actually insightful and make a little progress. And with Bodie’s guidance, they spark interest far beyond what they could have imagined.
I listened to this one on audio. I feel like there were a lot of characters to keep straight so I would have rather read the book, but I was still able to keep up. This one is really about the effect tragedy has on teenage angst/adolescence. Bodie was a great character and she grew from a loner to a successful podcaster & mother. She was so smart and resilient in the face of tragedy and loneliness. I enjoyed where the story took us and how it lead us exactly where it wanted our mindset to be at. At the end, I had to think about this one for a bit. I wouldn’t say I was satisfied with the ending. I am one of those people who like 90% of things tied up in a nice little bow and that is not how this one ends. I wasn’t sure if I wanted to put this one in the freezer, or laugh about it. This one would make for great book club discussion.