Book Review - I Have Some Questions for You by Rebecca Makkai

Title: I Have Some Questions for You
Author: Rebecca Makkai
Genre: Mystery/ Fiction
Published: 2023
 
Description: A successful film professor and podcaster, Bodie Kane is content wo forget her past – the family tragedy that married 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? Is 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’s thought – if, perhaps, back in 1995, she knew something that might have held the key to solving the case.
 
Review: Thalia Keith was 17 years old when she was found dead in the swimming pool of the exclusive Granby boarding school in 1995. Gym teacher Omar Evans was convicted, but Thalia’s roommate Bodie Kane always thought they caught the wrong guy. In 2018, Bodie returns to Granby, to teach a class. When her students choose to study Thalia’s case, Bodie has no choice to stir up old memories and doubts.
 
Many questions are being raised, like the title predicts. Did racial prejudice play a big part in Evans’ conviction? Was Thalia’s manipulative boyfriend a more plausible culprit? Did music teacher Denny Bloch have any involvement, since Thalia supposedly had an affair with him?
 
“I Have Some Questions for You” sounds like an interesting whodunit. A cross between “The Secret History” by Donna Tartt, “A Good Girl’s Guide to Murder” by Holly Jackson and the crime series “How to Get Away with Murder”. But it’s anything but interesting. The book is pretty dull, it’s way too long and I never felt invested in either the mystery nor the characters. And it was lacking a satisfying resolution.
 
I have read this type of mystery thriller before, but they all did it better.
 
Rating: 2/ 5