When Bodie Kane, successful author and podcaster, is invited back to her prestigious boarding school to teach, she realises that she must confront the issues that cast such a shadow over her own formative years. When her students embark on projects to create their own podcasts, one student chooses to cover the murder of Bodie’s former roommate Thalia, forcing Bodie to revisit the events leading up to the murder, and leading her to the conclusion that the man convicted may not have been guilty of the crime.

What follows is Bodie’s reflection on her school years, looking at various events in her past and reassessing them through an adult’s eyes. She must also deal simultaneously with her present, which includes her almost-ex-husband dealing with a #metoo-type accusation while she is also in love with a married man. All the while, she is helping her students unpick the events of the murder, to see where the blame may truly lie.

There is, therefore, a lot to get your teeth into with this book. It is beautifully written and the winding plot is intricately crafted. However, with so much going on, I was left wanting some elements dealt with more thoroughly than they were, and I didn’t always find the actions of some of the characters consistent. That being said, it was an interesting bit of literary fiction, and I would read more by this author.

My thanks to the author, NetGalley, and the publisher for the arc to review.

I think this is sadly a case of "it's not you, it's me". Everyone else seems to have loved this novel, but I really struggled to engage with the story. I didn't connect with Makkai's previous novel (The Great Believers) either, so please do read more positive reviews of this if it sounds up your street!

Well this takes it's time to not really go anywhere. So much wandering and meandering through what isn't very much. Characters don't feel at all real, motivations are murky or non-existent and it just keeps going on and on and on.

This book definitely has its' audience, as proven by its' inclusion on the longlist for the Women's Prize for Fiction. For me, this book was OK, nothing more, nothing less. However, I do think it has an audience out there, just not for me.

Thanks to Little, Brown UK and NetGalley for ARC.

Podcaster and producer Bodie Kane goes back to her New England boarding school to teach a 'mini-mester, encouraging high school students to develop their own ideas for a podcast. Inevitably, one of the students wants to cover the murder of Thalia Keith, contemporary and ex-roommate of Kane's. Previously outwardly content to let sleeping dogs lie, Kane becomes obsessed with the case and what she and others might have said and didn't (because they were adolescents who didn't want to be in trouble, because they didn't understand the context of some adult behaviours, because....)
I'm a little jaded with both the podcast subgenre and the 'return to adolescence to uncover secrets' trend, but I couldn't fail to be absorbed by this skilful novel - it was a fresh take on all of that, and the denouement was very satisfying, while staying true to reality. At the same time as the 'case' unfolds, Kane's life and that of her students, colleagues, and old classmates are fleshed out and the impact of the past is never overstated.
This book was hotly anticipated and for good reason.

I've seen a lot of people posting about how they felt like I Have Some Questions for You tried to tackle too many themes and didn't quite succeed, but I was surprised to discover that I actually disagreed!

Bodie is a podcaster in her early 40s when she returns to her New Hampshire boarding school, Granby, to teach a two-week class on podcasting. In March of her senior year, her former roommate Thalia Keith was murdered, and as one of the students starts to make a podcast on the unanswered questions surrounding Thalia's death, Bodie starts to revisit her high school years and re-examine what actually happened.

First of all, I think this book was great. I think it unravelled a bit towards the end and lost some propulsion and I think there were definitely a few too many random side characters, but for the most part I found this book perfectly paced, expertly plotted, and just a really great read. The amount of things going on in this story, for me, mimicked the general busyness of life – yes, there's a lot happening, but isn't there a lot happening in everyone's life? One of my common complaints about contemporary novels is how very thin protagonists' lives seem to be – they have two or three friends, they don't have clearly delineated histories, they are generally quite insular – and I really appreciate a novel that does the opposite. I should also say that I have absolutely no interest in the true crime genre – not necessarily because I think it's unethical, I just don't understand the appeal – so I was persuaded to read this book purely on the basis of good reviews.

My favourite part was Granby: both the evocation of it as an atmosphere and an ecosystem with its own particular rules, and Bodie's memories of her high school years. There's so much detail in her memories, and this fictional school and its inhabitants, particularly in the 90s, felt real and vivid in a way I especially enjoyed. There's a lot about the difference between teenage perceptions and adult perceptions, a lot of re-evaluating past behaviours from a contemporary feminist lens, a lot of questioning about consent and assault and who gets to tell stories. It does, of course, raise questions about the ethics of true crime yet is ultimately trading off a fictional crime. I'm still not sure quite what Rebecca Makkai was trying to achieve, but I have to say I didn't really mind: the story was good enough in itself, propulsive and knotty and clever.

3.5* I Have Some Questions For You is hugely anticipated and an Oprah pick.

Bodie Kane is a podcaster in her early 40s. As a teenager, she was supported by a local family to attend Granby, a private boarding school which was a world away from her Indiana roots. Often an outsider while at Granby, Bodie is invited back to teach some short classes on podcasting and film. When one of her students picks the murder of a Granby student as the topic of her podcast project, Bodie cannot shake the memories from her own schooldays because the victim was her one-time roommate. The superficial police investigation led to the conviction of Omar, a black man working in the Athletics Department and Bodie had always had concerns that justice has not been done.

I Have Some Questions For You is superbly written and much of it is enjoyable. However it didn’t quite hit the mark between literary and crime fiction. Drawing on themes such as #MeToo, racism, classism and misogyny, it is a solid social commentary. It is however slow and in parts is repetitive with a meandering style that isn’t quite pulled off. There are huge leaps from small clue to pointing fingers.

Thanks to Netgalley and the publisher for an ARC.

For some reason this didn’t quite grab my attention…I think I didn’t engage/relate to the narrator, and didn’t find her particularly appealing, either - which isn’t always a negative thing, but I think I just couldn’t quite get into this one, which was a shame. 3 stars, though, because I think it’s still well written and that many, many other readers will enjoy it, and there is no doubting that the author is talented! Just didn’t quite get me, this time (sadly!).

Thank you so much for the privilege on an ARC.

I really enjoyed this book! I loved the setting the dark academia theme. It is very well written and very engaging. Lots of deep and intriguing themes running through such as misogyny and questions asked about it and other things such as abuse. Really interesting and entertaining as I haven't really listened to any true crime podcasts before.

Pulitzer Prize and National Book Award finalist Rebecca Makkai’s latest novel is a powerful meditation on how people confront their pasts, especially when the past in question is one believed to have been laid to rest, only to be resurrected in the light of new revelations.

Told from the perspective of a now successful podcaster and film professor, Bodie Kane appears to lead a reasonable existence despite memories of a decidedly unhappy childhood at a New Hampshire boarding school, where her former roommate, Thalia Keith, was found murdered in the school swimming pool in the spring of her senior year. Nearly thirty years later, the circumstances surrounding Thalia’s death and the conviction of the school’s athletic trainer are the subject of considerable debate, and this situation intensifies when Granby School invites her back to teach a series of short courses on podcasting and film studies.

As one of her students chooses to cover Thalia’s case for her podcast, research gradually uncovers details that suggest the school and the police may have overlooked other suspects in their haste to convict someong, and that the real killer may still be out there.

As Bodie feels drawn to discover what really happened, she starts to question herself and her memories, asking herself if maybe she was not as much as an outsider from the rest of the students than she initially thought and even thinks she might have played a part in Omar being wrongfully convicted in 1995. This provides the perfect springboard for a meditation on how people, through their stories as victims, become public property, subject to the collective imagination.

Setting the story in two main timeline, focusing not only on the protagonist’s boarding school days, but then bringing everything to the present day to include podcasts, turns the book into a fascinatingly timely tale, one that contrasts how today’s younger generation’s investigative techniques are a far cry from those used to attempt to crack the case in 1995, when the rumour mill and adolescents assumptions played such a large part in determining who would end up being considered the prime suspect, and who would not even be deemed worthy of a second look.

Brimming with unforgettable characters that readers of all ages will instantly find fascinating, Makkai’s whodunit differs from most in that the protagonist walks us through the crime scene both from the pespective of young school kids before taking us three decades forward to explore these same kids as adults, struggling to fathom what really happened; all of which takes a tremendous toll, especially as the fallout is much more extensive now, with most of the school kids having now formed families that could be put at risk by something that happened all those years ago.

Bodie Kane, a 40 something podcaster, returns to teach at her old boarding school. This stirs memories from over 20 years ago when a girl was murdered at the school. One student decides to make a podcast about the murder. This stirs up unwelcome memories for Bodie. The narrative shifts between present and past and brings in misogyny, racism, sexism and the #Metoo movement along the way.

For me this book was a curate's egg, good in parts. The 'true crime' aspect of the podcast format was interesting (though I've never actually listened to one of these podcasts so can't comment on how accurate it was) and the anger about the casual sexism and racism is palpable, but occasionally felt as if the plot was a vehicle for this rather than these being an integral aspect. Sometimes the narrative felt too slow and I wondered if a good edit might have made this a tighter novel.

Interesting. Many thanks to the publisher and Netgalley for a review copy.

Right off the bat, Rebecca Makkai's  novel " The Great Believers" is an absolutely fabulous piece of literature, I loved it. Her latest " I have some questions for you" however did not have the same effect on me,  really struggled with it until the middle of the novel when the crime element gained dominance.  Did I expect too much from this novel? Maybe.  Mixing a campus with a crime novel has been done before, see Donna Tartt' s Secret History, but I felt Makkai's story and its character building too long drawn out with the added #Metoo movement mixed into it.

Bodie Kane, a film professor and podcaster, the narrator whose voice switches from the past to the present, has been invited to teach a course at  her old boarding school Granby. During one of her seminars a  female student decides to reinvestigate the murder of Bodie's classmate Thalia Keith, who was found brutally killed at Granby over 20 years ago confronting  Bodie with her miserable time back then becoming convinced that the wrong man was accused of the crime still serving time in prison.  It is when she decides to follow her own suspicions that the novel becomes really captivating and alive for me.

I Have Some Questions For You is the latest novel from Rebecca Makkai. I read her Pulitzer Prize nominated ‘The Great Believers’ last year and loved it so I was excited for this book, and even more so when I realised what it’s about.

Bodie Kane is returning to the New Hampshire boarding school, Granby, where she spent four years as a melancholy teenager.
While there, her super popular roommate Thalia, was found murdered in the pool. The black man convicted for the crime remains in prison, but his guilt is hotly contested online.

Bodie has worked hard to leave those traumatic years in the past but now she’s back at Granby as a guest lecturer, teaching podcasting and film studies.

As a class project, one of her brighter students latches on to the death of Thalia as her podcast topic, and sets in motion a reexamination of the case that inevitably will change, and destroy lives.

Ooh, I loved this. 100% my cup of tea, and incredibly timely.
There remains a societal fascination with true crime, particularly when the victim is a beautiful young, white woman. Add in themes of racism, cancel culture, the #MeToo movement, a New England academic campus covered in snow, a dual timeline partly set in the era of 90’s grunge (Bodie’s shrine to Kurt Cobain felt very nostalgic) and you have the perfect setting and context for a story like this.

The concepts of justice, casual misogyny, what is and isn’t abuse, and the unreliability and misinterpretation of memories are explored so well too.

I appreciated the regular references to infamous violent crimes against women, perpetrated by men; and how ubiquitous they are.
Bodie thinks of these cases in a world weary way, popping up in her thoughts constantly, which also felt realistic as someone who has spent too much time consuming true crime.

I love dark academia as a genre and this is probably a more superior example of it; it reminded me of The Secret History at times. There’s shades of the podcast Serial in there too.

Makkai is an incredible writer, this is a crime/thriller but elevated to literary fiction.
It’s long at 448 pages and possibly could have been shorter; it won’t be for everyone but I loved it.

2,5 stars ⭐️⭐️✨

There were many aspects to this novel that I normally like: a private school, a murder mystery, engagement with contemporary phenomena like the MeToo movement and podcasts as a medium, different writing styles mixed together. However, there was a bit much of all of these things thrown together that made me feel rather underwhelmed. None of the separate elements were done well enough to make it truly tick any of the boxes. I doesn’t help that I really did not like our main character. I don’t mind a flawed narrator, but she was mostly just bland. Especially near the end when she keeps telling us she can’t talk to anyone about the trial and yet continues to do so every 5 pages really annoyed me. The plot was a bit meh, and while it felt like a murder mystery, I came out of this feeling like I read more of a political statement which made the resolution of the mystery bland and predictable. I do think Rebecca Makkai is a good storyteller and that I would generally enjoy her work, I was just not particularly engaged by this mix of styles.

I really enjoyed this book. It is well-written, detailed, but not too convoluted, as these books can so often be. Especially with the narrative constantly jumping between Bodie's present-day situation and 20 years ago when she was a student (and even within those two separate timeframes, the narrative is not chronological), it is still easy to understand and follow. The novel deals really well with the Me Too movement - one of the ways in which Makkai drives home the unfairness of this is by including snippets of news here and there relating to other cases of sexual harassment, referring to them as 'the one where...' By doing this, she reinforces how the women in these cases are so often stripped of any identity, rather becoming objects through which men have been allowed to abuse their power.
I love the way the novel is written, as if Bodie is in constant dialogue with Bloch, the teacher she becomes more and more convinced is the true culprit of the crime from all those years ago. The only thing that prevents me from giving 5 stars is the ending - after such an interesting examination of his guilt and his abuse of power by engaging in a relationship with a student, it is disappointing for nothing to come of this. Not only does the appeal lead to nothing (although, perhaps this is more realistic - it is rather telling that the Black man is accused of a crime and has his appeal rejected, despite an overwhelming lack of evidence!), but we never fully discover who is guilty of the murder. Again, this does give it an element of gritty realism, but it feels like a slightly disappointing and anti-climactic ending to such a build-up.

I had such high hopes for this, as it sounded exactly like my kind of thing. I normally enjoy a boarding-school setting, especially one where the protagonist revisits their past, and possibly unearths some deeply-hidden trauma while returning to the school years later, like The Divines by Ellie Eaton, which I loved. However, this just didn't work for me. I kept hoping that something would change in the narrative to make Bodie's (quite frankly unhinged) pursuit of her old roommate's murderer make sense, but it never really did. I couldn't understand why she in particular felt the need to go digging around, not for any particular sense of justice or looking to gain some closure, because she openly admits that her and Thalia were only roommates and not friends. I was not a fan of the whole 'husband being accused of something inappropriate' subplot, nor did I care for the fact that Bodie could so easily forget about her kids, her shitty husband, and the co-host of her podcast. A bit of a shame.

This is a long book!

But it was gripping with great writing, and Intresting, believable characters. It delved into issues such as class and race. The unexpected twist near the end that changes the ending.

I enjoyed this book.

An excellent campus novel/murder mystery that deals with racism, me too, cancel culture and the power of the internet, social media and podcasts.. A literary pageturner!
Thank you Little Brown and Netgalley UK for the ARC.

When I saw Rebecca Makkai was turning her hand to campus crime, I nearly screamed! This book was everything - I could not put it down. What range she has!

I loved this book. End of review. Joking - of course I have things to say! But best to get that out there early on.

If you enjoy female-led mystery thrillers, dark academia and true crime podcasts, this is most certainly the book for you (and me!). Inspired by the Adnan Syed Serial story, I Have Some Questions For You explores the murder of a young woman at an elite New England boarding school and the case that saw a Black man, who worked as a physical trainer at the school, convicted of the crime. But did he do it?

Bodie Kane is a podcaster and producer, and Granby alum. She has been invited back to the school 23 years after she graduated to deliver a "mini-mester" on podcasting to interested students. As part of her two-week programme she tasks students with developing their own podcasts, suggesting they cover the murder of Bodie's classmate (and roommate) Thalia Keith in 1995 as a potential topic. As Bodie works with the students to investigate the case, she is forced to confront the past - her own troubled childhood, her time at Granby, and her experience with a predatory teacher whom she suspects is the real killer. In the meantime, a #MeToo scandal involving her partner, a famous visual artist, is trending on social media, only adding to the tense and incendiary atmosphere of the novel.

This book tackles a lot of topics, from #MeToo to cancel culture, as well as murder, violence against women and society's obsession with true crime. It's ambitious in scope but, wow, does it deliver. Makkai's novel is so precise and measured, expertly executed in terms of plot and prose. I loved the characterisation - especially Bodie, who comes across as a little cold but brilliant. While it is a relatively long novel coming in at 550-ish pages, not a single word is spared. Makkai nails every point and her exploration of the fetishisation of true crime is particularly compelling. If you are an avid true crime fan, there are lots of references to familiar cases in here that will prick your ears. And some fun 90s references too.

A remarkable novel. Five big fat stars.