Week 41 Review: Love Letters to the Dead

From Goodreads:
It begins as an assignment for English class: Write a letter to a dead person.

Laurel chooses Kurt Cobain because her sister, May, loved him. And he died young, just like May. Soon, Laurel has a notebook full of letters to the dead—to people like Janis Joplin, Heath Ledger, Amelia Earhart, and Amy Winehouse—though she never gives a single one of them to her teacher. She writes about starting high school, navigating the choppy waters of new friendships, learning to live with her splintering family, falling in love for the first time, and, most important, trying to grieve for May. But how do you mourn for someone you haven't forgiven?

It's not until Laurel has written the truth about what happened to herself that she can finally accept what happened to May. And only when Laurel has begun to see her sister as the person she was—lovely and amazing and deeply flawed—can she truly start to discover her own path.

In a voice that's as lyrical and as true as a favorite song, Ava Dellaira writes about one girl's journey through life's challenges with a haunting and often heartbreaking beauty. 

My Review:
Oh, this was such a great read! I loved reading Laurel's letters that she writes, as she starts high school, talking to this people who are dead about what was going on her life, and how her sister had just died. It was an emotional story, and I had a great time with it.

This is epistolary, the story is told in a series of letters that Laurel is writing, to a number of different people, from musicians to actors who have passed. She's talking about how these people have entered her life, from in her past, to those she's being introduced to now and she's getting to know their lives, and how they might relate with her own.

This was a story about grief, but it's also one of growing up, and dealing with all the high school things, like making friends, and it was really great to watch Laurel's journey unfold. Sometimes she wasn't making the best of decisions, like drinking, but that does happen. 

Her sister's death was traumatic to her. We know there's more to the story, it says so in the synopsis. But when we find out what that secret was, it's pretty hard. I mean, I know she was a teenager, and she's human, mistakes are made, but the way things came together really sucked, and Laurel had to deal with it all. 

I had a great time reading this book, it was just so quick and easy and the pages just flew by! 

Author: Ava Dellaira
Read: October 1th, 2022
Source: NetGalley/Bought
Reason Why: Sounded really good! And it's a DAC Book and a SAC 2022 Book and a WTC Book!
Publisher: Farrar, Straus and Giroux (BYR)
Published: April 1st 2014

5/5 Hearts

5/5 Books

5/5 Stars