Title: Love Letters to the Dead
Series: none
Author: Ava Dellaira
Published: Farrar, Straus and Giroux; 2014
327 pages, kindle edition
Source: Gifted to me from Sarah
Rating: 2 stars
Description (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.
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.
My Thoughts:
Love Letters to the Dead was the a long-winded diary of a immature little girl. It wasn't the story of love, death and grief that I expected it to be. There was no point to any of the "letters". They were all practically the same.
The characters were dull, selfish and changed between being either way too immature or overly wise as if a granny had been stuffed into a teenager's body, sprouting beautiful metaphors about life one second and then doing something completely stupid the next minute. They were always off in their own little worlds where everything revolved around them and it was infuriating.
The plot was tedious to put it nicely. The letters were practically carbon copies of each other. They said the same thing over and over again so many times I am surprised the plotline moved forward at all.
They all followed this formula:
Deardiary Kurt Cobain,
I am Laurel and I am sad. I went to school today and saw this really hot guy named Sky. He has eyes that sparkle and he gets the universe and music and everything just like I do. I love him but I don't know if I "really" love him because I am like really sad about my sister's death and shattered on the inside and just not okay enough for him. But I really love him. (Ramble about this for a bit longer...)
Oh, and I forgot, I am writing to you because my sister loved you and your music and well, I have to do everything she does because she was like this magical fairy who was totally perfect and could like practically fly and could do no wrong. Oh, I miss her. Lots. How sad, right? 'Cause it really is sad. You should feel sad for me.
Yours,
Laurel.
Yes, they all sounded like that. Sometime though she wrote about how brave Amelia Earhart was or how much Kristen liked Janis Joplin - that however, was the only variation. It was sooooo slow and dull that I would've given up on it if I hadn't been DNFing too many books lately. I would not recommend this one to anyone and I definitely won't be picking up any more of Ava Dellaira's books.
The characters were dull, selfish and changed between being either way too immature or overly wise as if a granny had been stuffed into a teenager's body, sprouting beautiful metaphors about life one second and then doing something completely stupid the next minute. They were always off in their own little worlds where everything revolved around them and it was infuriating.
The plot was tedious to put it nicely. The letters were practically carbon copies of each other. They said the same thing over and over again so many times I am surprised the plotline moved forward at all.
They all followed this formula:
Dear
I am Laurel and I am sad. I went to school today and saw this really hot guy named Sky. He has eyes that sparkle and he gets the universe and music and everything just like I do. I love him but I don't know if I "really" love him because I am like really sad about my sister's death and shattered on the inside and just not okay enough for him. But I really love him. (Ramble about this for a bit longer...)
Oh, and I forgot, I am writing to you because my sister loved you and your music and well, I have to do everything she does because she was like this magical fairy who was totally perfect and could like practically fly and could do no wrong. Oh, I miss her. Lots. How sad, right? 'Cause it really is sad. You should feel sad for me.
Yours,
Laurel.
Yes, they all sounded like that. Sometime though she wrote about how brave Amelia Earhart was or how much Kristen liked Janis Joplin - that however, was the only variation. It was sooooo slow and dull that I would've given up on it if I hadn't been DNFing too many books lately. I would not recommend this one to anyone and I definitely won't be picking up any more of Ava Dellaira's books.
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