 |
Love Letters to the Dead by Ava DellairaPublished By: Farrar, Straus and GirouxReleased: April 1st 2014Hardcover: 327 pages4/5 stars |
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 did. Soon, Laurel has a notebook full of letters to people like Janis Joplin, Amy Winehouse, Amelia Earhart, Heath Ledger, and more; though she never gives a single one of them to her teacher. She writes about starting high school, navigating new friendships, falling in love for the first time, learning to live with her splintering family. And, finally, about the abuse she suffered while May was supposed to be looking out for her. Only then, once Laurel has written down the truth about what happened to herself, can she truly begin to 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 begin to discover her own path.
REVIEW:
GUESS WHAT? EXAMS ARE OVERRR WOOHOOO. Which means I can finally read in peace.
Let me just take a breath.
I have mixed feelings. I'll admit, I really liked this book ;-; but honestly, a couple chapters could have been taken out and it wouldn't have made a difference, and a lot of the time I was just pissed off at laurel.
This book kind of reminded me of The Glass Castle by Jeanette Walls, in the way that the writing style was almost kinda narrative.
The book was definitely interesting, it's also a plus that the letters were written to artists that I like ^-^
But let's get into the characters. Oh laurel. Why you gotta be such a pushover? YOU GOTTA STOP THINKING THAT YOU ARE LIKE YOUR SISTER. BECAUSE YOU GUYS AREN'T THE SAME PERSON OKAY? DO YOU GUYS SHARE THE SAME BRAIN? THE SAME EXPERIENCES? NO. You guys aren't even twins.
It's hard to believe that she's in freshman year and that she just falls in love this boy within 2 weeks. She just switches between being a kid and being philosophical and it's like: Don't be stupid, didn't you just explain why everything happens for a reason in the previous letter?
But there are good things. I really like Laurel's stories with her sister. It kinda makes me wish that my sister and I were close like that when we were kids.
My sister could never pull off: "GUESS WHAT? WE'RE FAIRESSSS."
My sister is more like: "hey hey lilyan, did you know you were adopted?"
me: *rolls eyes* "i don't believe you." "lucky (my dog) likes me more than you anyway."
So yup. Basically us.
The romance was a tad underdeveloped, but i still really liked Sky.
I could sometimes feel her grief, but other times it seemed like she was fine.
Lauren comes off as naive but she's just put into very mature situations and i don't know what to feel
The supporting characters were great, but they weren't exactly good influences.
DO YOU SEE WHY I'M SO CONFLICTED?
Conclusion: Read some of it to see if you like it, if you find Laurel incredibly boring, put the book down. Also, if you have read this, tell me what you think, because books require being talked about.
-Lilyan (:
No comments:
Post a Comment