Love Letters to the Dead
by Ava Dellaira
“I thought she was the most beautiful thing I’d ever
seen. I wondered if anyone could ever think that about me.”
“Beauty is truth, truth beauty,--that is all / Ye know on
earth, and all ye need to know.”
Laurel has a secret. Only she knows the entire truth of
the night her sister, May, fell to her death from an abandoned bridge. When
Laurel’s English teacher asks her to write a letter to a dead person as an
assignment, it feels cruel—but Laurel cannot stop writing. Kurt Cobain, Janis
Joplin, Amelia Earhart, Jim Morrison, and John Keats are just some of the
recipients of her epistolary musings.
You see, Laurel has a lot to discuss. Her older sister’s
death hangs over her like a shroud; Laurel is living but not alive. Her mother has fled to California
(from Arizona) and Laurel knows her mother blames her for May’s death. Laurel’s
father grapples with his newfound status as a single father. And Laurel herself
is falling in love with Sky.
Sky presents a kind of salvation to Laurel—she can be her
whole person with him, which unfortunately ends up presenting itself as sobbing
into the night air. They are each other’s first loves, and the depth of their
love will surprise even the most jaded thoughts about young love. When Sky breaks
up with Laurel, she relies on her two friends, Hannah and Natalie, to support
her through the pain. Hannah and Natalie, though, are working through their own
issues, namely their love for each other, Hannah’s abusive older brother, and
Natalie’s disenchantment with Hannah’s promiscuity.
When I got the end of the book, I felt entirely wrung
out—emotionally, this book takes you through the gamut and sparks memories of
first loves and the pain that springs from them. Written entirely in epistolary
style, the author does a tremendous job of paralleling the dead person’s life
with Laurel’s. Be warned, however, that this book contains sexual situations,
underage drinking (a LOT; they drink alcohol every opportunity they get), and
some language. I would recommend it for 15+ depending on the maturity of the
reader.
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