Book Review | Love Letters to the Dead by Ava Dellaira

 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. 

Review

In the past, there have been a few books that have been on my radar, but I've never had a huge amount of interest in them. I kind of wait until the price drops, and pick it up cheap, and then read it after a while of it sitting on my shelf or my kindle. Books that have done this in the past, have been ones like We Were Liars and Anna and the French Kiss, I kept hearing so much good stuff, but never took that leap to read them. 

Then, when I finally got around to reading them, I realized that they had so much hype for a reason, and that's because they were fantastic books.

This is exactly what happened with this book. As I was reading it, I couldn't believe that it had taken me so long to read it.

Want some friendly advice? Keep the tissues close when you read this one, because it will tug at your heart. It's just so packed with emotion, and it's not just because this book deals with Laurel's grief over her sister's death, which was handled really well. It's also because of things that happened while May was still alive.

So much is opened up, and it creates a rich and emotional backstory for Laurel, which makes her a truly wonderful character to follow through this story.

You get to see real growth of character in her, and that's something I love in books. You get knocked out by the emotion in this book, and that's something I really love.

This book was so close to a 10/1o score for me, it just didn't quite reach it, and this is simply because it did take me a few chapters, before I got hooked on it. 

Having said that, I would say, that if you haven't read this book. You really should, because it's an amazing book. I loved it so much, and it is definitely in the top three books I've read this year so far.

9.5/10