Depressing, touching and a bit poetical with a strong and evolving protagonist.
Bewertet mit 4.5 Sternen
‘Maybe if I can learn to be more like her, I will know how to be better at living without her.’ (p. 17)
Mrs. Buster, Laurel's English teacher, wanted her to write a letter to a dead person. She chooses Kurt Cobain, who was the most favorite musician of her sister May and both died young. After her first letter, Laurel begins writing letters to many dead people, like Amy Winehouse, Amelia Earhart and Judy Garland.
She tells them everything that depresses her, but writing letters is not all, she has to face up to her issues before they kill her...
‘Love letters to the dead’ is Ava Dellaira's debut and like the title already says, it consists of letters.
I really love the title and the cover. It fits 100% to the topic of the book. A girl writing letters to dead people. It is a cover, which stays in mind and so does the book. Moreover it looks a bit magical, like the relationship between Laurel and May.
The story starts a bit lengthy: it needed around 100 pages to get the tension, and I had some little problems to empathize me in the plot. Maybe it was because of Laurels reticence, she was so sad and introverted, but then she gets to know Hannah, Natalie, Sky and the others, what makes her stronger every day. There are many ups and downs in her life, but after every down she stands up again and flourishes out of it. I have never seen a character, who develops so much at just 320 pages, before.
‘How could she just leave me here to live without her? I miss her so much. I love her. I want her to grow up and become who she was meant to be. I wanted her to grow up with me.’ (p. 260-261)
The feeling of the book is really special, it is not that you have to cry all the time, it is more quite oppressive. Sometimes I wondered why the author makes Laurel her life so difficult, because from the view of the reader some situations look so hopeless…
Instead of chapters, the book consists of letters, which are like chapters. That was the point, what made the book pretty interesting for me, because I usually I love books written in letters. Ava Dellaira well thought out the idea of writing letters, every letter was a bit different from the others, depending on the addressee. Sometimes the facts about the receivers were a bit too much for me, I am not really interested in the lives of Kurt Cobain or Janis Joplin, although they are pretty important for May and Laurel. I enjoy how the whole life of Laurel with all conversations, thoughts and flashbacks is told in letters. At some points, it was a bit hard for me to follow the story, because Laurels thoughts are often pretty poetical and switches between many topics.
Finally you can say that ‘Love letters to the dead’ is a really special book with a depressing basic mood, so it is not a book for everyone, but I liked it quite much, although there were some little negative points. I recommend the book for at least older teens.
‘Sometimes when we say things, we hear silence. […] But that only happens when we weren’t ready to listen yet. Because every time we speak, there is a voice. There is the world that answers back.’ (p. 312)