Love Letters to the Dead

What I Loved Was Everything:
Much of the time, I know, give or take a star, what I’ll be rating a book when I finish within the first fifty pages or so. Depending upon what point you talked to me while I read Love Letters to the Dead, you would have gotten different answers, starting with a 3 that slowly and steadily churned upward to a 5 star rating. Love Letters to the Dead is a book that grows on you, that, like Laurel, takes time to open up and really take over your heart, but, by the end, I was choked up and teary-eyed.

At the outset, I thought Love Letters to the Dead was alright, but it wasn’t really blazing any new territory, and I was afraid it was going to be about drinking and drugs more than an emotional journey. I expected to be akin to Wild Awake, watching a girl spiral out of control. In the wake of her sister’s death, Laurel’s family has come entirely apart at the seams. After May died, her mother went to live on a ranch in California; bereft of both wife and one daughter the father mourns, a shadow of his former self. Laurel feels like, in one fell swoop, she’s lost all of her family.

Unable to deal with talking about May to anyone, Laurel changes to another high school, located near her Aunt Amy’s, where Laurel spends half her time. For a long time, Laurel doesn’t talk to anybody. They’ve all been at the same school for years, cliques formed, and she doesn’t have the energy to be social, to try. Laurel doesn’t talk to class or to anyone; she watches and she wishes. Her life is one of isolation and of writing letters to deceased celebrities, all for an English assignment she fails to hand in, because the letter she wrote to Kurt Cobain turned out too personal.

Love Letters to the Dead is told entirely in these letters, addressed to various individuals. This construct shouldn’t be a hindrance to those who don’t usually care for letters as a medium, because there remains a very clear narrative. On some level, it doesn’t matter who Laurel is writing to, because the point is that they’re all dead, all gone. At the same time, noticing trends in why particular letters are addressed to particular people really helped inform Laurel’s mental state and which relationship is most upsetting her at the time. For instance, Kurt Cobain is who she writes to when she’s thinking about her sister, Amelia Earhart is for when she’s thinking about herself, and Judy Garland is for her relationship with her mother.

The letters are Laurel’s way of processing things she can’t bear to look at head on. She can’t talk about her sister or anything else bad that’s happened, because she’s still in denial. Instead, she writes to these dead people about their problems and messed up pasts, wonders where they are. This is her way of working through how certain life paths, like falling into drugs or committing suicide are not healthy reactions to trauma.

As with the letters, once Laurel makes friends, the relationships start out very focused on those friends. Hannah and Natalie have their own drama, namely their mutual attraction, which Hannah refuses to acknowledge when she’s not been drinking and further to belie with multiple boyfriends. Laurel goes along with anything they want to do: smoking, drinking, shoplifting, and going to visit strange older guys, even when it makes her uncomfortable. Then there’s Sky, the guy that Laurel developed an immediate crush on. He’s the mystery guy, a transfer, new to the school like she is, and amazingly, he likes her too! All this while, I was seriously concerned because none of the characters felt particularly well-drawn and the novel lost the introspection of her friendlessness at the novel’s opening.

I worried that this would be all there was to the book, but oh no. Don’t be fooled. Dellaira goes all the way and presents one of the healthiest depictions of dealing with grief and of being in relationships that I’ve ever seen. It’s not easy; it hurts, but it’s so necessary. Everything has to be faced and worked through. There are no easy fixes.

Essentially, Laurel’s relationships all begin spinning out of control, driven away by her inability to open up. Just like the letters she writes to dead people and to herself don’t reveal most of the truth, she doesn’t tell anyone how she’s really feeling or what happened to her and her sister. Dellaira shows that love will not heal you and friendship won’t heal you. Only you can heal yourself. Laurel has to come to terms with things herself, and be able to open up before she can really feel close to anyone.

Dellaira manages this so incredibly subtly, as though every so slowly peeling back the flap of envelope containing all the vibrancy and emotion that I didn’t feel in the beginning of the book. The characters flesh out, starting with Laurel and then spreading to her friends, as she’s really able to see past herself. What I love most, I think, is how Dellaira even gets down into the small connections, like Laurel’s English teacher, not just resolving the romance and best friendships.

The writing in Love Letters to the Dead is what I would call deceptively simple. It’s not the ornate, banter-heavy sort of style that generally resonates with me most, but it’s honest and pure. Laurel writes like a teen girl, with a steady narrative voice that fits her perfectly and occasionally features quotes of such painful and startling honesty that it took me some time to recover after I read them. Dellaira also blends the quotes from the musical artists and poets in beautifully. I don’t know that I’ll ever hear Nirvana’s “Lithium” without getting choked up now.

The Final Verdict:
In case it’s not obvious, I ended up completely loving this book. Any book that can make me tear up is impressive, and the way this novel built so steadily was just astounding. Love Letters to the Dead is an impressively powerful debut about moving on, forgiving yourself, and finding yourself. This is one of the healthiest depictions of these themes that I have seen in YA; it’s so well done that I’m still in awe.

Unique twist on a tale of lost and acceptance. I loved the premise of a teen writing letters to famous dead individuals that reminded her of her dead sister. Dellaira breathes life into each of these letters by giving readers a glimpse into the world of Laurel who navigates through high school and tragic loss.

Laurel starts off as a reserved teen at the beginning of the school year trying to survive without her beloved sister May. Her family has fallen apart with her mother living in California and Laurel being shuffled to her father and Aunt's house. She attends another high school in hopes that no one knew her sister. On the first day, her English teacher assigns the class to write a letter to someone they admire. Laurel choses Kurt Cobain because her sister loved his music. Once Laurel starts writing, she finds herself opening up about her pain and loss and writes to other dead celebs throughout the year.

Each letter peels back the armour of Laurel, who shows us pain, grief, love, and even acceptance. Her choices of dead individuals she writes to show us who May was to Laurel. Her sister was beautiful, free, and very creative. Laurel misses this May and each letter is her way of coming to terms with not only the death but her own pain and anger.

The cast of characters reminded me so much of Perks of A Wallflower told in an amazing voice. There's many painful reveals like how Sky, the guy Laurel 'falls' for, might in fact had a past with her sister. The truth on who May really was. Also the realization that most people that she admired, including her sister, hadn't won their battles but lost with their deaths.

Powerful and at times haunting, this story will tug at you.