This book was a letdown. The idea of the letters sounded so beautiful but the story was disappointing.
The main character was so annoying, she didn't seem like a teenager. I get that she'd lost her sister and had millions of troubles but it didn't seem real or down to earth.
This was an awful 'The Perks...' rip-off.

I was so excited to read this book, it looked really promising and I wasn’t at all disappointed with this one!

Laurel’s sister May dies young and when her English teacher assigns her class to write a letter to a dead person Laurel choses Kurt Cobain as he died young just like her sister May. Quickly her notebook is filled with letters to other dead celebrities which she fails to turn in for her assignment, instead she begins to find herself in the words she writes to those that aren’t with us anymore.

“I know I wrote letters to people with no address on this earth, I know that you are dead. But I hear you. I hear all of you. We were here. Our lives matter.”

The letters started out as a somewhat diary, Laurel talked about her everyday life, missing her sister and starting high school. Then the letters turn into confessions about what happened to Laurel when she was little, she wrote about the things that she couldn’t speak about to other people. Things that she believes caused her sister’s death.

It’s an amazingly beautiful novella and I was certain before even starting this book that I would love it. Now after finishing it and after writing this review I’m starting to doubt this. Don’t get me wrong it’s a beautiful piece and I can honestly say that I enjoyed every single word written by Ava in this book but I can’t help but compare this to The Perks of Being A Wallflower. I don’t think I would have noticed the similarities so much if I haven’t just finished TPOBAW before I started this but there are so many of these similarities I felt as if I was reading the same story just in a females point of view.

Laurel starts in a new high school where she doesn’t know anybody. Where nobody knows her name or what happened to her sister. (pointing out the obvious same thing with Charlie in TPOBAW) it must be hard, I mean I know how hard it is stating a brand new school and not knowing anybody and just feeling so alone!

The letters that Laurel writes, they capture the person that she’s writing about. I learned some things that I didn’t even know about them. In some of these letters I actually got goose bumps while reading; Ava Dellaira managed to bring the people back from the dead even in that short amount of time. But yet again I can’t help it but mention that is exactly what Charlie did; I mean the letters to his friend. This idea to write letters to dead people was clearly a somewhat original idea and I loved it.

“I feel like I am drowning in memories. Everything is too bright.”

What happened to Laurel when she was younger, when her sister would take her to the cinema and leave her with a guy so she could sneak off with her boyfriend. This is what got me rather mad. At this point I hated May, I hated her character so much! How could she not see what would happen? How could she not even for a second think that something would happen to her younger vulnerable sister in the hands of a strange guy! It’s so unbelievably stupid! I don’t think this revelation caused May’s death, I don’t think that Laurel finally telling her bigger sister what happened in a strangers car when she would leave her there caused her to fall. But I have to bring this back to TPOBAW… Charlie was also molested, his auntie took advantage of him and he never told anyone, he as well managed to get his head around it in his letters. Just like Laurel.

I don’t think I’m the only one that found these similarities to Stephen Chbosky’s novel. They are both rather similar and I read in Ava’s acknowledgments that they are close friends so I’m puzzled as to why both books are alike. I love both Love Letters To The Dead and The Perks Of Being A Wallflower equally but I have to say that I did connect with Laurel’s story more; and I do think that it’s because she’s a female.

3.7

*3.5 stars*

made me stay up all night in a school day. 4

I forgot that I hadn’t reviewed this book yet even though I finished it much earlier this year. Oops!

From what I can remember, I enjoyed this book. It took me some time to read, though, because I kept picking it up and setting it down. It’s not terribly fast paced, so I think that was my issue with it. But I enjoyed the characters, and the premise, as well as the writing style.

Would recommend, and I’ll be on the lookout for other books by this author.

In the spring of eight grade, Laurel’s older sister, May, dies under tragic circumstances, and an already fractured family is torn further apart with the sudden death as Laurel’s mother moves to California to cope with her grief. Rather than begin high school surrounded by people she has known all of her life and who also knew May, Laurel decides to attend another school in order to make a fresh start. On the first day of her English class she is given the assignment to write a letter to a dead person. With the task hitting so close to home, Laurel never turns in her letter to her teacher; instead she continues to write letters to dead people to tell the story of her life, her memories of her sister, her transition to a new school, her first love, and her all-consuming grief and guilt.

I don’t remember Laurel ever confirming it, but I believe she writes to people such as Kurt Cobain, Amy Winehouse, River Phoenix, etc because they all died at young ages like her sister. Some readers may think this to be too depressing, but I understood it and even liked it. I learned so much about the lives of these figures as Laurel researched them and wrote to them. I thought the lessons she pulled from the lives of these people were important.

For all of her life Laurel looked up to her sister May, and that love and idolization of her is what makes it so hard for Laurel to move on and face what happened in the past. May obviously had issues to work through, yet her sister could never see that for a very long time and it was frustrating to watch her wade through life when all I wanted to do was point at what was the obvious. Still, this was a beautifully written book with some great characters that learn to grow. Laurel’s voice was instantly in my head, and while I have never gone through what she has I could easily empathize with most of what she was feeling. I’d recommend this.

To say that [b:Love Letters to the Dead|18140047|Love Letters to the Dead|Ava Dellaira|https://d202m5krfqbpi5.cloudfront.net/books/1390036655s/18140047.jpg|25484455] caught me off guard would be a huge understatement. Seriously, I experienced so many conflicting emotions while reading and not all of them were pleasant. If I had to rate the first 100 pages alone, it would probably earn 2 stars and be filed away under ‘over hyped’. But there is more to a story than beginnings and first impressions, there is also the middle and an end. If I had to rate the final 200 pages of this book I would give it a solid 5 stars. Do you see my dilemma here?

Pre-Reading thoughts
➜ I was very excited to read Love Letters to the Dead. Many authors and celebrities raved about how awesome it was months before its release. Emma Watson even tweeted her praise. How could I not be excited to read Love Letters to the Dead?

While Reading (Page 1 – 120ish)
➜ The first 100 pages of this book were painful to read. I couldn’t connect with any of the characters, which is critical for books that aim to tackle serious issues. When I did start feeling something for the characters it ranged from dislike to annoyance. I couldn’t bring myself to sympathize with a group of kids who seemed to be going out of their wait to make bad decisions.

➜ Another problem that I experienced is that for the first few pages I felt like the author was trying too hard to be deep. Sometimes it felt like she was trying to string together a series of quotable sentences and, as a result, everything came off as calculated and unauthentic. Reading didn’t feel effortless and I feel like this contributed, in part, to me not connecting to the characters.

While Reading Continued (Page 130ish to End)
➜ This is where things get confusing folks. Stay with me. Up until this point I was drowning while reading [b:Love Letters to the Dead|18140047|Love Letters to the Dead|Ava Dellaira|https://d202m5krfqbpi5.cloudfront.net/books/1390036655s/18140047.jpg|25484455] . I was bored out of my mind. Reading each sentence felt like pulling teeth. I started to despise the characters. And then something strange happened…I couldn’t stop reading. And then I couldn’t stop crying. And I started to like the characters. More than that, I began hope for them as if they were real people. I honestly can’t explain why I suddenly started to enjoy [b:Love Letters to the Dead|18140047|Love Letters to the Dead|Ava Dellaira|https://d202m5krfqbpi5.cloudfront.net/books/1390036655s/18140047.jpg|25484455] . All I can say is that I became so immersed in the lives of Laurel and her friends that I stayed up until 4AM reading.

This book was literally the girl version of Perks Of Bring a Wallflower, and I absolutely loved it! The ending is a little cliche, but I really want a sequel from Sky's POV now! Can someone tell the author to get on that please?