Love Letters to the Dead by Ava Dellaira

Love Letters to the Dead
by Ava Dellaira
Read: February 19, 2015
Published: April 1, 2014
Genre: YA, Fiction
Series: NA

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 did. Soon, Laurel has a notebook full of letters to people like Janis Joplin, Amy Winehouse, Amelia Earhart, Heath Ledger, and more -- though she never gives a single one of them to her teacher. She writes about starting high school, navigating new friendships, falling in love for the first time, learning to live with her splintering family. And, finally, about the abuse she suffered while May was supposed to be looking out for her. Only then, once Laurel has written down the truth about what happened to herself, can she truly begin to 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 begin to discover her own path in this stunning debut from Ava Dellaira, Love Letters to the Dead. (Amazon)

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Why did you read this book?
Honestly, I put this book on my 'to read' list primarily because of the cover and the title. I didn't even read the synopsis in the front cover, which, in a way was an exciting way to read a book. Generally, I choose my books very carefully, researching it on Amazon and reading both positive and negative book reviews before I ever even pick it up. This one, however, I grabbed on a whim. The cover and the title drew me in and I lost myself in it's pages. And that is why I read the book. 

Format:
This book was written completely in letters, from Laurel to famous dead people. At first, I was a bit put off by the letter format. I was worried that it would be too much like reading a diary and less like living through the protagonist (which is what I like to do). I was worried that I wouldn't really get to know the other characters, because I would only find out about them through Laurel's letters. Needless to say, I shouldn't have worried. If it weren't for the mini history lessons about who she was writing the letters to, I might have forgotten that she was writing letters in the first place. I think this story could have been written without the letters, but it wouldn't have been as poignant. 

Loss:
Love Letters to the Dead is primarily centered around loss and what happens afterwards. Laurel lost her sister and then her mother moved away. She was left with her father, who tried to be there for her, but couldn't. Not only does she feel like she has to deal with this loss on her own, she also feels like it was her fault that her sister died. Can you imagine trying to live with that? The worst part about her loss, is that Laurel does what most people who have lost someone close to them do. She puts her sister on a pedestal, as this perfect person and remembers her as a much better person than she actually was. Throughout the letters, Laurel begins to realize that this actually wasn't the case.

Fearlessness:
Laurel looks up to many of the people she wrote letters to because she believed that they were fearless. She also saw her sister and Hannah (her friend) as fearless. I loved the progression of seeing characters as fearless to being stripped of their walls and seen as the vulnerable, scared people they really were. I also like watching Laurel realize that these people weren't fearless at all, but rather, they were full of fear, just like her.

Bildungsroman:
I felt that this was very much a bildungsroman novel for young girls. The protagonist in this story deals with much more than a kid should have to deal with. Awful things happen to her and she has to grow up before she's ready. There is also a huge element of loss of innocence that was written so well it felt real. I experienced this character lose her childhood and it was powerful. Good job, Dellaira.

Pain:
My favorite part about this book was, hands down, the pain of it. I don't know why, maybe I'm a masochist, but I love pain. I love to write painful scenes and I love to write about pain. I love books that are so painful they make me cry. This book turned me inside out and Laurel's pain felt so much like it was my own that I felt raw by the end of it. And although I had never lost a sister, my parents are both happily married, I've never felt the pain of a breakup, and I have led a truly blessed life, I knew her pain. I knew the pain that she couldn't talk to anyone about. In the book, she talks about feeling too much, she said, "I feel like I am drowning in memories." And I felt like she understood. Sometimes, you feel too much and you can't breathe. You drown. Dellaira did a marvelous job capturing that pain in words.

Love:
I suppose, where there is pain there must be love. And with the amount of pain in this book there was also so much love. Laurel loved her parents, her aunt, her friends, May, and Sky. She had so much love, but she didn't know how to handle it. There were so many relationships in this book that deserve to be written about, but I'm only going to write about Laurel and Sky. What I loved about their relationship is that it was a slow burn. It took them awhile to actually get going. And I loved that Sky saw what Laurel was doing to herself and he couldn't stand it. Although, I'm not a fan of how things were handled, I think it made their relationship much more realistic.

Bottom Line:
This book was beautifully written. However, I do not think I will be reading again it anytime soon. Right now I feel at loss with what to do with my life, because this book is over now and I don't get to be over with the characters. I have to keep going and find a new book with new characters. I just got very emotionally invested and I can't do that again in the near future. That being said, I would 100% recommend it to anyone who asks about it. It very much reminded me of Speak  by Laurie Halse Anderson and (now that I've actually looked at reviews to see what other people thought) I've also heard it is reminiscent of Stephen Chobsky's The Perks of Being a Wallflower. This is a book that I want to add to my shelf. 

Quotes:
There were so many beautiful quotes in this book that I couldn't just pick one! So here's three of my favorites...

"[about Amelia Earhart] I know that's the wrong way to feel about someone who died tragically, but it wasn't so much the dying I was jealous of. It was the flying, and disappearing." -Love Letters to the Dead by Ava Dellaira

"I think Hannah must be afraid like I get afraid, the way I did when I heard the river yesterday, the way I do when I don't even know where the shadow is, but I feel it breathing." -Love Letters to the Dead by Ava Dellaira

"A lot of people want to be someone but we are scared that if we try, we won't be as good as everyone imagines we could be." -Love Letters to the Dead by Ava Dellaira

Tithe by Holly Black

I meant to get this to you on Valentine's Day, but that didn't really happen. But hey, now you can read it while you eat clearance chocolate!

Tithe
by Holly Black
Read: February 12, 2015
Published: April 1, 2004
Genre: Fantasy
Series: Modern Faerie Tale

Sixteen-year-old Kaye is a modern nomad. Fierce and independent, she travels from city to city with her mother's rock band until an ominous attack forces Kaye back to her childhood home. There, amid the industrial, blue-collar New Jersey backdrop, Kaye soon finds herself an unwilling pawn in an ancient power struggle between two rival faerie kingdoms -- a struggle that could very well mean her death. (Amazon)






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Why did you read this book?
I read this book as an assignment for my Children's Literature class, but I had also read it years earlier. I think I may have read it three years ago? Regardless, I went through a phase were I loved fairies and I read several books about fairies (including Wicked Lovely by Melissa Marr). Needless to say, most of them have blurred together in my mind since then.

The Relationships:
None of the relationships in this book felt believable to me. The relationship between Kaye and her mother is closer to that between sisters that don't really get along or communicate with each other. Kaye's mom was also very childish and reckless and basically not a mom. Kaye's grandmother did act concerned about Kaye's welfare, but not in the way a grandmother would. Her grandmother reminded me of an angsty teenager. While this is a common occurrence in YA books, it is usually in an effort to emphasize how mature the protagonist is. In Tithe, the main character is less mature than her mother, which is saying something. I also didn't understand the relationship between Kaye and Roiben. There wasn't a transition to it, it just sort of happened. Sure, this might work in some books, but in this one it didn't make sense. The one relationship I did like was that between Kaye and Janet. It was the only one that felt real to me.

The Plot:
While I loved the idea of this book, I wasn't sold on the execution of it. The whole thing felt kind of rushed to me, with no real direction. The buildup could have been handled much better. However, once the climax hit, it was very exciting and hard to put down. Overall, the plot didn't have any really surprise twists, but it was still engaging.

The End:
There is nothing I hate more than a book with a bad ending (except perhaps wet socks). This book left with a pleasant ending, with the feeling that the characters would continue living after it ended. Some books just end and you don't know what's going to happen to the characters. I loved the end of this one though. When I first read it, I didn't know that there was a second book and I was satisfied with there only being one book (so, no cliffhangers).

Overall Thoughts:
This is a nice light read. I enjoyed the book and chances are I'll probably read it again sometime. However, I don't believe I'll be adding it to my shelf. I don't think I quite enjoyed it that much. However, I would recommend it to anyone interested in fairies and perhaps older than twelve.


"Crippled things are always more beautiful. It's the flaw that brings out beauty." -Tithe by Holly Black

Picture Day

          I realize I'm doing a pretty poor job of posting book reviews and other things. Don't worry! I'm reading two/three new books! So you should expect at least one new book review (hopefully before the month is over!) I do have one poem for you, from my creative writing class. I believe I told you about it in one of my earlier posts. Sort of...I think I mentioned having a poem that I couldn't share because I turned it in. Well, I got it back and now I can share it. Before I do, I'm just going to warn you that I wrote it ten minutes before class and I didn't really have the time to actually attempt to make it good. (So I suppose that means, if one were to truly try to 'Make it Good' as the title of my blog suggests, time would be a determining factor. Hmm...that'd be something to write about.)
          Anyway, here it is:

Picture Day
By: Me

A plain backdrop
blue as the ocean at dawn
Behind, a wall
as empty as my mother's lawn.
The line of students,
faceless and plain
await the few moments
when they get a turn
to stand in front of the ocean
at dawn.

          Like I said, I wrote this in ten minutes or less. Please don't judge my horrid poetry writing. I am not a fan of writing it and I'm sure that translates into my poems. I wrote a horrible villanelle yesterday, which I don't think I'll be sharing with you. It was really bad. I don't even think I'll get full credit for it, it was so bad. On the plus side, we only have a few more weeks of poetry and then we get to move on to prose. Finally!! And now I'll leave you with a quote.


"Stars are beautiful, but they may not take part in anything, they must just look on forever." -Peter Pan by J.M. Barrie

The Food of Love

          My life for the past few days has been poetry. Reading poems, writing poems, and listening to poems. I happened to find a brilliant playlist of British actors (such as Tom Hiddleston, Richard Armitage, Matthew Macfadyen, and Benedict Cumberbatch) reading prose and poetry, which I've been slightly addicted to. I also wrote one more poem as well as a couple unrelated stanzas. Here's my complete poem:

Super Bowl Sunday
By: Me

It is Super Bowl Sunday.
We ate pizza and popcorn.
There were no wings
this year. No guests and
no laughter.
The screen was on and
two teams without names
played a sport that I cared nothing for.

My brother, on his iPod, took a couch.
My parents, playing cards together,
on different devices,
sat on the other.
I sat on the floor and wrote this poem.

The football teams played for us,
a family who didn't watch TV
together.


          I feel like that is one of my better poems. I also did a stanza using alliteration.

Sometimes I see the sky
in colors so sweet and shy.
Sometimes I smell the stars
So cold and so distant
and yet, so very, very close by.

          And one on assonance.

I was told, by one very old,
that to hold a love too long
would be for both, very wrong.
The love would grow cold.
It wouldn't last, if held too long.
Or so I was told, by one very old.

          I personally like my stanza on alliteration better than that on assonance. Well, actually, I much prefer my Super Bowl Sunday poem. That one actually felt real to me. And since I'm just assaulting you guys with poetry crap today, I'm also going to leave this video here for your enjoyment. (It's just an audio, so if you would like to read along with the poem, I've also left that here too. Regardless, press the play button. It's better with sound. Oh, and Tom Hiddleston is reading it.)


Desiderata (Max Ehrmann, 1927)

Go placidly amid the noise and haste, and remember what peace there may be in silence.
As far as possible without surrender be on good terms with all persons.
Speak your truth quietly and clearly; and listen to others, even the dull and the ignorant; they too have their story.
Avoid loud and aggressive persons, they are vexations to the spirit.
If you compare yourself with others, you may become vain and bitter;
for always there will be greater and lesser persons than yourself.

Enjoy your achievements as well as your plans.
Keep interested in your own career, however humble; it is a real possession in the changing fortunes of time.
Exercise caution in your business affairs; for the world is full of trickery.
But let this not blind you to what virtue there is; many persons strive for high ideals;
and everywhere life is full of heroism.

Be yourself.
Especially, do not feign affection.
Neither be cynical about love; for in the face of all aridity and disenchantment it is as perennial as the grass.

Take kindly the counsel of the years, gracefully surrendering the things of youth.
Nurture strength of spirit to shield you in sudden misfortune. But do not distress yourself with imaginings.
Many fears are born of fatigue and loneliness. Beyond a wholesome discipline, be gentle with yourself.

You are a child of the universe, no less than the trees and the stars;
you have a right to be here.
And whether or not it is clear to you, no doubt the universe is unfolding as it should.

Therefore be at peace with God, whatever you conceive Him to be,
and whatever your labors and aspirations, in the noisy confusion of life keep peace with your soul.
With all its sham, drudgery and broken dreams, it is still a beautiful world. Be cheerful. Strive to be happy.


"You are a child of the universe, no less than the trees and the stars; you have a right to be here." -Desiderata by Max Ehrmann