The Moon and More by Sarah Dessen

The Moon and More
by Sarah Dessen
Read: March 3, 2015
Published: June 4, 2013
Genre: YA Fiction
Series: NA

        Luke is the perfect boyfriend: handsome, kind, fun.
He and Emaline have been together all through high school in Colby, the beach town where they both grew up. But now, in the summer before college, Emaline wonders if perfect is good enough.
          Enter Theo, a super-ambitious outsider, a New Yorker assisting on a documentary film about a reclusive local artist. Theo's sophisticated, exciting, and, best of all, he thinks Emaline is much too smart for Colby.
          Emaline's mostly-absentee father, too, thinks Emaline should have a bigger life, and he's convinced that an Ivy League education is the only route to realizing her potential. Emaline is attracted to the bright future that Theo and her father promise. But she also clings to the deep roots of her loving mother, stepfather, and sisters. Can she ignore the pull of the happily familiar world of Colby?
          Emaline wants the moon and more, but how can she balance where she comes from with where she's going? (Amazon)

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Why did you read this book?
I had honestly been putting this one off for quite a while now, almost two years now actually. I've been falling off of the Dessen band wagon, truth be told. However, I couldn't just read all of her books and then not read this one. It'd be blasphemy! (Sort of) Anyway, I've read every single one of Sarah Dessen's books and I couldn't help but eventually read this one.

What did you like about this book?
My favorite part about this book was the little pieces from her other novels scattered throughout. Other people might find this annoying, but for me it was like seeing old friends. It was a moment of 'Oh, I remember you! How are you? It's been too long.' Maybe it's because I met those characters when I was a much younger, much more different, person and it was like seeing myself again. I also love the setting of Colby. Only three of her books (Keeping the Moon and Along for the Ride), including this one, have actually taken place in Colby, NC, but it is also mentioned in a few of her others (well, What Happened to Goodbye for sure...not so sure about the rest). I just love how intertwined all of her books are! Anyway...this book in particular...I loved learning more about Clyde (who was introduced to us in Along for the Ride) and I loved Emaline's younger brother, Benji. But yeah, I mostly loved the setting and a few of the characters. The plot was alright with a hopeful, positive ending, pretty much what we expect in a Sarah Dessen book.

What didn't you like about this book?
Now, I really don't want to sway anyone's feelings about this book. So if you want to give the characters their own chances and not hear what I have to say about them, I suggest you stop reading now. However, if you are perfectly fine with possibly inheriting some of my opinions and don't mind entering a book with preset expectations, by all means, keep reading. Okay...here's your last chance to stop...I warned you! My least favorite part about this book? Theo. I disliked him even more than Emaline's father. With him, I expected him to be a jerk. But I don't understand what Emaline saw in Theo. I didn't like him from the beginning. And maybe that's the way Dessen intended it to be, but I just didn't enjoy any of the parts with Theo in them. In all honesty, I much preferred Luke, even if he didn't say no, no, no to Tallyho.  

Bottom Line:
If you are a Sarah Dessen fan, you will enjoy this book. I enjoyed it, although I more than likely won't add it to my shelf. (If you're curious, the Dessen books I do own are The Truth About Forever, Along for the Ride, and What Happened to Goodbye. I also have Just Listen on my Kindle). Although I did enjoy it, it was just a fluff read. It was the usual 'girl about to go to college, relationship drama, and decisions!' plot line. Not exactly riveting stuff. But sometimes a girl just needs a Sarah Dessen book to get by, and that's what this did.



"How weird that must be, to stay the same as everyone else changes." -The Moon and More by Sarah Dessen    

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