Review: Love Letters to the Dead

When I picked up Ava Dellaira's Love Letter's to the Dead, a book that came to me through recommendations on Amazon, I was intrigued.  The epistolary form isn't a type of novel I come across all too often - in fact, I can count the number of them I've read on one hand.  While I enjoyed the wonderfully poignant book, and thought initially it was a great idea for a novel, I confess I was disappointed by the similarity of the plot to Stephen Chbosky's The Perks of Being a Wallflower.  In truth, while there were small differences between the family lives of Dellaira's main character, Laurel, and Chbosky's Charlie, by the end of the book I felt like the only real difference was the fact that the two characters were of separate genders. 

Although this coming-of-age story does bear similarities to the earlier high school set novel of Dellaira's mentor, perhaps those do not matter.  Perhaps the existence of Dellaira's novel is still important.  Reading it, I felt the exploration of sexual abuse was perhaps more in depth than in Chbosky's Perks and that the book would be informative and helpful to any teenagers who might find themselves or know someone in a similar situation.  With a female protagonist too, the book speaks well to young girls. 

The idea of the novel, Laurel writing letters to dead celebrities, was what first convinced me to make the purchase.  I felt there was a lot of potential for comedy as well as more sincere interactions.  While there was perhaps little humour in the letters, I enjoyed them nonetheless.  The choice of celebrities was diverse to an extent, but maybe a little too old for the teenage audience who may not be familiar with Johnny Cash, Judy Garland and their peers.  

Overall, this was a heartfelt - and heart-wrenching - exploration of grief and coping mechanisms which despite the melancholy plot was a tremendous read.  Perhaps it lacked the development of writing style that Chbosky's Charlie goes through in the course of The Perks of Being a Wallflower, but that didn't lessen its impact. 

Review: Is Everyone Hanging Out Without Me? (And Other Concerns)

I'm not much of an autobiographical reader.  I confess the only other biography I can remember reading was Billie Piper's back when she had just left Doctor Who and I was still obsessed with her.  This was not the case with one of the latest books I've read.  What caught my eye about Mindy Kaling's book was not her name or her fame (because I've never even watched an episode of The Mindy Project or the US version of The Office) but the title because, let's face it, we're all concerned about whether our friends are hanging out without us.  And if I'm being 100% honest... being a little bit slow-witted, I was so wrapped up in the title that it didn't actually even occur to me that this was an autobiography until I started reading it...

That being said, I'm immensely glad I did read it because Mindy Kaling is ridiculously funny.  Even just in print.  I loved both her big life stories and the small anecdotal ones that accompanied them.  I outright laughed at her various definitions of synonyms for 'chubby' and a number of other moments - in fact, I practically read the whole book aloud to my mother, who I know would probably have much rather read the book herself. 

Biography  is an odd genre, I've always found.  By and large, you're only going to be interested in reading it if you either like the person - and I mean really like the person - or want to brush up on your historical/sporting/political knowledge.  Considering that I wouldn't call myself a fan of Kaling, I'm surprised that this book was so enjoyable to me.  Since reading, I haven't gone and watched any of her sketches or films or shows - apart from those that I had already seen - nor do I find that my opinion of her has changed at all.  So it leaves me wondering what exactly it was about this particular autobiography that made it so successful in my eyes?

Coming from a comedian, the book was always going to be undeniably humorous.  As an autobiography it was obviously going to feature a number of different personal stories and memories.  I think the surprising factor is the message that goes along with this though.  In Kaling's introduction, she claims the book is about:

"romance, female friendships, unfair situations that now seem funny in retrospect, unfair situations that I still don't think are funny, Hollywood, heartache and my childhood."

Obviously, it's a work more suited to women, as Kaling goes on to sarcastically quip: 'Just that really hard-core masculine stuff men love to read about.'  What works about the book, about Mindy's words however, is that it does give advice.  And while she claims that she's not the best person to be giving this advice, it's still responsible and what most of us would say.  The issues explored in this book are the kind that any girl goes through at some point in her life, though quite likely mainly in teenage years.  While some of the things Kaling wrote, I have found through my own experience; I couldn't help wishing that back when I had friends hanging out without me, I'd had someone there giving the advice that Mindy does.

In short, this is the book I wish I'd had back when I was still in secondary school.  This is the book they should be giving out to girls to help with those friendship dramas and questions and dilemmas with boys.  It's the perfect handbook for navigating the troubles of being a teenage girl, friendly helpful advice interspersed with Kaling's comical experiences and often random thoughts.  While some critics have said that the book would be good if it weren't for the shortfall of seeming to go off on a tangent, I've come to see this as one of it's strongest points.  In writing and editing, I'm sure that Kaling would have been aware of this problem and has purposefully left those moments about men wearing peacoats, Pierce Brosnan's chest hair and numerous lists of things in the book because going off track is one of her personality traits.  What kind of autobiography would it be if these moments weren't included?  Certainly not as truthful an attempt.

In including them, Kaling shows she's unafraid of being herself and suggests that we should embrace our weird and unusual personalities, that we should love what makes us unique.  What better message is there?