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.