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A review by rebelbooks101
Love Letters to the Dead by Ava Dellaira
dark
emotional
sad
slow-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? It's complicated
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
2.5
** spoiler alert ** 2.5* if I wasn’t reading this for a video, I would’ve dnfed it and searched online to see what happened.
Trigger warning for descriptions of suicide, rape, and abuse.
What I’ve learned from this is I don’t really like hard hitting contemporary or things that make me sad. I still want to explore this genre and see if I can find something I like but it’s just not what I like to read anymore sadly.
I feel like my younger self would’ve liked this book more than I do now. I probably would’ve given it a 3.5 had I read it when I was in middle school.
That being said, I in no capacity believe this is a bad book. Like I’ve been saying a lot recently, this book wasn’t for me. I went into this book, hoping I would enjoy it but I didn’t.
If this book was 150 pages shorter I think it would’ve been better. There were so many parts the story dragged on. I never really got into this book as it was slow the entire time. If a lot of it was cut out I see this being a better book.
The whole writing letters to the dead was a cool concept at first but it got old quickly. I found myself never really caring about what she had to say to these famous dead people. It more so read like a diary.
I found all the characters really one dimensional. They didn’t really have a personality besides one character trait which seemed to define them. Take Laurel for example. She is grieving therefore she is sad. It effects the way she talks and that’s all that I felt I knew about her. I didn’t really know her besides that.
I think mental health was talked about in a great way and this book did a great job at exploring and talking about so many topics.
I wasn’t the biggest fan of the relationships at the beginning but I ended up really appreciating it in the end. I like how these two characters support each other and I really liked how we saw their relationship in the end.
I really did enjoy the plot line between Natalie and Hannah however, the whole interaction when Laurel caught them together and one of them (I think Hannah) said she needed to kiss Laurel so she wouldn’t tell was not okay. She didn’t kiss her because Laurel ran away from her and I understand the characters were intoxicated but it was never addressed again and she never apologized.
Overall, this book was fine, just not for me sadly.
Trigger warning for descriptions of suicide, rape, and abuse.
What I’ve learned from this is I don’t really like hard hitting contemporary or things that make me sad. I still want to explore this genre and see if I can find something I like but it’s just not what I like to read anymore sadly.
I feel like my younger self would’ve liked this book more than I do now. I probably would’ve given it a 3.5 had I read it when I was in middle school.
That being said, I in no capacity believe this is a bad book. Like I’ve been saying a lot recently, this book wasn’t for me. I went into this book, hoping I would enjoy it but I didn’t.
If this book was 150 pages shorter I think it would’ve been better. There were so many parts the story dragged on. I never really got into this book as it was slow the entire time. If a lot of it was cut out I see this being a better book.
The whole writing letters to the dead was a cool concept at first but it got old quickly. I found myself never really caring about what she had to say to these famous dead people. It more so read like a diary.
I found all the characters really one dimensional. They didn’t really have a personality besides one character trait which seemed to define them. Take Laurel for example. She is grieving therefore she is sad. It effects the way she talks and that’s all that I felt I knew about her. I didn’t really know her besides that.
I think mental health was talked about in a great way and this book did a great job at exploring and talking about so many topics.
I wasn’t the biggest fan of the relationships at the beginning but I ended up really appreciating it in the end. I like how these two characters support each other and I really liked how we saw their relationship in the end.
I really did enjoy the plot line between Natalie and Hannah however, the whole interaction when Laurel caught them together and one of them (I think Hannah) said she needed to kiss Laurel so she wouldn’t tell was not okay. She didn’t kiss her because Laurel ran away from her and I understand the characters were intoxicated but it was never addressed again and she never apologized.
Overall, this book was fine, just not for me sadly.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Suicide
Moderate: Rape