Publisher: Farrar, Straus and Giroux (BYR)
Source: Borrowed
Pages: 336
Series: Standalone
Release Date: April 1, 2014
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.
I am so glad that I picked up this book. I had been hearing so many people rave about this book all over goodreads and booktube. Let me tell you.. It deserves every bit of rave it gets. It is such an amazing book. I have seen a lot of people say that it has a Perks of Being a Wallflower feel to it and I will have to agree with them for sure. Such a great book that you definitely need to pick up asap!
One thing that I absolutely loved about this book is the development of out main character, Laurel. I think that throughout the whole book, she is growing and learning to be her own person. In the beginning of the book and a lot of the way through the book, she struggles with a few things. She definitely had to do a lot of growing and learning in this book. I am really glad that the main focus was her coping with the loss of her sister and not too much on the romance. However, I did really enjoy the romance as well. It wasn't overdone like a lot of YA books tend to be.
This book is about conquering fears and accepting things for what they are. It also teaches you that you should not be ashamed of who you are and to not be what other people want you to be. I think it also teaches that you should stand up to your problems instead of running away from them. Running away from a situation can just makes things worse.
I could really relate to Laurel. No, I didn't lose a sibling, but I have had to deal with a lot of other really devastating things that have happened to me. I used to be like her and keep everything to myself. I would never really talk about my problem and that caused a lot of friendships and relationships to go wrong. Like her, I had to learn that I needed to talk about things and that this would help me a lot by getting it off my chest. I think that Laurel did an amazing job with realizing what she needed to do to fix things and went out and did it.
Overall, I think that this is a book that should be read by everyone. It has a lot of issues in it that a lot of people have to deal with and it teaches you how to deal with them. Like I said, I am really glad that I picked this up. I will definitely be recommending this book to other people!
