by Brigid Kemmerer
Genre: YA contemporary romance
My Rating: ★★★★★
Description:
Ever since her mother, a famous photographer, died, Juliet Young has left letters on her grave. They're personal, private.
That is, until Declan Murphy, working in the cemetery for court-ordered community service, finds one of Juliet's letters. And writes back.
What happens next will change both their lives.
Overall Thoughts
This book is beautiful and heartwrenching and hopeful all at the same time. I loved every minute of it. I loved the characterization and the writing style and the plot. I've always had mixed feelings about the young adult contemporary genre -- I either love the books, or there's something that takes away from my overall enjoyment of an otherwise good book. That was not the case with Letters to the Lost.
I highly recommend this book to anyone looking for a good read.
The Characters
I love the cast of this book so much. You have Juliet, who's mourning the loss of her mother and dealing with that grief as she struggles with school and relationships. She makes a lot of mistakes, like judging people on face value, but I loved how much growth she experienced over the course of the book.
Then there's Declan, who is working in the cemetery for his court ordered community service. His struggles with guilt and depression felt genuine and honest, and I loved his personal growth as well.
The secondary characters were excellent. I want to thank Brigid Kemmerer for creating some excellent parental figures in a YA book -- Juliet's dad, Rev's parents, and Frank all felt very genuine and real and human, which is more than I can say for a lot of YA parental figures.
I can't really get into a discussion about every single character in this book, but just know that they're all amazing.
(And sidenote, I loved the portrayal of a Christian character in a piece of secular media in a way that doesn't make me angry. In fact, I would say that Rev is one of my favorite portrayals of a Christian character in media.)
Writing/Plot
This book is beautiful and heartwrenching and hopeful all at the same time. I loved every minute of it. I loved the characterization and the writing style and the plot. I've always had mixed feelings about the young adult contemporary genre -- I either love the books, or there's something that takes away from my overall enjoyment of an otherwise good book. That was not the case with Letters to the Lost.
I highly recommend this book to anyone looking for a good read.
The Characters
I love the cast of this book so much. You have Juliet, who's mourning the loss of her mother and dealing with that grief as she struggles with school and relationships. She makes a lot of mistakes, like judging people on face value, but I loved how much growth she experienced over the course of the book.
Then there's Declan, who is working in the cemetery for his court ordered community service. His struggles with guilt and depression felt genuine and honest, and I loved his personal growth as well.
The secondary characters were excellent. I want to thank Brigid Kemmerer for creating some excellent parental figures in a YA book -- Juliet's dad, Rev's parents, and Frank all felt very genuine and real and human, which is more than I can say for a lot of YA parental figures.
I can't really get into a discussion about every single character in this book, but just know that they're all amazing.
(And sidenote, I loved the portrayal of a Christian character in a piece of secular media in a way that doesn't make me angry. In fact, I would say that Rev is one of my favorite portrayals of a Christian character in media.)
Writing/Plot
Something I found very interesting about this book was the fact that although it's a first person, dual perspective book, the chapter headings don't tell you who's narrating the chapter. A few times early in the story, I had to do a doubletake when I realized that it wasn't Juliet's POV that I was reading (or vice versa.) But once I was into the story, it wasn't confusing at all.
I liked how every chapter starts with one of Juliet's or Declan's letters to each other, and I loved seeing the way their relationship develops through those messages.
The plot was well-paced and compelling. This book is definitely character driven, but the plot events hold up well and helped to structure the book.
Content
Recommended for ages 15 and up.
TRIGGER WARNINGS: References to physical abuse. References to a suicide attempt.
There is some swearing. Not too much as I can recall, though.
A few sexual references. At one point in the story, a character finds a photo of two people in bed (with the implication of sex.) An instance of nudity.
There isn't any horribly violent content that I can recall.
A character smokes.
No comments:
Post a Comment