[Book Review] Love Letters to the Dead by Ava Dellaira

Title: Love Letters to the Dead
Author: Ava Dellaira
Publisher: Farrar, Straus and Giroux (BYR)
Published: April 1st, 2014
No. of Pages: 336 pages
ISBN: 9780374346683
Format: Ebook
Goodreads: here
Opening sentence:
Dear Kurt Cobain,
Mrs. Buster gave us our first assignment in English today, to write a letter to a dead person.

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.

Mungkin ini yang dinamakan love at first sight. Saya iseng browsing membuka email yang sudah lama saya abaikan. Pas membuka email dari seorang blogger favorit saya, dia memamerkan buku bacaannya minggu ini.
Salah satu yang catchy, baik cover maupun judul adalah buku ini.

Laurel adalah seorang remaja dengan jiwa yang terluka. Dia ditugasi oleh guru Bahasa Inggrisnya untuk menulis surat kepada orang yang sudah mati. Surat pertama Laurel ditujukan kepada mendiang Kurt Cobain, salah satu pendiri grup legendaris genre Grunge yang merupakan idola kakaknya, May,yang sudah meninggal.

Surat pertama berlanjut dengan surat kedua, ketiga, dan seterusnya.

Laurel mencurahkan isi hatinya dengan bebas tanpa hambatan kepada selebritas yang telah tiada.

Saya memang belum membaca banyak buku Young Adult, tapi buku ini begitu memikat sampai saya tak bisa berhenti membaca.
Laurel yang rapuh diceritakan dari sudut pandangnya sendiri. Betapa ia masih membutuhkan figur May yang ia jadikan panutan, sehingga ketika May tiada, Laurel seperti kehilangan tempat berpijak.

Love Letters to the Dead merupakan novel debut Ava Dellaira.
Novel sederhana yang memuat banyak emosi di dalamnya. Love it to pieces.

Selebritas macam Jim Morrison, Janis Joplin, Judy Garland, hingga River Phoenix diikutkan dalam novel ini, membuat saya terhempas ke masa silam untuk beberapa saat.

Until next time

Pic credit: Macmillan Teen

Wishful Wednesday 37: Oleander Girl

Udah tiga bulan hiatus ngeblog, termasuk partisipasi Wishful Wednesday.
Terus terang, gara-gara sakit lama dan kerjaan, semangat baca agak meluntur. Harus dipecut lagi nih supaya rajin baca lagi.

Gara-gara buka Facebook, saya jadi kepengin banget punya novel yang ini:

Description:

From the bestselling author of One Amazing Thing, a sweeping, suspenseful, atmospheric coming-of-age novel about a young woman who leaves India for America on a search that will transform her life.

Beloved by critics and readers, Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni has been hailed by Junot Díaz as a “brilliant storyteller” and by People magazine as a “skilled cartographer of the heart”. Now, Divakaruni returns with her most gripping novel yet.

Orphaned at birth, seventeen-year-old Korobi Roy is the scion of a distinguished Kolkata family and has enjoyed a privileged, sheltered childhood with her adoring grandparents. But she is troubled by the silence that surrounds her parents’ death and clings fiercely to her only inheritance from them: the love note she found hidden in her mother’s book of poetry. Korobi dreams of one day finding a love as powerful as her parents’, and it seems her wish has come true when she meets the charming Rajat, the only son of a high-profile business family.

But shortly after their engagement, a heart attack kills Korobi’s grandfather, revealing serious financial problems and a devastating secret about Korobi’s past. Shattered by this discovery and by her grandparents’ betrayal, Korobi undertakes a courageous search across post 9/11 America to find her true identity. Her dramatic, often startling journey will, ultimately, thrust her into the most difficult decision of her life.

Ciri khas tulisan Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni adalah cerita tentang imigran asal India yang tinggal/pindah ke Amerika Serikat membawa adat-istiadatnya yang kental.

Karena kebanyakan koleksi saya novel terjemahan, maka saya juga berharap buku ini diterjemahkan oleh GPU.

Yuk, yang mau ikutan Wishful Wednesday, langsung aja klik blog Perpus Kecil by Astrid.

Happy Wednesday