*Spoilers Alert. Vital pieces of information will be revealed.

Love Letters to the Dead by Ava Dellaira is a poetic tale of those who are left behind when a loved one dies. The main character of the novel is Laurel, whose sister, May, has died tragically at a young age. The novel is composed of letters Laurel writes to dead people, such as Kurt Cobain, Amy Winehouse, Janis Joplin, and many more. It starts as an English assignment but quickly turns into a confession of how she’s been living since beginning high school without her sister.

Laurel defined herself through May, so when May passed away Laurel didn’t know who she was. Dellaira uses the Elizabeth Bishop poem “One Art” with the famous line: “the art of losing isn’t hard to master.” The poems speaks of how when you lose something close to you, you lose yourself. Poetry and art is a reoccurring motif throughout the novel, which comes to symbolize the expression of the soul. Laurel fears expressing herself, which is an internal conflict she struggles with throughout the novel.

Laurel’s inability to share what happened the night May died has a detrimental effects on her other relationships.  She eventually tells of the night May fell off the bridge by the highway. The novel leaves the cause of May’s death ambiguous; the reader never really knows whether May had purposely left the earth. Laurel becomes angry at May for leaving her. She shows the reckless side of the people she revered: “Do you think that everyone gets to be a star like that? Do you think that everyone gets to be seen? Gets to be loved? Gets to glow? They don’t. They don’t get to do it like you did. They don’t get to be as beautiful as you were. And you just wanted to burn up.”

In the end, Laurel begins to forgive herself and May. Laurel can grieve, knowing that May is part of something greater. The ending shows that you could never truly lose a person because you will carry them with you. Laurel’s love and grief are intertwined because she will always love May; therefore always miss her. May will never be truly gone, to Laurel, May is part of the world. In the epilogue Laurel decides that she wants to be a poet. She writes her first poem – “A Love Letter to my Sister”.