Book Review: Letters to the Lost by Brigid Kemmerer

Book: Letters to the Lost by Brigid Kemmerer
Genre: YA contemporary
Rating: ★★★★★


So this book made me feel like my old self again. I read it in just a couple of days and totally got caught up in the story. I dropped all my other distractions to JUST READ! It was awesome!!!

However, it reminded me a lot of a couple of other books I've recently read, the ones where the two characters are writing to each other, but they don't know who each other are. They are interacting in real life, and not necessarily liking each other. But they are falling in love through the letters. So the story itself wasn't really new, but I didn't care. I must really love this plot device.

So in this case, our girl visits her mom's grave and writes letters to her and leaves them there. Our boy is doing community service at the cemetery and discovers the letters...well the most recent one anyway. And he is moved by it.  The girl is pouring our her feelings and he just simply adds... me too, on her letter.

Well, when she sees that she freaks and gets mad and writes him a scathing letter back. Telling him he has NO RIGHT to mock her and that there's no way he can understand. Well, turns out he can because he has lost his little sister.

So they start writing. Then they start emailing... and they find a place through each other,  to pour out their guts in a safe way.

At school, there's this dude who is shunned by all the kids because he has bad reputation. He's done some "bad" things and he is now serving time by doing community service. Yeah. Our girl thinks he's scary just like everyone else, until she has a few encounters and then she finds she is drawn to him in a weird way that makes her a little freaked out.

And as she gets to know him better, she starts feeling like she's cheating on the letter writer.

I LOVE IT!

Why do I love this so much? I don't know. But, these characters were awesome. So real and so lovely. The writing was just my style, whatever that means. So engaging. Deep without trying too hard.

My favorite part (besides the romance of course) is that these kids had some awesome adults in their lives. You know, how you always just assume their parents are jerks and their teachers won't give them breaks or try to understand their situations or where they are coming from? Not in this book. This book had wonderful adults who helped. And it was so refreshing.

(The dude's dad has issues, but... there's more to his story too!)

Anyway. Yeah. I devoured this one. Give me more like it!!