Information
Goodreads: Letters to the Lost
Series: Letters to the Lost #1
Source: Library
Published: April 2017
Summary
Juliet is still processing the death of her mother, a photojournalist, by visiting her grave and leaving her letters. Declan Murphy is serving a community service sentence by mowing the cemetery. When Declan finds Juliet’s letter, he writes back and soon the two are revealing things they cannot reveal to anything else. But as they get to know each other, they also begin to worry that the truth about their pasts may be too much for them to handle.
Review
“One day isn’t your whole life. A day is just a day.
Letters to the Lost breaks all the rules of YA romance. Switching between the perspectives of Juliet, a girl mourning her dead mother, and Declan, a boy struggling with the things he’s done in his past, the story rejects the ideas that love happens easily and that love conquers all. Rather, it shows how love is a struggle and how love only transforms when it leads to change. With its raw look at the real, Letters to the Lost is a beautiful, heartbreaking romance.
YA romances tend to follow a standard outline. A girl who feels unwanted and unsure finds herself falling in love with a boy who may seem hard on the outside, but who is secretly vulnerable and sympathetic on the inside. A mistake briefly draws them apart before they announce their love for each other again at the end of the story. It is cliche and predictable, but readers often like a story that feels comfortable because it safe.
Letters to the Lost does not give readers this narrative. Instead, it offers a story balanced equally between a boy trying to find himself and a girl wondering if she is ready to move on. Both are hurting and both will eventually find that a sympathetic ear can make all the difference. But they do not let love define their lives to the point where nothing else matters. They continue to struggle with family, friends, and school. Their relationship works, not because they are “saving” each other, as if one could ever do that for someone else, but because they give each other a safe place to speak and they draw strength from that. They fight for everything, from maintaining their friendships to figuring out who they want to be.
With its depiction of family and friends, Letters to the Lost immediately sets itself apart. Neither character lives in an ideal world, but they eventually realize that their parents may not be the enemy, that even adults struggle to communicate sometimes. And both have important friendships in their lives and they talk about more than their new romance. The friendship between Declan and Rev is one of my favorite depictions of male friendship in YA as they are open with each other about their pasts and theirs fears, but they also take time to discuss things like the existence of God. As a result of scenes like these, one senses that Declan and Juliet are more than a couple in love; they are people with communities, with lives.
Letters to the Lost has a companion book More Than We Can Tell. However, Brigid Kemmerer’s characters are so beautifully drawn that two books are simply not enough. I hope we see much more of her work in the future.
Fantastic review Krysta! Yes two books won’t be enough. I am currently reading an ARC of A Curse so Dark and Lonely and even with a retelling of the Beauty and theBeast Brigid Kemmrer adds her distinctive signature!
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Ooh! Exciting! I hadn’t realized she was doing a Beauty and the Beast retelling!
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Lovely review! I’ve had this one on my radar and am very intrigued with the way you described this romance!
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Loved this review, it was great! This book is going on my TBR, it sounds interesting, especially with how you described the more unique romance and plot!
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I’m not usually a fan of contemporary YA romance, but this one is superb! I really fell in love with the characters.
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This review made me curious because I really didn’t like this book. In fact, I rated it 1.5 stars. Juliet annoyed me to the core because she wanted to beat like everything. Maybe it is the translation in Dutch, but ugh. I couldn’t get through the book and ended up skim-reading it. I was SO bored.
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Interestingly, I don’t remember Juliet wanting to beat everything! XD
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Then it’s in the Dutch translation ugh. It was so poorly.
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Or I have the world’s worst memory!! XD
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Awesome review as always! I’ve been hearing good things about her books so I definitely want to give this one and the companion book a try 🙂
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I ran across More Than We Can Tell completely by accident, decided to read it on a whim, and now suddenly I find myself a fan. What a whirlwind experience. 😀
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Nice! One of my co-workers, who is kinda picky with YA, has really liked a lot of her novels 🙂
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Awesome!
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This is such a good review! This book is sitting in my Kindle, waiting for some love, and this makes me all the more eager to pick it up and read it. 😀
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Brigid Kemmerer is one of my new favorite authors, I think. I’m excited to see what else she writes!
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I’m kind of giggling because I literally just watched that Jenny Han movie on Netflix about the letters, and it’s EXACTLY the traditional plot you describe most YA novels are.
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I decided not to read the book because someone’s review gave me the impression that the romance was kind of…sketchy? I can’t remember why, though! XD
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Well, the person with to whom I was writing on Twitter said Peter is much more of a jerk in the book than the movie, but I’m not sure what “jerk” covers.
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I guess that term IS a little vague! 😀
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