Everything Laurel knows about high school, she learned from her older sister, but after May's death, Laurel has to start freshman year on her own. After getting an assignment to write to someone who's died, Laurel keeps going, and the book is structured as a journal in letters to Kurt Cobain, Amy Winehouse, River Phoenix, Judy Garland, and others. Laurel uses the letters to talk about both the past and the unfolding present, especially the friends she makes, who are also struggling with the problems that played a role in May's life and death. Debut author Dellaira gives Laurel a poet's eye: when she first makes eye contact with the boy she has a crush on, it feels like "fireflies lighting under my skin." Although Dellaria writes beautifully, the pervading melancholy feels one-note at times, and the letter format can get wearying, especially when Laurel tells the recipients about their own careers, the epistolary equivalent of expository dialogue. That said, Laurel and her friends' struggles and hard-won successes are poignant, and seeing Laurel begin to forgive herself and May is extremely moving. Ages 12-up. Agent: Richard Florest, Rob Weisbach Creative Management. (Apr.) (c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved.

Laurel's first assignment in freshman English is to write a letter to a dead person, and she chooses Kurt Cobain, a favorite of her recently deceased older sister May. Instead of turning in the letter, though, Laurel builds on it, keeping a journal of letters to a variety of dead people, from Amy Winehouse to Amelia Earhart, Jim Morrison to Judy Garland. The letters begin in straightforward second-person address, as Laurel speaks directly to the dead about their own art and experiences. But in time the letters begin to wander; she forgets her reader and just starts writing, recounting a life spiraling increasingly out of control as she delves into May's past. She makes new, complicated friends, struggles to connect with her separated parents, and meets a boy tortured in his own way. Dellaira's characters are authentically conceived and beautifully drawn. Teens meet situations of physical, sexual, and substance abuse with numbness, stoicism, and fury. Broken adults flail and try. With her epistolary confidants Laurel confronts the circumstances leading up to her sister's death, and makes peace with her place in it. She learns that, however dark our secrets, the only way out from the shadows is to stand in the light. thom barthelmess (c) Copyright 2014. The Horn Book, Inc., a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.

WHEN A FRIEND in high school told me "The Catcher in the Rye" was the funniest book he'd ever read, I picked up a copy - and sobbed my way through it. To my friend, Holden Caulfield was a hilarious smart aleck; to me, he was a bereft sibling, falling apart after his younger brother's death. That story felt very familiar to me. I was 14 when my older brother, Ted, died of a rare immune deficiency syndrome. Like Holden, I had no frame of reference for my loss - until I recognized myself in him, and through his emotional hell began to understand my own. Other books helped too: Judith Guest's extraordinary "Ordinary People"; Richard E. Peck's "Something for Joey"; Scott O'Dell's "Island of the Blue Dolphins" ; Louisa May Alcott's "Little Women." Now, with Ava Dellaira's "Love Letters to the Dead" and Gae Polisner's "The Summer of Letting Go," the genre of sibling-loss fiction is two books richer. "Love Letters to the Dead" is the story of Laurel, a high school freshman whose beloved and apparently perfect older sister, May, died some months before in mysterious circumstances. Though Laurel was the sole witness to May's death, she is unable to say what happened. The only place she can express herself is a notebook of letters she writes to dead celebrities. "Dear Kurt Cobain"; "Dear Judy Garland"; "Dear Amy Winehouse." "There are some things that I can't tell anyone, except the people who aren't here anymore," she writes. Dellaira has either experienced sibling loss or done good research, because her themes ring true: the way younger survivors feel lost without the map of their older sibling's precedent; the sense of being abandoned by their grieving parents; and the identity crisis that can come when the person they defined themselves against is gone. POLISNER'S "The Summer of Letting Go" is slightly less intense. Francesca (Frankie) Schnell was 11 years old when her 4-year-old brother, Simon, drowned at the beach while she was supposed to be watching him. It was an accident, but no one has helped relieve Frankie of her sense of guilt. Four years later, she is tormented by her role in Simon's death, and by the toll it has taken on her parents' marriage. Frankie struggles to get on with adolescence - the boys, the best friends, the best friends lost to boys - amid the wreckage of her family. Then she meets Frankie Sky, a 4-year-old boy whose harried single mother hires Frankie as a sitter for the summer. (The shared name becomes a joke between the two Frankies.) Frankie Sky is the spit and image of Simon, born the day Simon died and the same age he was - coincidences that set Frankie Schnell wondering if little Frankie could somehow be Simon reincarnated. She spends some time trying to solve this mystery, but mostly she learns from Frankie Sky that it's important to keep on living rather than going through the motions. This is really the emotional heart of the novel. Frankie's final confrontation with her mother on this issue is also a critical point. Such conversations probably don't happen in real life as often as they should, but Frankie's outpouring resonates with real feeling. Here, Polisner gets her subject exactly right. Both books have their flaws. "Love Letters to the Dead" hits the themes typical of sibling loss so comprehensively that I sometimes felt Dellaira was working her way down a checklist. And Laurel's letters are a little too articulate for even an eloquent teenager to have written. In "The Summer of Letting Go," Frankie Sky's 4-year-old patter doesn't always sound authentic to my ear, and Polisner fails to completely deliver on her intriguing reincarnation plotline. But these are quibbles. In these books I recognized my own adolescent grief. And reading them helped me answer a question I hear repeatedly. Parents who have lost children often ask me how to help surviving teenage siblings talk about their feelings. Usually, I am stumped. I don't know why the answer hasn't occurred to me before. Next time, I will say: "Try fiction." ELIZABETH DEVITA-RAEBURN is the author of "The Empty Room: Understanding Sibling Loss."

Gr 9 Up-Debut author Dellaira's heart-wrenching epistolary novel begins with Laurel's freshman assignment to write a letter to a dead person. She starts with a missive to Kurt Cobain, who had been a favorite of her recently deceased older sister, May. Gradually, through the teen's letters to other dead celebrities (Janis Joplin, Amelia Earhart, River Phoenix, and more), readers will begin to piece together the history of her splintered family life, including her parents' divorce and mother's virtual abandonment following May's unexplained death. Laurel is devastatingly, emotionally fragile, but she makes friends at her new high school and even starts to develop a serious love interest. Her misconstrued hero-worship of May gradually evolves into a deeper understanding of her beloved sister's strengths and many imperfections. Beautifully written, although a bit choppy in sections, particularly regarding the dead addressees' lives, this powerful novel deftly illustrates the concept that writing is an especially valuable form of healing for those dealing with overwhelming pain and grief. Best for teens who enjoyed Stephen Chbosky's The Perks of Being a Wallflower (MTV, 1999).-Susan Riley, Mamaroneck Public Library, NY (c) Copyright 2014. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.

Confiding in dead geniuses helps a teen process her grief and rage. Everyone in Laurel's family is processing her sister May's death differently: Her father retreats into silence; her mother moves to California to work on a ranch; and Laurel herself writes letters to dead luminaries, including Kurt Cobain, Amelia Earhart, Janis Joplin and John Keats. Too gripped by a potent mixture of sadness, guilt and anger to tell her parents what really happened the night May died, Laurel pours her heart out in missives to a growing group of late geniuses. Sensitive and insightful, Laurel reflects on building new friendships and her first love, while also grappling with her memories of May's death, her worry that she caused it and her anger, too. As she inches slowly toward detailing the truth of May's death wish and her own survival of grievous harm, Laurel's understanding of her late correspondents grows more nuanced. Eventually, she sees them in three dimensions, as gifted people crushed by terrible sadness. The epistolary technique is perhaps too effective at building and sustaining narrative tension: Laurel so delays explaining her feelings of responsibility for May's death that the resolution of her story feels rushed. A tighter hand would have given more balance to an otherwise effective and satisfyingly heartbreaking melodrama. (Fiction. 12-17)]] Copyright Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.

*Starred Review* The assignment: write a letter to someone who is dead. Laurel falls into this classroom task deeper than she could have ever imagined, writing to deceased stars like Kurt Cobain, Amelia Earhart, Judy Garland, River Phoenix, Janis Joplin, Jim Morrison, Amy Winehouse, and others whose lives ended as abruptly as Laurel's older sister's did. Her methodology expands beyond simply writing to the dead. Rather, she researches each recipient, learning about their lives in order to make each letter relatable to the intended party. These quite savvy letters become Laurel's way of working through her emotions as she begins high school, makes new friends, deals with a crumbling family, falls in love, and continues to grieve for the loss of her sister. With the help of her fantasy correspondence, she is able to find common ground, express herself, and eventually discover the messages and lessons of the deceased addressee's lives as well as her own. Well paced and cleverly plotted, this debut uses a fresh, new voice to tell a sometimes sad, sometimes edgy, but always compelling narrative. Fans of Sarah Dessen and Jenny Han, get ready.--Fredriksen, Jeanne Copyright 2014 Booklist