Tuesday, November 17, 2015

Six YA books with a not-so-conventional approach to family ties

At the B&N Teen blog Alyssa Sheinmel tagged six YA books that explore an unconventional approach to family ties, including:
Love Letters to the Dead, by Ava Dellaira

Laurel’s sister May died young, so when the new assignment in Laurel’s English class is to write a letter to a dead person, Laurel chooses someone else who died young: Kurt Cobain, May’s favorite musician. The entire novel is a series of letters from Laurel to people who died too soon, people like Amy Winehouse, Janis Joplin, and even Amelia Earhart. In her letters, Laurel reveals what it’s like to navigate life without her beloved sister. She writes about high school and friends, about her fragile family life and falling in love for the first time. But all along, you know the person she’s really talking to, the person she’s really trying to understand, the person for whom she has a million unanswered questions, is her sister, May. It’s only when Laurel confronts the truth about what happened when May wasn’t looking out for her that Laurel can begin to come to terms with her sister’s death, and accept her sister as the amazing but imperfect person she was.
Read about the other entries on the list.

--Marshal Zeringue