Letters to the lost

Author: Brigid Kemmerer 

Series: Letters to the lost #1

Genre: Contemporary

Original publication date: April 2017

Book description: Juliet Young always writes letters to her mother, a world-traveling photojournalist. Even after her mother's death, she leaves letters at her grave. It's the only way Juliet can cope.
Declan Murphy isn't the sort of guy you want to cross. In the midst of his court-ordered community service at the local cemetery, he's trying to escape the demons of his past.
When Declan reads a haunting letter left beside a grave, he can't resist writing back. Soon, he's opening up to a perfect stranger, and their connection is immediate. But neither Declan nor Juliet knows that they're not actually strangers. When life at school interferes with their secret life of letters, sparks will fly as Juliet and Declan discover truths that might tear them apart.

Thoughts:

I really liked this book the first time I read it, this time though I was more disconnected and can't say really why.

We have a few young people struggling with depression for different reasons.

We see Juliet who is suffering from the loss of her mother, she idolized the mother who dedicated her life to photography. The photography was their passion, they both loved it, and yet Juliet always felt very little as her mother's work was to use photography to show the hardships of the world, hunger, war, etc. 

Juliet was left with her father, the man who had always cared for her, he was the parent that was always there for her and yet she felt anger, she felt her world collapse, even if she was used to her mother being gone most of the time this different of losing her forever it made her world crumble. 

Juliet does not want "help" she pushes away her father, her friends and dwells only on her mother, she writes letters to her and leaves them at her grave. 

This time around I felt more critical about her situation, she was not taking things well and yet she is not accepting help from anyone and overall she is very selfish, not only she only focus on her own grief and her thoughts reflect that she looks down on everyone around her, making her mind up that the only suffering that matters is her own. 

At the same time, she is young and everyone reacts differently when in grief, so it's realistic enough, yet I am not the biggest fan of Juliet.

Juliet is very judgemental in plenty of matters in her life, she judges and makes her mind up about classmates, thinking people are criminals simply because they keep to themselves, dress in not fashionable clothes, etc. 

The situation Declan is suffering from is also very pressing, I think the story is more tragic. The parents are awful and they should be punished, the mother definitely in my mind deserved some sort of consequence. The father is not the only guilty party. 

The story only for Declan and his best friend is solvable, I dislike the two main female characters Juliet and her friend. They are classic judgy teenagers, they look down on everyone who is not like them, they are the typical semi-popular crowd. 

I think it touches in ways as the characters had unfortunate events in their lives, but one of the main POV I do not like (Juliet) therefore my enjoyment of the story goes down. It still shows very good themes, depression, negligence, past abuse, a good picture of foster care family, adults noticing abuse and trying to help. It has a few very good messages and for that, I do recommend it.