Love Letters to the Dead

Laurel, a freshman, has just started at West Mesa High School, still reeling from the death of her older sister, May, who fell from a railroad bridge into a river the previous April. The novel unfolds through letters Laurel writes to dead people, a practice that begins as an English class assignment from her teacher, Mrs. Buster. Laurel chooses Kurt Cobain, the Nirvana frontman who was May's favorite musician, but she never turns the letter in. Instead, she continues writing privately in a notebook throughout the year, addressing various figures. Her final letter is not to a famous person but to May herself.

Laurel's family has fractured. Her parents divorced before May entered high school, and after May's death, Laurel's mother left for a ranch in California, unable to cope with her grief. Laurel now alternates between her father's house and the home of her Aunt Amy, her mother's devoutly Christian older sister. To avoid questions about May, who attended Sandia High, Laurel enrolled at West Mesa for a fresh start and tries to keep her sister's death private.

At first isolated, Laurel befriends Natalie, a creative classmate with two different-colored eyes, and Natalie's bold, red-haired best friend, Hannah, who lives with her grandparents and her volatile older brother, Jason. Laurel begins wearing May's clothes to school, drawing courage from them. Their circle expands when they meet Tristan, an energetic senior covered in rock-band patches, and his quiet girlfriend, Kristen. The older couple adopts the younger girls into their group. Meanwhile, Laurel notices a junior named Sky who transferred to West Mesa that year and carries an air of quiet mystery.

After a hallway conversation where they bond over Nirvana, Laurel and Sky begin to connect. Evan Friedman, a popular freshman, asks Laurel to homecoming. She accepts, hoping Sky will appear at the dance. She wears May's red silk dress. The evening with Evan is awkward, as he remains fixated on his ex-girlfriend, and Laurel sends him off. Sky appears near the end of the night, asks her to dance, and they share a first kiss in his truck outside her house. Laurel looks in her mirror afterward and sees May's face reflected in her own.

By Halloween, Laurel and Sky are officially a couple. Their relationship deepens through late-night walks and stolen hours together. Sky reveals that his mother behaves unusually, singing lullabies to dead flowers in the middle of the night, and that his father abandoned the family. Laurel and Sky plant tulip bulbs in his yard at two a.m., an act of quiet tenderness. After Fallfest, they confide in each other about their absent parents, and the honesty deepens their bond.

Beneath the surface, however, Laurel carries something she cannot say. During intimate moments with Sky, she dissociates, her mind traveling to memories she tries to suppress. She alludes to nights with May when they were supposed to be at the movies but does not explain further. Sky grows frustrated by her tendency to disappear. He confirms he transferred from Sandia and knew May, calling her popular and loved but deflecting further questions.

On Christmas night, Sky gives Laurel a hand-carved driftwood heart. She tells him she loves him, and after a long silence, he says it back. But on New Year's Eve, drunk at a party at Kristen's house, Laurel climbs onto the edge of a balcony wall and declares she can fly like May. Sky pulls her down and tells her he cannot be with her if she acts this way. He adds that May was not perfect, devastating Laurel. He leaves, and she cannot reach him.

Sky breaks up with Laurel by letter, writing that neither of them is ready. She walks to his house crying, but he drives her home and tells her not to come back. In her grief, Laurel tears Kurt Cobain's poster off May's bedroom wall, raging at everyone who has left her.

In a fragmented outpouring, Laurel reveals the full truth. When May began dating an older man named Paul, she started bringing Laurel along on outings. While May went off with Paul, his friend Billy, an adult, would take Laurel to his car and sexually abuse her. Laurel was 13 at the time. The abuse continued for months, and she never told anyone, terrified the truth would drive her sister away.

On the night May died, Billy had escalated the abuse. Afterward, at their spot on the railroad bridge, Laurel tried to tell May what had been happening. May was drunk and distraught. Laurel asked her to remember when she could fly, a reference to a childhood game. May stood on the metal edge of the track with her arms out, and the wind blew her off. She fell into the river, and Laurel, frozen, could not save her. She has blamed herself ever since, both for the abuse and for May's death, believing that telling the truth caused May's fall.

Through the spring, Laurel's buried pain surfaces. At a party, Evan gives her an unknown pill and sexually assaults her in a dark room until she shoves him away. Sky arrives, throws Evan out, and drives Laurel home. Natalie and Hannah are caught kissing at the same party, and the public exposure strains their bond. Hannah's brother Jason hits Hannah in retaliation. Hannah reveals the abuse to Laurel, showing a real bruise beneath the fake ones she paints on her skin with eye shadow. With support from Laurel and Natalie, Hannah confronts Jason and moves into Natalie's house. At school, she holds Natalie's hand openly, no longer hiding.

On the anniversary of May's death, Laurel asks Sky to drive her to the bridge. She tells him everything about Billy, Paul, and the night May fell. Sky holds her and says it was not her fault. He reminds her that May made her own choices and that Laurel must look out for herself now.

Laurel's mother returns from California for the summer. Over dinner at a diner, Laurel tells her mother the full truth. Her mother holds her and apologizes for not protecting her. Laurel and Sky cautiously rebuild their relationship. Sky spends time at Laurel's house with her father, and they have honest conversations about May. Sky admits he once had a crush on May and that his feelings led to a fight that caused his expulsion from Sandia. He tells Laurel he fell in love with her, not May's shadow. Laurel also opens up to Aunt Amy, who proves more understanding than expected.

Laurel tells Mrs. Buster she has been writing letters all year and plans to turn in her notebook. Mrs. Buster, who lost her own son, gives Laurel an Elizabeth Bishop poem, "The Armadillo," inspiring Laurel to consider becoming a writer. On the last day of school, the friend group gathers for a bonfire at Kristen's house. Hannah sings publicly for the first time while Tristan plays guitar.

Laurel decides to scatter May's ashes in the river. She, her father, and her mother drive together to the bridge. They release the ashes and play Poohsticks, a family tradition of dropping sticks into the water to race them downstream. May's stick wins. In her final letter, addressed to May, Laurel writes her first poem and reads it aloud at the bridge. She forgives May and forgives herself, resolving to carry May's heart alongside her own as she becomes her own person. Writing the letters, she reflects, gave her a voice, and having a voice brought connection back to her.