Letters to the lost is a heart wrenching love story if you want to read something meaningful and empowering. The book by Brigid Kemmerer is about two teenagers falling in love, while dealing with the longing grief of their losing loved ones. Juliet Young is a 17 year old girl whose mother died years ago traveling back from a photography mission. Declan Murphy is a 17 year old guy, going to the same high school as Juliet, also dealing with grief from losing his little sister years ago in a car accident.
When Declan is at the cemetery doing community service, he reads a haunting letter left beside a grave, and he really feels drawn to write back. He has no idea who this person is or why he is so drawn to write back but he does. Soon he realizes that they both are still longing with grief and the only clue he has to her identity is that the writer of the letter is a teenage girl who attends the same high school as him. Part of him wants to find out but the other part likes the thrill of not knowing her identity.
Juliet and Declan know each other at school and they have never gotten along. They always fought because Declan is not the sort of person you want to mess with because he acts broody and cold and hides his true emotions and feelings from the world, since they assume he is just some juvenile troublemaker but little do they know that the person they are writing to are each other. Juliet, seeing this side of Declan in school, would never piece it together that Declan is “cemetery guy.”
Towards the middle half of the book, Declan and Juliet actually start getting along and become friends. They open up and reveal some pieces of information about themselves that makes them wonder if each other are “cemetery girl” and “cemetery guy”. Slowly they realize they are developing feelings while still keeping the secret from each other that they are exchanging emails and sharing secrets and trauma portraying cemetery girl and guy.
When Declan finds out that Juliet is a cemetery girl, he felt blindsided all along not realizing that it was right in front of him he just did not realize. When Juliet finds out that Declan is a cemetery guy she realizes the pieces that were missing. They were so in shock that they did not realize that secret all along and when they eventually talk and figure it out, they realize that all this time with their bickering they slowly fell in love. They realize they understand each other and can help with each other`s grief.
Overall, I really loved this book and if you love romance and a tear jerker story you should definitely read this book! If you loved reading letters to the lost, there is a sequel book called More than we can tell.
