Book: Dead Girls Don’t Write Letters

Confession: I am in the middle of a really trashy book right now. Trashy trashy trashy. I got it for $2 at a library sale; does that make up for it? Review coming soon, and then it’s on to actual good books like We Need To Talk About Kevin and so on.

However, I was sitting at the library and this little book was right there on the table next to me. The title caught me and it looked like a fast read (it was: 45 minutes to be exact). So I zipped through it.

Creepy and weird and edgy and disturbing. Now THAT is how you do a short, dark YA novelette. I kind of loved it, even if I didn’t totally understand the ending.

Sunny’s sister Jazz just died in an apartment fire. Her mom is falling apart. Her dad is a falling-down-drunk alcoholic. Her teachers think she’s stupid. So you’d think life would kind of suck for Sunny. But… it doesn’t. Because she’s glad Jazz is gone. Because Jazz was a horrible sister and Sunny hated her.

So when Sunny gets a letter in the mail, written on cheerful yellow stationery, she gets a bad feeling in her stomach. A glance at the return address reveals the reason: it’s from Jazz. But how can that be? Jazz is dead!

And then Jazz comes home. And it’s all wrong. So very wrong. Sunny knows it, Jazz knows it, her father knows it, but her mom… well, her mom wants everything to be normal again. But it really, really isn’t.

This is a short, tense, dark, slightly scary book. I thought it was great, especially since I just happened upon it at the library. If you happen across it, and you have 45 minutes, give it a try. Let me know what you think.