Do You Know Who You Are?: A Reading Response to Love Letters to The Dead

Kyndal Swann 3/27/2016

MS51 808

Adolescence is a time that young adults use to try to find themselves. In the book “Love Letters to the Dead” by Ava Dellaira, the main character, Laurel, didn't know who she was yet. Even before her sister, May’s,  tragic death. Laurel tried to follow in her sister's footsteps by wearing her clothing, and even tried copying May’s personality, but that wasn’t who Laurel was. Something that a teenager can learn from this book is that it is okay to not know who you are yet, but you can’t live your life as someone else.

In the beginning of the book, Laurel was mourning her May's tragic death. May was Laurel’s role model. She always thought that May did everything perfectly and always admired her. When May was gone, Laurel was devastated. Laurel started to follow in May’s footsteps. By the middle of the book, Laurel was noticing that being May, wasn’t who she was. Laurel wanted to find out who Laurel was, but didn’t know how. By the end of the book, Laurel didn’t find out who she was totally but knew she wasn’t May. Even if she had a little bit of May inside of her, Laurel knew she had her own personality and style. Laurel decided to start being herself.

In the vast world, many adolescent people, and maybe people even older than that, don’t know who they are yet. By the end of the book, Laurel didn’t find out who she was. Laurel knew where to start to find herself eventually. Laurel has time to figure it out, and so do you. You don’t have know all the answers to life right away. All you need to know is that you are your own person. Even if you don’t know who that is yet.   

The moral of the story is, you don’t have to know who you want to be as soon as you
have the decision to make. At first, Laurel didn’t know who she wanted to be. She wanted to be May because that was all she knew. By the end, Laurel figured out that she wasn’t May, she was Laurel. You, are you. Not Billy, or Sally Ann. Just because someone you admire was one thing you don’t have to be the same. You can be your own person, and if you don’t know who that is yet, you have time.