It begins as an assignment for English class: Write a letter to a dead person. Laurel chooses Kurt Cobain because she thought hed understand since he died young just like her sister, May, did. Soon Laurel is writing letters to lots of dead people Janis Joplin, Heath Ledger, and more although she never gives a single one of them to her teacher. She writes about what its like going to a new school, meeting new friends, falling in love for the first time, how her family splinters apart after May dies. She even writes about the abuse she suffered while May was supposed to be looking out for her. Only then, once Laurel has written down the truth about what happened to herself, can she truly begin to accept what happened to May, and to see her as the person she was: lovely and amazing and deeply flawed.
