"More than a stunning debut. It is the announcement of a bold new literary voice"
—Stephen Chbosky, author of The Perks of Being a Wallflower

Two years ago, I was in tenth grade when I first read your book, “It’s Kind Of A Funny Story.” It wasn’t the cover that attracted me to it, rather it was because a lot of my classmates had their own copies under their desk chairs, so I decided to ditch my growing reading list and finally get around reading your book. It didn’t take too long for me to find myself falling head over heels with it.

Your book was the kind that would stick by me throughout the years. I didn’t love your book merely for your writing style (which was amazing, by the way, and I’m a big fan of it), or the whole plot of it. I love it because I really feel so much about it. I feel what the characters feel, especially in Craig’s part. I feel the situation they’re trapped in. I feel that I actually relate to it, because I know those feelings and those thoughts of Craig. They were all so familiar, because everyday, I know them and I keep on living and living with just knowing them as I carry out my daily routine.

After I finished reading your book, it left me with this so much reflecting on life like I always felt whenever I finished a book that gives me a new way to look at life differently. (Like, for example, this book, Love Letters to The Dead, which kind of encouraged me to write you this.) I wanted to write to you with so many thank you’s because I wanted you to know how much your book gave an impact on my life. I searched for you on Google, hoping to find your website, because all authors have websites with their names or the title of their books on it, right? But when Google showed me the results, I was not prepared of what I saw. There were so many articles circling about your death from three years ago.

I was shock to have found out about it after reading your book. I was also a bit devastated after knowing about your suicide. How was I going to let you know about what I felt about your book? How was I going to share to you my love for it? Or thank you for creating something so beautiful and real that rings true to readers my age who are going through difficult times such as myself?

To be honest, I didn’t really get to read those articles, because I couldn’t really face them. Because you became my one of my favorite authors, and your book had, in some ways, helped me to never give up on life. It was your book that I continued to be strong when life just doesn’t want to make things easier for me and when there are just some things that I’m never happy about and always regretting of the things I was too late to try or should have done. It was your book that continued to remind me to keep

But after reading Ave Dellaira’s Love Letters to The Dead, maybe this could be my way of reaching out to you.

A lot of articles said that you never really overcame your depression so that’s why you jumped. I