Before she leaves the city and moves to a town near the ocean, Rachel leaves a note in her best friend Henry's favorite book proclaiming her love for him. He never responds to the specific note, so she ignores his letters over the next three years. Rachel, her mother and brother Cal love living near the ocean. It is a perfect location since she and Cal love to swim and also dream of exploring the deep. Then Cal, a competent swimmer, drowns, and Rachel slips into depression. Her mother sends her back to the city where she is forced to work at Henry's family's used bookstore. Her job? Record people's notes to each other in the store's Letter Library, a special section where people can write to each other in books. Through this mundane job and reconnecting to former friends, Rachel finds healing and hope.
I enjoyed the format of the book-switching viewpoints between Henry and Rachel plus reading the letters placed in books between various people in the story.
The world-view is definitely secular. As the characters try to make sense of death and life's tradegies, they search everywhere but God.
**This book is categorized as a Young Adult.
Warnings/points to discuss: lots of swearing-f***, s***, premartial sex (closed door-no details given), mentions a "hard-on", Martin, a semi-main character, has two mums, allusion that Lola, a friend of Henry and Rachel, may be a lesbian and a comment "what is wrong with that?"
-Borrowed from the library.
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