Review of "The Deathday Letter"

"The Deathday Letter"
Shuan David Hutchinson

 

3

Pub. Date: June 15th, 2010
Pages: 240
Publisher: Simon Pulse

Synopsis:  The clock is ticking? 

Ollie can't be bothered to care about anything but girls until he gets his Deathday 

Letter and learns he's going to die in twenty-four hours. Bummer. 

Ollie does what he does best: nothing. Then his best friend convinces him to live a little, and go after Ronnie, the girl who recently trampled his about-to-expire heart. Ollie turns to carloads of pudding and over-the-top declarations, but even playing the death card doesn't work. All he wants is to set things right with the girl of his dreams. It's now or never?

I had high hopes for this book, I just thought the synopsis sounded AMAZING, but this book just did not live up to my expectations.  I did enjoy this book, but I really thought the focus of the book would be completely different.  I was hoping the book would focus a bit more on the Deathday Letters, but I was disappointed.  I really liked the idea of knowing when a person would die; this ensured you did everything you could to bring closure to yourself and your friends.  Overall, I did think Ollie took advantage of his last day, but there were parts of his experience that were just a major let down.  I don't want to say what they were because that may be a bit of a spoiler, but you would be able to figure this out if you read the book.  I guess the story flowed more realistically without exploring the Deathday Letters, but it just left the book feeling a bit flat for me.

Part of my problem with this book is that Ollie came off as kind of a jerk to me.  I did not hate him, but there were times where he was really hard to like.  He is probably a realistic portrayal of a teenage boy, but as a female I kind of wanted to slap him a lot of the time.  At the same time, Ronnie was kind of a pain in the butt.  The only character I really liked was Ollie's best friend, Shane.  He is a great balance for Ollie and without him the book may have completely flopped.

I will say that I absolutely loved the ending, which still seems weird, but it just was perfect.  I understood Ollie and Ronnie's relationship better so their fighting made a lot more sense.  I just wish this had been addressed sooner because I was getting very annoyed with the pair.  So in short, this book was good, but not great.  I think this is a book that might resonate more when guys, they might appreciate Ollie's humor more than I did.  The biggest problem for me was that I expected this book to be different.  I thought it was going to be more serious with less one-liners, but some people may enjoy the tone of "The Deathday Letter".