This is Not a Love Letter, is not what I would classify as a romance, but there is love in the story. It's got moments that tug at your heart strings, and others that just break your heart. Jessie and Chris's story is unique. It's one of those books that are real and original. I liked Jessie's character, but there was something about her 'voice'I couldn't connect to while reading. Still, if you enjoy YA with a mild mystery/suspence with some love thrown in, and you don't mind all the letters throughout the book, this is one I'd recommend to you.

Let me start by saying this is a Netgalley review, I received it for free for an honest review.

3.5 Stars

This letter style book was not my favorite, it had its moments. The letters are written by Jessie to her boyfriend Chris who has gone missing after a late-night run. In this letters, we get the history and background on the relationship and friendships surrounding the couple. Jessie searches for answers as to where her boyfriend who seemed to have it all could have gone. The pressure placed on the town by Jessie has consequences and it leads to some devastating discoveries. It’s a story about race, mental illness and the hardships of being young and in love.

I didn’t love it for one reason, I would have given it 4 solid stars if it had focused on mental illness just a bit more. I personally would have likes more closure on that part, but I understand that not everyone gets that. So, in a way it is realistic. I appreciate the author focusing on the heavy issues we see today, but I just don’t think this book was for me.

The main character is a Caucasian girl in a relationship with an African American boy, in a town of very few African Americans. The book addresses the negative attention their bi-racial relationship receives as well as the extra racial attention the African American receives. The book is written from the point of view of the girlfriend writing a letter to her missing boyfriend, explaining everything that is going on and how much she loves and misses him.

I found it hard to believe that the narrator was able to write down all the dialogue that she had or that she had the time to write all of these letters. I would have prefer to have letters within the storyline of the book instead of all of it being a letter.

Overall I was not impressed with the book. I appreciated the ending since it was not what I expected out of a young adult contemporary. I would definitely give this author another chance.

Thanks to Hyperion and NetGalley for allowing me to read the ARC of This Is Not a Love Letter, by Kim Purcell. Seniors Jessie and Chris look forward to graduating and starting their new college lives, but when Chris disappears while jogging by the river, the whole town is abuzz. Was his disappearance a lovers’s quarrel, racial attack against Chris, one of the few Black boys in school, or a secret Chris has been keeping from everyone? You won’t put this book down once you start reading. I thoroughly enjoyed this book.

Jessie’s boyfriend, Chris, has gone missing shortly before high school graduation, and now she is documenting everything that is happening as she waits to find out where he is. The book is written as though she is speaking directly to him, so she is always saying things like “you would have liked (this)” or “your mom (did this)” or “it reminded me of when we (did this).” As a result, it wasn’t long before I felt like I knew both of them really well because the author did such an excellent job of describing Chris’s personality and attitudes through Jessie’s eyes and her anecdotes about their relationship.

Jessie herself is somewhat crude and tough. Her dad is out of the picture and her mom is a hoarder, making Jessie ashamed of her home and frustrated with her life. She shoots from the hip and doesn’t mince words. Chris is a gentle soul who recently moved into town – a straight-A student, a gifted baseball player, and a pacifist. He’s a good influence on Jessie, giving her a sense of worth and direction that she didn’t have before he came into her life. But he’s also a black kid from Brooklyn who doesn’t really fit into this all-white paper mill town in the Pacific Northwest, and he has already dealt with bullying from some of the locals. Many possibilities exist for why he has gone missing.

The book also has several strong peripheral characters who are well drawn and add to the story – both his friends and hers. I never knew for sure what was going to happen, and I really came to care about both Chris and Jessie. Being the same age as they are, I found myself thinking I would like to know them personally, which only happens when a writer does a great job of bringing characters alive. While the plot did not wow me as much, I really enjoyed the characters and the interesting way in which the story was told.

This book deals with young love and the loss that may come with it, tackling a tough subject in a very believable and engaging way. The story is advanced through the "not a love" letter that Jessie is writing to her missing boyfriend Chris while she is waiting for him to return. She is given support by her closest friends throughout, while dealing with negative reactions to her suggestion that Chris may have gone missing as a result of some people who would do him harm because he is a black teen in a mostly white town. Finally the police get actively involved and eventually the mystery is solved and Jessie has to learn to live with her new reality. I would recommend this book wholeheartedly to teens looking for realistic fiction involving relationships, love, and loss.

Review to come at end of jan with cross posted link

3.5 stars. If you read the synopsis and the title. this isn't a love letter. It is Jessie writing journal entries to her boyfriend, Chris who is missing. Although they were technically on a break when he went missing. I enjoyed the author's writing and the style in which this book was written, but felt that there were some times throughout the book that could have been explained a bit more in depth. Jessie starts writing to Chris right after she finds out he is missing and documents what is going on and what they are doing to find him. This book is sad and it deals with some sensitive topics such as mental illness, race and bullying. The ending of the book was also done really well. Overall, I enjoyed the book, especially the style in which it was written and it certainly deals with some heavy, but very important topics.

Thank you to the publisher for sending me an advanced reading copy of this book.

It may not be a love letter per se, but it's definitely a story of love in its many forms. Heart wrenching yet humorous and real, Purcell writes a tale of teenage life that will not soon be forgotten. Timely and timeless, the subjects of love, friendship, growth and mental illness are tackled realistically and with heart.

Laugh, cry, get angry, and then cry some more. Kim Purcell delivers a heartbreaking tale that is at times both funny and tragic. This complex teen story of relationships, love, and loss can hit a little too close to home with its realistic dialogue and unique group of characters. This title would be a good addition for your older teen readers.

Telling the story as a letter was very engaging. I believe this style will hold readers' attention. The storyline itself is a little redundant with a lot of other current titles, but I think the writing style and letter format could keep teen readers interested.

Teenage love is hard, no doubt.  Surely this is the person you'll be with for the rest of your life, right?  And there's no possible way you can live without them, is there?

For young Jessie, it all becomes a bit overwhelming.  Sure, she loves Chris with all her heart.  And she can't imagine her life without him.  But when things start moving a bit too fast, getting a bit too permanent, she decides to slow it down a bit.  Just a break, she tells, him.  Just one week.  A chance to take a step back and breath for a minute.  

And then Chris disappears. And she wants him back.  But it's too late.  She makes all kinds of promises to herself and everyone else.  If only he'll come home, things will be different.  She didn't really want a break.  She's sorry, she misses him, things will be better than ever.  If only it were that simple.
This story is all kinds of things at once.  It's a love story, sure.  But it's also a mystery. Exactly what did happen to Chris?  It's also a great take on teenage issues.  A great read!

I take issue with the epistolary format that serves to offer up a mystery and romance that dives into teens and mental health. The main character is white and her boyfriend is black. He has gone missing after a late night run and she is writing him letters as a way to explore the issues surrounding his absence, namely that not everyone knows everything and that she's feeling sad that she wanted a one-week break from Chris and now he might never come back.

Minus the format, it dives into friendships, family, and romance in a pretty evenly organized YA that has enough melodrama to capture many readers and sustain them. But there is no happy ending here.

Heartbreaking story about mental illness and loss. Very well written.

Although this book carries a vibe similar to 13 Reasons Why it keeps its originality with its clever use of a very flawed yet believable narrator. The brutal honesty of how suicide affects the people left behind is mesmerizing and in a way, somehow comforting. An excellent book that I would recommend to teen and older.

The summary intrigued me and I was so hoping to enjoy this one, but the writing style is a turn off and doesn't work for me.

Not for me

I received a free copy from NetGalley. Her boyfriend is missing and they were on a break. Race, in a small town, teenagers making life decisions, mental health, all the current issues are addressed in the book. A book hasn't made me cry in awhile and this one did as she tries to find her missing boyfriend, not ex-boyfriend, because they were only on a break, while dealing with a dysfunctional family life, school and work too. This would make a great book club read.

Received as an ARC from Netgalley in exchange for an honest review.

I have been going back and forth about how I felt about this book, as I was not a huge fan of the writing style. It took me awhile to get into. However; overall I still did enjoy the plot.

This is definitely a story that will pull on your heartstrings. I also think it covers very important topics that are very relevant today.

The story has twists and turns that kept my interest along the way. Like I mentioned above, this started off a little slow for me, but it was worth pushing through. It really picked up and I found myself enjoying it more and more.

Overall, a great read and I would recommend it.

In the middle of a one week break to gain some perspective before graduation, Jessie learns that her boyfriend Chris has gone missing. 

But everything's not as cut and dry as an obvious kidnapping because Jessie and Chris have been arguing over big decisions about their future, and Jessie eventually decides that they need to take a short break, something that Chris was torn over about.

She meant for them to get back together by the end of it, but when Chris vanishes, Jessie learns that things might not have been so easy on Chris as it was on her. The police think he's vanished, a runaway, but Jessie thinks a darker shade of foul play was involved. 

Chris disappeared when going on a run by the river, the same place where he was once jumped by some boys from the rival high school. As one of the only black kids in town, Chris is a bigger target and Jessie is scared about what might have happened to him. 

Through the power of social media, Jessie spurs the police into reluctant action, speaking out about Chris. Yet there are people who don't like what she's saying and Jessie begins to receive frightening threats as Chris' character is smeared. 

When they were dating, Chris wrote Jessie a love letter every Friday, but now it's Jessie's time to write her own letter to Chris as she faces her fears, guilt, and a past she doesn't want to open up. 

Trigger warning for suicide and self harm. 

This Is Not a Love Letter deals with a lot of serious topics from racism to teenage love. 

I think Purcell goes about these topics very well, dealing with the racism against Chris, one of the only black boys in the town, by showing the stark reality of what's happening while also not making him into a martyr. 
I enjoyed how she portrays these topics to the reader, weaving it along with the storyline. 

It made for a very thought-provoking plot and novel composition, and I thoroughly enjoyed reading it as it was paced well enough that I wasn't completely overwhelmed while also not super bored by uneventfulness. 

The narrative follows along with Jessie as she tries to get to the bottom of the conflict and discover what happened to her boyfriend. It's an interesting plot and keeps the reader satisfied as new clues are dropped and future events are foreshadowed well. 

I absolutely adored the storyline of finding Chris; trying to figure out the mystery of what happened to him was super intriguing and I was kept on the edge of my seat until most of the pieces were put together. 

But I had a few issues with Jessie. From an author's standpoint, she's the best narrator choice for the novel. But I had some issues with how her own storyline was portrayed. 

Jessie is an unreliable narrator, blurred by her emotions a lot of the time as she's distraught over what might have happened to Chris. She can be hormonal and annoying and sometimes made the narrative less enjoyable to read because of her irrationality at times. 

I don't mind reading untrustworthy narrators, but if this is the case, I want them to have a more defined character arc and their own growth as the story progresses.

If this story was supposed to be about Chris, I feel like making Jessie have less personality and emotional stake would have helped put the spotlight on him.

But since it seemed to be angled at the stories of both Jessie and Chris, I feel like the focus on Jessie faded away for a large portion.

A lot of the novel was less introspective and more of Jessie recalling good memories she had with Chris, rather than reflecting on the memories and coming to realizations. I found that Jessie's own character growth wasn't emphasized as much as Chris' story and we lost focus on Jessie as it was overshadowed by the search for Chris. 

I would have liked to see a larger focus on Jessie's character development as the plot developed which would have added a little more depth instead of Jessie being almost forced to come to certain conclusions about herself, or doing so in a short burst near the end.

I definitely enjoyed This Is Not a Love Letter as it was a very though provoking novel about Chris' disappearance, but I was looking for a little more on Jessie's side of the narrative. Overall, I would definitely recommend this to readers looking for stories similar to The Hate U Give and other novels dealing with more serious topics. 

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