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Original poster

Good books in email/letter/text form?

34 replies

ThisMomentIsReal · 14/11/2021 00:27

When I was in my mid-teens, I enjoyed a series of books by Jaclyn Moriarty that were largely written in the form of letters and notes. I also read a series of books which were instant-message conversations, the Internet girls by Lauren Myracle. I enjoyed these formats, and that they are different to how most books are.
Does anyone have any recommendations of books in these formats that they enjoyed?
Thanks!

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Hazelnut5 · 22/11/2021 14:09

I’d also recommend The Poet X by Elizabeth Acevedo about a 15 yo black girl in the US. The only place she can express herself is freely is in a private notebook where she writes poems. The story is her poems.

EBearhug · 22/11/2021 13:06

Meet Me At the Museum was serialised on Radio 4 a while back, with Tamsin Greig and Paul Ritter, which was great.

Hazelnut5 · 22/11/2021 12:58

Notes to my Mother in Law, by Phyllida Law. It’s notes left by the actress Phyllida Law to her elderly deaf mother in law when she came to live with them. It’s a delightful book.

PenCreed · 20/11/2021 22:42

Ella Minnow Pea by Mark Dunn - not only is it in epistolary form but they progressively use fewer and fewer letters of the alphabet!

Attchments by Rainbow Rowell is emails and is quite fun as well.

StormyCornishSeas · 18/11/2021 14:13

@MumofSpud

Life On a refrigerator door Sad
This

Really sad but the way it's written is good and meets the objective of this thread

ChristmasCalamity · 18/11/2021 14:10

The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society. Really easy to get into and enjoyable.

RomanMum · 17/11/2021 17:01

Another recommendation for Meet Me At The Museum.

Alltheprettyseahorses · 17/11/2021 08:03

Dracula

MilduraS · 15/11/2021 21:34

The Mitfords Letters between six sisters. I really enjoyed it.

JuneOsborne · 15/11/2021 07:03

Maybe off-piste but Galileo's Daughter by Dava Sobel is based on, and features, the letters one of them wrote to the other (the other half of the letters didn't survive) and is very compelling.

UnaOfStormhold · 15/11/2021 06:58

"Sorcery and Cecilia or, the enchanted chocolate pot" is great fun if you feel like something lighter.

DBI78 · 15/11/2021 06:51

Cecilia Ahern, Where rainbows end.

NEE1302 · 14/11/2021 23:26

Lucy Talk by Fiona Walker (chic lit)
The Three by Sarah Lotz (horror/suspense)

MumofSpud · 14/11/2021 23:22

@Purplebear37

"Life on the refrigerator door" is written in post-it form. It's a YA but actually very good, and was very popular with the teens I teach.
Aaaah just seen you put this as well! Also Ways to live Forever My students backed out of the library when they saw me sobbing !
MumofSpud · 14/11/2021 23:21

Life On a refrigerator door
Sad

Original poster
ThisMomentIsReal · 14/11/2021 22:26

@Purplebear37
I read Life on the Refrigerator Door as a teenager too. It was really good and still stuck with me, so I can see why it would be popular with the teens you teach. The author's book Lost for Words was also really good.

OP posts:
Purplebear37 · 14/11/2021 22:23

"Life on the refrigerator door" is written in post-it form. It's a YA but actually very good, and was very popular with the teens I teach.

Auntpodder · 14/11/2021 22:19

Where Did You Go Bernadette by Maria Semple. Loved it. Much better than the dire film with Cate Blanchette

MsAmerica · 14/11/2021 22:14

@ArblemarchTFruitbat

If you are up for a French classic epistolary novel, Dangerous Liaisons (Les Liaisons Dangereuses) by Choderlos de Leclos is brilliant. I read it in the Penguin translation. The film, starring Glenn Close and John Malkovich is also very good.
I wouldn't have been brave enough to suggest something in the distant past, but as long as you did...

I love Lady Susan, by Jane Austen, which might be her funniest novel, albeit not well-known. And it's also a movie, re-named Love and Friendship," which is possibly the most Janeite of the Austen movies ever made.

By the way, in thinking this over, I just learned about something called Love Letters between a Nobleman and His Sister, by Aphra Behn (1684), which I'm going to investigate.

Original poster
ThisMomentIsReal · 14/11/2021 20:45

Thanks everyone!

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Winterfellismyhome · 14/11/2021 19:48

Daisy jones and the six is written like an interview and is great

Riverlee · 14/11/2021 19:46

Daisy and the Six

Copperas · 14/11/2021 14:57

Meet me at the Museum is wonderful

DaysLikeThis1 · 14/11/2021 14:53

Black Box by Jennifer Egan. It is a sci fi, short story written as a series of tweets. Was pretty cheap on kindle (not sure if still there as I bought it a very long time ago)

JaneJeffer · 14/11/2021 14:29

Love Nina by Nina Stibbe