I’ve had this book on my radar for a while. In my current quest to find books about illness, it drifted up to the top of my TBR – it helped that I also wanted to watch the movie and felt like the book had to come first.
I’m going to be up front right away and tell you that I was disappointed in this book. The characters weren’t flat, exactly, but they also didn’t make me feel deeply attached. The two main characters seemed a bit too stereotypical and didn’t have enough realistic development for me to get a true sense of them. The plot didn’t intrigue me that much, and I saw a lot of it coming a mile off. And there were inconsistencies in how the medical details were handled that made it hard for me to buy into the premise.
I think it’s a book that will likely appeal more to younger audiences. I look for YA books that are written with enough maturity to appeal to adult readers as well. I think this is one that misses that mark. There isn’t enough depth and perspective here for me to feel like it transcended its intended audience. But I think teenaged readers will probably enjoy it much more than I did.
The main thing this book has going for it, and that I deeply appreciated, is that it does bring a voice to a set of characters who, until the last decade or so, rarely got to be lead characters in stories. The characters in this book are suffering from chronic illness (cystic fibrosis) and have been in and out of hospitals for most of their young lives. They have grown up under the constant threat of death, and that experience isn’t one that is easy to relate to if you haven’t lived it. It’s also something that makes you grow up quickly, and that robs you of the carefree part of childhood that contains the magic of youth. That this book tried to put some magic and fun back into circumstances that are very far from ideal is a great story to tell. I’m a huge fan of books that take diversity to heart and bring in people who are never looked at as heroes, but whose daily struggle just to continue living takes a huge amount of courage and will to survive. To do so and still find a desire to see life as having possibilities rather than limitations is even harder. So for this I applaud it.
But that said, I am still left with a feeling of disappointment and a general sense of “meh.” It’s not bad, it’s just not the stellar, emotional, page-turning read I was hoping for. This is yet another book I can’t say you absolutely must read, but that I think will appeal to people looking for diversity in their reading, books for teen readers and who have an interest in chronic medical conditions and what it’s like to live with one.
Can you love someone you can never touch?
Stella Grant likes to be in control—even though her totally out of control lungs have sent her in and out of the hospital most of her life. At this point, what Stella needs to control most is keeping herself away from anyone or anything that might pass along an infection and jeopardize the possibility of a lung transplant. Six feet apart. No exceptions.
The only thing Will Newman wants to be in control of is getting out of this hospital. He couldn’t care less about his treatments, or a fancy new clinical drug trial. Soon, he’ll turn eighteen and then he’ll be able to unplug all these machines and actually go see the world, not just its hospitals.
Will’s exactly what Stella needs to stay away from. If he so much as breathes on Stella she could lose her spot on the transplant list. Either one of them could die. The only way to stay alive is to stay apart. But suddenly six feet doesn’t feel like safety. It feels like punishment.
What if they could steal back just a little bit of the space their broken lungs have stolen from them? Would five feet apart really be so dangerous if it stops their hearts from breaking too? – Goodreads
Book Title: Five Feet Apart
Author: Rachael Lippincott
Series: No
Edition: Hardback
Published By: Simon Shuster Books
Released: November 20, 2018
Genre: Fiction, Young Adult, Illness
Pages: 288
Date Read: May 18-22, 2019
Rating: 6/10
Average Goodreads Rating: 4.19/5 (31,354 ratings)