Read It Before You See The Movie!

Five Feet Apart

by Rachael Lippincott

Hardcover, 288 pages

Published November 20th 2018 by Simon Schuster Books for Young Readers

ISBN: 9781534437333

Library

ABOUT:

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)

RATING: 4 Stars

REVIEW:

This book is marketed as being just like “A Fault In Our Stars”. If you’re only looking at a romance between two sick kids then yes, it’s exactly like that. In reality though it has a lot of differences. 

The two main characters of this story share the same disease, Cystic Fibrosis.  They aren’t supposed to get within six feet of each other, so of course that means they can never ever touch. But when you’re a teenager and a cute boy is staying right next door, of course crushes occur. And crushes can lead to romance. To take back a little bit of what their diseases have stolen from them, the main characters decided to live by the new five feet apart rule. 

Possible spoiler….

Of course at one point they end up touching in order to save one of their lives. They both live to see the end of the book but you know they both aren’t going to live long (especially one of them). They also aren’t together at the end of the book. How can you really have a romance if you can’t touch or get to close? Our two teens do learn a lot from each other and in the end come away with new views on life because of it. 

I enjoyed this book mostly because I learned things about a disease that I wasn’t really familiar with. It made me see things through someone else’s eyes and made me look at my life a bit differently. It wasn’t the best written books, I think mostly because it’s taken from a screen play to a movie, but it did keep me interested up until the end. Because I have seen the trailer for the movie I kept picturing Cole Sprouse as Will. I feel like that might have made things a bit more entertaining for me as well. 

For the most part I think any teen could read this book and enjoy it. There is mention of two side characters having sex but it is such a tiny piece in an otherwise pretty clean book.