Five Feet Apart - Rachael Lippincott, Mikki Daughtry and Tobias Iaconis

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?

Blurb taken from Goodreads 

✼

I’d never really noticed this book too much, except to mentally clock that there was a film adaptation of the story coming out. A few weeks ago, it was brought to my attention, and I suddenly found myself with a really special reason to read it.

From the blurb, I thought the story was going to be too much like The Fault in Our Stars or Everything, Everything, because the concept was just so similar. I had some reservations about whether or not this story could actually be unique.

What I think I underestimated was just how sweet this story was going to be. After all, that’s what I love about young adult fiction: it has the ability to break your heart and make you giddy all at the same time. The way Stella and Will interact made the story come to life, and I ended up falling in love with this special story.

Rating: ✫✫✫✫✫

SPOILER ALERT

The Story

This was the classic teen romance; the star-crossed lovers of the hospital. Tragic, dramatic, and utterly adorable. On that trend, the first big tick came from the fact that both Stella and Will are very likeable, but very real characters.

Stella has all of the hopefulness of an optimistic child, whilst being realistic enough to follow her schedule down to the second. You can’t help but like her as a protagonist. She’s strong, but at the same time evidently very vulnerable. Will, on the other hand, has no optimism, but in many ways also doesn’t have a sense of reality either. He pays little attention to the feelings of people around him, including his own mother, and lives in his own negative bubble. But he’s really endearing in the way that he chooses to live life in that little bubble. He just wants to really live his life, which is something that I, for one, can totally appreciate. Adventure over everything. The two really complement each other, which made their relationship really engaging to read about. Stella brings Will down to earth a little, whereas Will helps Stella dream a little bit bigger than what she has come to know. I loved being able to follow their story and witness their relationship develop. Will grew to appreciate his life, and although he still wanted to live it, he learnt that it was okay to still be optimistic. Stella learnt that you can’t live your life for someone else. I loved every little exchange between them, and with every page I became more and more invested in their relationship.

But there is that fatal flaw: they have to stay five feet apart (well, technically six, but if five is good enough for Stella then it’s good enough for me). Eugh. It broke my little heart. It’s a really interesting concept to build the story on, and one that I think was done really well. You know you’ve written a love story well when the reader becomes obsessed with every one of their interactions, despite the fact that they never actually go too near each other. Their little date round the hospital was adorable. Actually, let’s be fair, every one of their conversations is adorable. It’s impossible not to read this book and smile constantly, especially when, like me, you’re a romantic at heart.

The one issue I did have with the story revolved around Poe. Poe was a fabulous character. He’s sweet, sassy, and he brings some much needed roughness to the sickly story. It’s nice that Stella has another constant in her life to lean on. Well, until she doesn’t have him anymore. I won’t go into too much detail about how much it broke my heart when he died, as that’s pretty much a given. I just felt that it was too rushed. He died, and then all of a sudden he was forgotten. I do understand that his death functioned primarily as the catalyst for Stella to throw caution to the wind, but it didn’t seem to make as much sense to me as perhaps was intended.

Stella has lived her life cautiously. It’s inevitable that that would end at some point. However, for her to entirely throw her life into the danger zone all in one go was just a tad unrealistic for me. Even more so that Will, who clearly loves the bones of her, would let her so easily. It felt a little like her character became totally different for a few chapters just to make the point of a mighty climax. Nonetheless, it was really beautiful imagining her first real adventure in life that wasn't defined by her illness.

When things started to go really wrong, I felt all the pain that the story was designed to inflict. Will trying to resuscitate her, and her refusing to accept a new pair of lungs: those scenes were so emotional. I’m not ashamed to admit that I was crying by that point. Like I said - tragic. When Will walked away to give her a chance at life, I was so emotional. Stella is such a beautiful character, and it's no wonder Will falls in love with her. She has such optimism and hope, even if it’s just on behalf of her parents. I was so glad to see her get a happy ending, even if it wasn’t with Will. He just worshipped the ground she walked on and would have done anything for her. It was so sweet. And so heartbreaking that they couldn’t be together.

Because isn’t that what we all want? To love, and be loved back. This was an extraordinary love story, and anything less than extraordinary in love just isn’t good enough.

The Verdict

I didn't fully expect to love this book. I thought the idea of two really sick teenagers falling in love had maybe already been done well enough, and wasn't sure what else this could bring to the table. I really underestimated the power of a good love story. 

This book isn't unique in the way it is written, or by any new ideas that it puts forward. But it is special in the way that it presents love. The way that Stella and Will love each other is totally unselfish, totally pure, and totally extraordinary. I fell in love with these two characters over the course of the book, in the same way that they fell in love with each other. That's the power of this story, and that's why I absolutely adored reading it. 

It wasn't a book I ever really expected to pick up necessarily, but words cannot express how grateful I am for what it symbolises. I more than like it, and it will always hold a special place in my heart.