Title: Five Feet Apart
Author: Rachael Lippincott
Series: Standalone
Publisher: Simon & Schuster Books for Young Readers
Publication Date: November 20, 2018
Genre: Young Adult, Contemporary, Romance
Source: Received an advanced copy from Simon & Schuster/NetGalley in exchange for an honest review

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Rating: 3 stars

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?

Review:

Five Feet Apart is a story about Stella and Will, two teens with cystic fibrosis. Because they both have CF, they can never get within six feet of each other. If they do, Stella risks losing her place on the lung transplant list, and they both risk dying.

Reading this book, I was sure that it was going to break my heart into a million unrepairable pieces. It sounded like a mix of The Fault in our Stars (I spent 90% of that movie crying and don’t think I can ever watch it again because of that) and Everything, Everything (read the book in 24 hours, didn’t cry but it still had an impact).

To be completely honest, this book was nothing like either. I never had a connection to either of the characters or their romance. I never felt like I was cheering from them to figure something out or for a mircale cure to drop out of the sky. The only character I was cheering for to find the best happily ever after imaginable was Poe. And we’re not even going to get me started on that storyline.

The story had so much potential to be that deep, emotional kind of story that tugs at every heartstring and leaves the kind of impact that won’t let you forget it. Unfortunately, it didn’t meet that potential. Everything was written very surface level. There were many moments where characters could have been developed further or situations could have been more emotional, but it stayed very basic. This prevented me from having any kind of true attachement to the story.

Overall, I thought it was a good story in the sense that it brought important awareness to cystic fibrosis. However, I personally felt it was lacking in depth.

About Rachael Lippincott:

Rachael Lippincott was born in Philadelphia and raised in Bucks County, Pennsylvania. She holds a BA in English writing from the University of Pittsburgh. She currently resides in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, splitting her time between writing and running a food truck with her partner.