Book Review // Dear Edward

*thank you to BOTM for this gifted copy! 

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Rating: 5/5

Synopsis:

"One summer morning, twelve-year-old Edward Adler, his beloved older brother, his parents, and 183 other passengers board a flight in Newark headed for Los Angeles. Among them are a Wall Street wunderkind, a young woman coming to terms with an unexpected pregnancy, an injured veteran returning from Afghanistan, a business tycoon, and a free-spirited woman running away from her controlling husband. Halfway across the country, the plane crashes. Edward is the sole survivor.

Edward’s story captures the attention of the nation, but he struggles to find a place in a world without his family. He continues to feel that a part of himself has been left in the sky, forever tied to the plane and all of his fellow passengers. But then he makes an unexpected discovery—one that will lead him to the answers of some of life’s most profound questions: When you’ve lost everything, how do you find the strength to put one foot in front of the other? How do you learn to feel safe again? How do you find meaning in your life?" Amazon.com

Review:

I’ve been sitting on this book for a couple of weeks now trying to find the right words to convey how much I loved this story. It felt very unique to me in the fact that this story had the accident and tragedy at the forefront of the story, but yet took until the end to piece it all together. 

Edward (age 12) is the sole survivor of a plane crash that took the life of his parents and brother (and over a hundred other people). He is then sent to live with his child-less aunt and uncle who he isn’t close with. Edward is trying to come to terms with his new reality and suffers from a myriad of issues, including survivors guilt. 

At times, it felt a bit detached because of the POV changing between adults and Edward , but only because he was a child trying to process these big feelings and life changing consequences.

It feels weird to say I loved this book because it is so so tragic. People die in such a terrible way. My anxiety was slowly building until those last few chapters before the plane crash. 

Ann Napolitano writes so beautifully that I think that’s what I loved about it. How she could paint these characters so clearly for us. That we were so invested in the well-being of Edward. We were rooting for him, and at the same time rooting for there to be more survivors, even though we know he was the only one in the end. 

*if you were a fan of Miracle Creek, I think you would like this one too.