Review: Five Feet Apart by Rachel Lippincott Mikki Daughtry and Tobias Iaconis

Hi all my bookworms!

How are you all?

I hope that you are all keeping safe and well and staying at home.

Today I am finally going to get around to reviewing Five Feet Apart by Rachel Lippincott, Mikki Daughtry and Tobias Iaconis.

I took me a little while to get my head around exactly what I wanted to say about this book but I think that I am finally there and we may even have fully formed sentences rather than the brain vomit that has occurred the last few times I have tried to write this.  But first let’s introduce the book.

Name: Five Feet Apart

Author: Rachel Lippincott, Mikki Daughtry and Tobias Ianconis

Publisher: Simon and Schuster

Date published: 20th November 2018

Format: Paerback

Page number:

Genre: Young Adult, Romance, Contemporary Fiction

Rating: ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

Blurb: In this moving story two teens fall in love with just one minor complication—they can’t get within five feet of each other without risking their lives.

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?

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To begin with, let me say that I wasn’t sure I wanted to read this book.  I bought it in one of my Waterstones bulk binge buys and when I looked into it more I was even more intrigued.  The book came out in November 2019 and the film was released in March 2019.  That’s four months from book release to film release.  To me that says that the book was optioned before the book was even published.  Rare for a book to get optioned that quick, especially with a debut author.  I have a feeling this book was optioned before it was even published.

On the other hand, I was quite nervous about reading this.  Two sick kids who fall in love.  Does that story sound familiar to anyone else?  I read Fault in Our Stars by John Green.  I was slightly traumatised by that book and I didn’t want to have the same experience with this book.

But I picked it up.

And I read it.

And I have to say, bookworms, I don’t regret reading.

Those four stars are really well deserved.

This is a hate-to-love trope book but I have to say that Will and Stella’s hate for each other comes from a fear of what the other represents, but in many ways the characters are so similar.  They both want to have some control in their life.

Stella was an amazing character and I have to say that I would put her as my favourite character but Poe has her beaten out.  Cooking amazing food makes a top character any day in my book.  There’s another thing about Poe and his relationship with Stella.  Those two are best friends and they never get within six feet of each other.  Me and my best friend, we’re real huggers.  In fact I’m quite a huggy person.  I’m not sure I could put that space between me and my best friend.

But beyond Stella Will and Poe I found the rest of the characters 2D and laking in background and dimension.  You don’t see many characters beyond Will, Poe, Stella and the hospital staff, but the moments when they were there it drew attention from the main characters.

The plot and the story I loved.  The progression from enemies to friends and more worked for me and I understand their attraction to each other.  I don’t want to give away any spoilers but I love the final chapter and the ending to the book … I struggled not to jump up and down in my seat when I read those final sentences.

Part of me would love to know what happens next but the other part of me doesn’t want to know and wants to leave it to my imagination.  I think a second book would kill the imaginary couple that I have in my head.

I loved this book so much more than Fault in Our Stars and I think it is preposterous that anyone would compare the two books.  This book is a lot more positive and looking on the bright side, something that I think the world sorely needs right now.

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I hope that you read the book, and if you do let me know what you think.  Enjoy and happy reading. 

One last thing before I go.  I haven’t yet watched the film and I have plenty of time at the moment.  Would any of you want me to watch the film and post a review and comparison to the book on here?  Please leave thoughts and opinions in the comments.