Book Review: Five Feet Apart (Contains Spoilers)

I honestly don't know where to start. Five Feet Apart by Rachael Lippincott with Mikki Daughtry and Tobias Iaconis was an amazing, quick romantic read that warmed my heart.

Will and Stella's story was so touching and just beautiful. I loved every part of the story.

Here are some reasons to love the story

1. Dual Point of View. In many books, especially standalones or novels, I feel like we don't get to really see from the love interest's perspectives. In Five Feet Apart, we get to read from Will and Stella's perspective which was just another great thing about this book to add to the list.

2. Character Development. I always really appreciate as a reader those points of realization or just overall story arc development and there is definitely that in this book. (Spoilers: I love seeing Stella realizing that she is living for others and not herself and also how she needs to let go of her guilt about Abby's death to keep going. Also, Will getting hopeful that he'll get better and him doing his treatments the way he should have from the beginning).

3. The Parallels in the Story. This ties in a bit with the reason above but I always feel amazing when the book I read has moments that are similar or reflected from earlier moments. (Spoiler: Will is tired of his disease and just doesn't get why Stella is being a goody-two-shoes in the beginning and tells her that: "It's just life. It'll be over before you know it." The Parallel is when Stella is kind of like that and Will is now the opposite after Poe dies and he wants her to get out of the cold but she's being reckless and tells him: "It's just life. It'll be over before you know it" echoing the words he had once told her.)

4. Movie & Book Symmetry. I don't know if that was the correct name for it but this was a big one for me while reading this amazing book. Before I read this book, I watched the movie when it came out. The movie was great, I cried, I loved it, etc. But an extremely common theme with book and movie adaptations of the books is how incredibly inaccurate parts of the movie can be. This is infuriating to me as a reader when I watch a movie that is supposedly based on a book but is so different from it. So, when I picked up Five Feet Apart to read it, I had low expectations regarding it being similar to the movie. But, to my surprise, the movie and book were so similar, it felt like they actually were the same story.

5. Deeper Insight into both Character's thought processes. This is kind of a no-brainer but since I watched the movie before I read the book, there were some moments where it was a bit hard to understand why the character was really doing something or had that reaction. When reading this book, I was able to understand them better and get why that happened which overall adds to the experience. (Spoiler: basically how Stella was getting messed up by Will not doing his treatments in the movie. I don't think it really showed why, even though it said she had control issues. In the book, it was really easy to understand how she was getting messed up and why she had to step in).

6. The EPILOGUE!!! This is a huge one and contains major spoilers so skip it if you aren't into that. (Spoiler: The movie doesn't really have an epilogue but when there was an epilogue in the book, I felt my heart drop. What was literally running through my mind was "Oh my god! Will's dead. They're gonna show him dead" and I was so upset and was just really apprehensive. However, to my relief, he was still alive, and playing on his phone was Stella's recent video where she tells their story and how important touch is. They meet each other at the airport and it just lifts that weight off my chest. It made the read a thousand times better to me even though without the epilogue, the story would have been amazing anyway.)

There are millions of other reasons to love the book like Will and Stella as characters, learning about CF, just enjoying a love story that focuses on the feelings, and not just kissing and kissing(even though that's nice to read too), etc.

Quotes:

Other thoughts:

Poe's death was so so sad. It kills me every time I read a character's death and this was no exception. Poe is just that loveable best friend that you care about so much and learning about his family and how he and Michael were going to try and make things work made his death so much more painful.

I honestly wish this book was longer so I could enjoy it more. I understand the perks of a short, good read and this book was definitely that, but (and I have this problem with many novels) I always get upset when I don't have a lot of time/pages to really get into the story and enjoy it more. This is why I tend to stick to reading series so that I can lose myself in that world for a few days, but with novels, especially ones that are short, like this, it feels like the story is over too soon.

However, I would 100% recommend reading this book. It was amazing and if you are looking for a short, cute, romantic read then Five Feet Apart is a choice you have to consider.

If you agree or have any thoughts about this book, comment them below.

Thanks for reading and see you next time!

Bye!