One summer morning, a flight takes off from New York to Los Angeles. There are 216 passengers aboard: among them a young woman taking a pregnancy test in the airplane toilet; a Wall Street millionaire flirting with the air hostess; an injured soldier returning from Afghanistan; and two beleaguered parents moving across the country with their adolescent sons, bickering over who gets the window seat. When the plane suddenly crashes in a field in Colorado, the younger of these boys, 12-year-old Edward Adler, is the sole survivor.
Dear Edward depicts Edward's life in the crash's aftermath as he struggles to make sense of the meaning of his survival, the strangeness of his sudden fame, and find his place in the world without his family. In his new home with his aunt and uncle, the only solace comes from his friendship with the girl next door, Shay. Together Edward and Shay make a startling discovery: hidden in his uncle's garage are sacks of letters from the relatives of the other passengers, addressed to Edward.
As Edward comes of age against the backdrop of sudden tragedy, he must confront some of life's most profound questions: how do we make the most of the time we are given? And what does it mean not just to survive, but to truly live?
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['Since death is certain and the time of death is uncertain, what is the most important thing?']***
(@PenguinUKBooks, 27 February 2020, 368 pages, paperback, #ARC from @PenguinUKBooks, #BlogTour 15 February, #popsugarreadingchallenge 2020, a book that's published in 2020)
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I need to lie down or be cuddled or have a big mug of hot chocolate and marshmallows after reading this book. This is the first book this year to have reduced me to a blubbering, red-eyed, snot bubble of a wreck. It's safe to say that I loved this book. In fact love is too weak a word to describe how much this book touched me. I actually hugged the book against my face while sobbing and making strange snuffle noises while my partner just shook her head and went back to watching TV. She's used to such behaviour. I loved the structure of the book with chapters of Edward in the present, learning to live without his parents and brother interwoven with flashbacks on the plane from check-in at the airport right until the crash. The final chunk of the book when Edward finds out just how many people have been touched by the fact he survived almost pushed me over the edge. Dear Edward is astonishing.
