Review of FIVE FEET APART by Rachael Lippincott

2.5 Stars

I’m not certain how this book came to be our book club read.  It’s a Young Adult romance based on a screenplay.  Like The Fault in Our Stars, it’s yet another book about teenagers with a chronic/terminal illness.

Stella Grant and Will Newman are teenagers in a hospital for treatment for cystic fibrosis.  The two begin a budding romance though, because of concerns about infection, they are, at all times, to remain at least six feet apart.  Stella follows her treatment regimen religiously because she is hoping for a lung transplant; Will, however, is ineligible for such a transplant because he has contracted B. cepacia, a bacterial infection that is highly transmissible and drug resistant. 

As is to be expected in YA romances, Stella and Will are opposites who are immediately attracted to each other though they do not make positive impressions when they first meet.  Stella is the rule-follower and Will is the rule-breaker.  Despite their differences, they make a connection and in a short time change the other’s outlook and make him/her a better person.  “It’s like seeing everything for the first time.  I didn’t know it was possible for a person to make old things become new again” (188).  Yikes!

There are many unrealistic events.  A nurse breaks confidentiality and tells Stella about Will:  “’A CFer and then some.  B. cepacia.  He’s part of the new drug trial for Cevaflomalin’” (36)?  Stella and Will and their friend Poe have the run of the hospital so that it becomes their playground?  The birthday party scene is totally unrealistic!  Stella has an infection and the doctor says that staff will keep an eye on it (98 – 99); the next time it’s mentioned, that doctor says, “’We need to take care of this.  It’s too far gone’” (126)?!  Stella has a surgical procedure under general anesthesia even though her lungs, functioning at only 35%, may not be strong enough.  Nonetheless, hours after the procedure, she’s sprinting across the hospital, even up and down stairs (158 – 160)!?

There is also unnecessary melodrama.  The narrative involving Abby is just too much, as is the plotline involving the one character of colour (who also happens to be gay).  And don’t get me started on the scene on the ice.  There is just too much emotional manipulation.

The book can be commended for raising awareness about cystic fibrosis, but I have concerns about the realism of the portrayal of the disease.  CFers often have major digestive problems and mucous tends to be much more of an issue than any of the CFers in the book experience.  It seems to me that we have a sanitized version of this genetic condition.