Dear Edward by Ann Napolitano
What does it mean not just to survive, but to truly live?
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?
Dear Edward is at once a transcendent coming-of-age story, a multidimensional portrait of an unforgettable cast of characters, and a breathtaking illustration of all the ways a broken heart learns to love again.
Well…this book was just DEPRESSING AF, yall.
To be honest, I really have no idea why I picked this up in the first place.
Sometimes I get swept away when I’m at a used book sale—-ESPECIALLY at the library.
Which is exactly where I happened to purchase this book.
So I’m using that as my reason.
I just can not resist used books at an amazing price—it will forever be my kryptonite.
I mean, YALLLLL….. the hardback books were A FRIGGIN’ SOLITARY DOLLAR….AND they were used library books!
Which means they all had that delicious plastic protective cover that crinkles in that magical way while you’re turning pages….plus they SMELL like the library, which is an aroma that goes straight to my bookworm heart with a great essence of fondness.
I get carried away around used books and sometimes after I get home and I’m unpacking my bag of finds onto my shelf, I think “Wait…how did THIS get in there? I don’t remember grabbing this book. Why did I get this? This doesn’t seem much like me….”
Its like I get swept into a book black out where I don’t know my own actions and they just start JUMPING into my hands at their own accord. 🤣
I mean…books ARE magic.
Anyway, I am always down to mix things up and step outside my comfort zone, even with my books.
So here we are…
This was a very sad book from the very first chapter.
While the entire book’s theme wasn’t sadness, it WAS a story all about the many levels of grief.
It was full of tragedy and trauma….but I have to admit that it was also riveting.
The story’s focus is the one survivor of a horrific plane crash. Edward is only twelve years old when he loses both parents and his older brother.
The book goes back and forth between Edward and his years of healing after the crash and the hours onboard the flight leading up to the crash.
Which was a mix of interesting and also stressful.
You get to know a handful of characters on the flight and all their intricacies, pieces of their life stories, and their inner thoughts.
It’s so stressful because you KNOW what terrible event is looming in their near future…and it makes the losses so much more painful and tragic.
Every time a chapter starts in that time period, your nerves are just on edge…wondering if THIS is the chapter where “it” will happen.
The chapters that focus on Edward are such an exploration and examination of grief and loss…and mixed in with all of these heavy, hard things this child has to deal with is his own coming of age–growing up, school, puberty, figuring out who he is.
Experiencing such tragedy and trauma at such a pivotal young age affects all those things in so many hard to understand ways.
As someone who personally experienced the death of a parent in a very abrupt and violent way at almost the same age as Edward, I could relate to SO many of his feelings and thoughts.
I do wonder if that is why this book was such a sad read for me….because I could relate TOO well.
In the beginning years after the accident, Edward learns how to shut memories and feelings out when it all gets to be too much—he describes it as “pulling a flat sheet up over his insides”.
I know exactly what he means. I can remember doing the exact same thing.
Edward’s therapist says something at the end of the book that I think is one of the truest statements on grief I have ever heard:
“What happened is baked into your bones, Edward. It lives under your skin. It’s not going away. It’s part of you and will be part of you every moment until you die. What you’ve been working on, since the first time I met you, is learning to live with that.”
Ooof. YES.
Grief and loss stay with you for always….they may change their presentation and you may change your reaction to them…but those feelings never do truly disappear.
This was not a great before bed for me because it made me so emotional and anxious….plus like I said above it WAS riveting so thru my sadness I STILL wanted to keep reading just ONE MORE CHAPTER…
I do think this was a good, well written, and interesting book….but be in a good place emotionally when you read it so you don’t get lost in the dark cloud that looms over it.