Cassandra Campbell

Ann Napolitano

A Novel

Dear Edward

NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • Read with Jenna Book Club Pick as Featured on Today • A “dazzling” novel that “will break your heart and put it back together again” (J. Courtney Sullivan, bestselling author of Saints for All Occasions) about a young boy who must learn to go on after surviving tragedy NAMED ONE OF THE BEST BOOKS OF THE YEAR BY The Washington Post • Parade • LibraryReads • “A reading experience that leaves you profoundly altered for the better . . . Don’t miss this one.”—Jodi Picoult, bestselling author of Small Great Things and A Spark of Light 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. Praise for Dear Edward “Dear Edward made me think, nod in recognition, care about its characters, and cry, and you can’t ask more of a novel than that.”—Emma Donoghue, New York Times bestselling author of Room “Weaving past and present into a profoundly beautiful, page-turning story of mystery, loss, and wonder, Dear Edward is a meditation on survival, but more important, it is about carving a life worth living. It is about love and hope and caring for others, and all the transitory moments that bind us together.”—Hannah Tinti, author of The Twelve Lives of Samuel Hawley and The Good Thief

haley kendall owen

A look at grief, trauma and people’s obsession with tragedy. Told through alternating timelines and POV. Easy to read, emotional, will leave you to ponder.

Abigail F

Kaitlin Simpson

A Great, Heart-wrenching Read 

Wow, what a book. I feel like I got punched in the heart, wow. The story is captivating and well-written. Definitely a great read. It’s very emotional with some powerful and thoughtful quotes.

Kacie bulpitt

I am very conflicted and disappointed with my thoughts of this book, I think the hype of this book didn’t help as I thought it was going to be amazing because everyone I saw had thought it was.

 For me it wasn’t, I think the idea of the story is amazing and the fact that it is based on true events makes it even better but some things in the story weren’t explored enough for me. It was also emphasised so much about how it was a really emotional and heart wrenching book but I didn’t have a tear in my eye at any moment and for me that is really rare. If a book is sad then it’s ten times worse for me.

I felt a bit lost with the characters and didn’t feel myself connecting much with them, however I would still recommend this book because I am definitely the small minority who didn’t love this book so much and that wasn’t because of the storyline, it was more the way it was written.

Stefanie  Uwah

When I’m reading, I don’t need to emotionally connect or fall in love with the characters but I do need there to be depth and nuance. That is what this book was missing. Depth and nuance in every aspect, even in the writing. I never got pulled into the story because the characters were quite one dimensional and there were a lot of details that didn’t add up. We flip from past and present. The present includes just Edward’s POV, while the past includes multiple passengers in the plane. Since we have very little time with the passengers when compared to Edward, it feels as though they turn into caricatures of real people in order to get their story across as quickly as possible. There are moments where the book has space to make a point on race and gender issues and it does so in such a lukewarm manner that I’d rather they had just left it alone. The actions of those in mourning were so disrespectful and I hated how the author spun it to make it positive. This book was trying with something but I don’t think it was well executed.

(I realized after reading a handful of reviews that this book is inspired by a true story of a 2010 plane crash flying from South Africa to London in which. A 9yo boy is the sole survivor and his family dies in the crash. Considering that, the handling of this story is a lot more disrespectful that I thought.)

Best Part: Florida. I really enjoyed reading about Florida.

Worst Part: On the very first page, the family is going through security at the airport. The kids put their items in the bins haphazardly and the book says, “His sons are messier, throwing sneakers on top of laptops and wallets.” I pause because, obviously, electronics are put in their own separate bin. I kept waiting for the author to write about how a disgruntled TSA agent corrected them and made the father smile sheepishly (that’s a word authors use, right?). But it never happened. The very first page set me on edge and moments like this are riddled throughout the book.

Cheri McElroy

I can’t do this book justice. The survival of one 12 year old boy, and his journey to live with this loss and still experience a full life, touched me deeply. This is one of the best books about loss, grief, life and love I have ever read. Edward touched my heart.

kate humphreys 

This was such a beautiful read, so heartbreaking, so raw.

Celeste Richardson

Actual rating: 4.5 stars, rounded up.

I loved this book. The story ended up being so much more hopeful than I expected. Edward’s journey from normalcy to survival to learning to live again is incredibly encouraging to anyone who has ever undergone trauma. Because no matter what we’ve faced in our lives, next to none of us have ever undergone a tragedy quite like the one Edward endures.
“There is a note of relief. They have somewhere to start, even if it is the worst place imaginable.”
We know from the synopsis that something terrible is going to happen to flight 2977, and that Edward is going to be the lone survivor. There was some part of me that expected this to be a different type of survival story, one where Edward finds himself alone amid the rubble and has to make his way back to civilization with nothing but his wits and luck to guide him through some kind of wilderness. That is not this story. Edward is found amid the wreckage. He recuperates in a hospital and has family that takes him in. But this is still the tale of how he survived emotionally what killed his parents and brother and nearly two hundred others. 
“What do we live for, if it is not to make life less difficult to each other?”
Napolitano does a brilliant job of portraying grief in all its stages. And she does it through the growth of a child, which adds an extra layer of difficulty to what her protagonist is facing. We see Edward not only survive the crash, we also observe his physical healing and growth as he ages. As much as he might wish otherwise, the development of his body means that he’s growing up and away from those he lost. I can’t imagine my own growth from child to teen and beyond being a source of pain for me because it was a constant reminder that I lived where my family did not. But children are resilient, and Edward proves that again and again, even if that resiliency is against his own will.
“Everything ends,” she says. “That’s nothing to be sad about. What matters is what starts in that moment.”
I find it so interesting that the loss that breaks Edward is not that of his parents, but that of his brother. There can never be enough books about positive sibling relationships, in my opinion. My brother is one of my very best friends, and I can’t imagine losing him. I’m fortunate enough to also have a wonderful relationship with my parents, who I still see everyday, but there’s something so special about having a sibling who you not only love, but actually enjoy being around. That’s the kind of relationship that Edward and his brother, Jordan, had. Edward feels like he has to live his life not only for himself, but for his older brother who never had a chance to grow up. But does he own that same to every other passenger who perished on the flight that left him a brother-less orphan? Is there some reason that he was the lone survivor, or was it just luck?
“Take stock of who we are, and what we have, and then use it for good.”
This is a story about the difference between surviving and actually living. How many of us are satisfied with floating from day to day merely existing and carrying on a well-worn cycle we’ve built for ourselves? If you had survived something as traumatic as a plane crash, would you feel that you needed to live your life more intentionally instead of simply coasting? I hope that, when my time on earth comes to an end, I and those I leave behind will feel that I made the most of every single day.
“This was not a tragedy. Dying on your couch watching TV by yourself is a tragedy. Dying while doing something you love with every part of your body is magic. I wish you magic, Edward.”
Dear Edward was not an easy book. But it was ultimately a hopeful one. It’s a unique if painful take on the classic coming-of-age trope. Though the subject matter was heartbreaking, it was handled in such a way that the story was compulsively readable and interlaced with humor, both in Edward’s present and in the multi-character narration of the events of the flight itself. This is an incredibly well balanced book that I feel could be the right book for just about any adult reader.

You can find  this review and more at Novel Notions.

courtney garrison

Dear Edward is not a light read by any means. This story is heartbreaking and sad. Edward is the sole survivor of a plane crash leaving him to leave with his aunt and uncle.

I honestly have picked this up twice and ended up putting it down and it put me in a slump it is that heavy of a read. This story deals with death, grief, heartbreak and trying to pick the pieces up and carry on when you feel you’ve lost everything.

You watch Edward throughout the story heal and deal with grief and learning to take care of himself and do what helps him get by with the grief.

The writing is beautiful and shows you how someone deals with such a loss and the weight of being the only one left. I honestly broke down crying throughout parts of the story towards the end because it was just so incredibly sad.

One aspect I did like even though it was what made me cry was that you flip back and forth between Edward healing after and the passengers when Edward and his family boarded. You get to know each passenger and their life and it made it all the more heartbreaking.

Overall I enjoyed dear Edward and it really put into priority that the little stuff doesn’t matter. Love one another and be kind. Enjoy the time you have and make the most of it because you are not guaranteed tomorrow. Dear Edward will stick with me for a long while.

TW - Death, Plane crash, talk of suicide, talk of abortion, miscarriage.

Rebeca Keren Nuñez

Muy bien escrita, monta paralelamente dos tiempos diferentes en la historia, lo que es sumamente interesante, ademas porque conecta muy bien a los personajes en el pasado, con el presente del protagonista. Personalmente no sé que esperaba del final, pero sé que no fue lo que esperaba. De todas formas, si bien no me encanto, es una buena historia. Algo que no supe hasta el final y que es interesante, es que esta inspirado en hechos reales.

Tee Ng

This book tells an incredible journey of how a boy, losing his whole family in a plane crash, deal with his grief and find the answer to life-long questions: what would happen if one day our most loved ones disappear, what it is mean to be ‘alive’ and not just ‘survive’, do we really have that much time to waste, etc. It hit me hard as I could practically feel and think like the characters. At first, I didn’t like it much to a point where I stopped for a while. In the first few chapters the pace is pretty slow and I don’t see much character development. However, later on it is pretty hard to put down so personally, I think it is totally worth a shot.

All in all, this is a sad, melancholic and impressive book. There are times when I just want to cry my heart out and give Edward, Shay or any other people included in the book a big virtual hug. But I can assure you that despite all that heartbreaking moments, this book is everything but depressing.

Cindy Lieberman

A young boy is the only survivor of a plane crash. This book alternates between the people on the plane and the aftermath for Edward/Eddie. Slow at times: I had to speed up the audiobook significantly.

riley dawson

Dear Edward has been on my TBR list for a year. I’m usually not one who preorders books or buys the hottest new read right away. Sometimes books that are hyped up by the media tend to be a disappointment. Not in this case. I bought this book a year ago, as my first book of the month subscription book choice. I read the first ten pages, and just couldn’t get into it. I put it on a shelf, hadn’t picked it up at all. 

I’ve been going through a lot of stress right now, and have been having a hard time finding a book that is a decent distraction from everything going on in my life. I’ve picked up several highly rated and recommended novels, both from the library itself and using their ebook service and reading on my kindle. Even though I own a hardcover copy of this book, sometimes holding a physical book is exhausting for me when I get into these depressive and low states. They don’t usually last long, but this one has been for a couple months now. Adding to the stress of a pandemic, depression, anxiety and my dad being diagnosed with stage three cancer, I’ve had a lot on my plate. 

I saw Dear Edward was available on my local library’s ebook service, and decided to give it a try. That was late Monday night, and it’s now Thursday morning. I stayed up until 3am reading, then woke up early this morning to finish the last 50 pages or so. 

The ending wasn’t really what I was expecting, but in a way it kind of was. I definitely felt closure for Edward. When he went to the tarot card reader that Mahira went to, I don’t know why I just felt that it was Florida. I can’t stop thinking about it. I was really hoping that something more would’ve come from that. When she told Linda that they were okay, and that she was going to love her and her baby, I teared up a little. The love and light that woman radiated was just so wholesome. I want someone in my life like Florida. I don’t know why her storyline resonated with me, but it did. 

If I’m being honest, I did cry a little at the end. Ive been emotional as it is, and it just broke me, but in a good way. Edward found the peace he’d been looking for ever since the crash. All those years of feeling like he lost everything, when he gained so much more. All that pain he endured, and he learned how to live with it. It just goes to show that time does heal most things. Things are hard in the moment, and you don’t think there’s any way past it. It’s hard to look at the future, when things seem so bleak. He found peace and happiness, even after losing everything.

Kaitlyn Wendler

Really wanted to love this book, but struggled to complete it from start to finish. Has an intriguing storyline, however wasn’t captivating and I found myself checking how many pages were left from start to finish. 

Sam Dietzler

mini review to come eventually but i loved this and it kinda felt like one of those cleansing reads

KADY BURNS

At first I was really invested but around the halfway mark I found myself skimming a bunch, especially the sections that take place on the plane. Didn't really connect with those characters.

Brian Walborn

Dear Edward is a love letter to hope, perseverance, and the way in which one survives. I jumped into this one only with a cursory knowledge of the plot. As it turns out, the tale hit close to home and I found the character development and prose near perfection and true to form. If you want a novel that is true to character and written with near poetic grace and pacing, I suggest you try this one. This is a story of lives lost and lives reborn and a tour de force from Ann Napolitano. At once mesmerizing and completely unforgettable. This will be the novel to beat for 2020.

Maxime van der Wal

** spoiler alert **
           3.5 stars
Am I the only one who thought the motive behind the pilot’s mistake was super unbelievable? How can you make a mistake that simple and then do it  twice ?! 

Apart from that, it wasn’t a bad book - I just feel like it had the potential to be so much more hard-hitting than it ended up being. We’re dealing with extreme childhood trauma here, but the writing was too detached for me to fully connect with Edward’s grief (though, in retrospect, that could signify his state of dissociation?)

Either way, it ended up being a little underwhelming for me unfortunately.

Vitor Augusto Dal Molin 

Maria 

** spoiler alert **
           This book made me cry; so many times we watched Edward go though having a family to losing it all in one moment. It was very heartbreaking to me, but also seeing all the people on the plane, meeting them, and getting to know each one of their stories while all-knowing they will eventually die. 😭I really like Edward's aunt & uncle, they took him in even though they were going through their own trials and tribulations. Desperately wanting a child of their own. Lacey and John went through the tragedy of miscarriage after miscarriage. To then finding out, they may never have a child of their own due to Lacey's health. 



What stuck with me the most and is the biggest take away from reading this book is the bond and formation of relationships outside of your direct family members that can truly help a person rise through the depths of despair. Edward's relationships with Shay and Principal Arundhi are prime examples of the kindest that all of us have inside. Uniquely, more so was the author's rendition of storytelling. The way she goes from past to present adds a certain "je ne sais quai" to the overall flow of the book, making it fresh and interesting for the mind. I couldn't put the book down! This book is definitely a must-read, one of my favorite books thus far for 2020.

Maxine Chen

THE NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER A transcendent coming-of-age story about the ways a broken heart learns to love again. One summer morning, a flight takes off from New York to Los Angeles: there are 192 people aboard. When the plane suddenly crashes, twelve-year-old Edward Adler is the sole survivor. In the aftermath, Edward struggles to make sense of his grief, sudden fame and find his place in a world without his family. But then Edward and his neighbour Shay make a startling discovery; hidden in his uncle's garage are letters from the relatives of other passengers - all addressed him. Following the passengers' final hours and Edward's unique coming-of-age, Dear Edward asks one of life's most profound questions: What does it mean not just to survive, but to truly live? --------------------------------- 'Ann Napolitano's writing is astonishing. I'm in awe' Marian Keyes 'A very moving and emotional read' Anne Tyler 'Gripping and elegiac, this is a captivating novel about loss, love and growing up' Rosamund Lupton 'That rare book that breaks your heart and stitches it back together . . . Don't miss this one' Jodi Picoult

The heart-warming New York Times bestseller

Maria Eugenia Espinal

Wow! This was truly a powerful and beautiful coming-of-age story. 

Edward is a twelve-year-old boy and the sole survivor of a plane crash en route from Newark to Los Angeles. After the crash, Edward struggles with coming to terms with the trauma and the grief over the loss of his parents and older brother, as well as being viewed as the miracle boy, so he feels awkward and out of place in this new chance to live. His only source of comfort is his new friendship with his next-door neighbor, Shay, who helps him find the answers to questions he needed and find meaning in his life. The story alternates between the present and the hours before the crash, where we get to know some of the passengers and what truly caused the accident.

Ann Napolitano's writing is so beautiful and moving. It was both a heartbreaking and hopeful story. The ending of the book gave me goosebumps and made me want to cry and smile at the same time. It is filled with great characters and it’s an overall great story. I highly recommend this book to anyone.

I give this book ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐.

A beautifully-written piece exploring what happens to those left in the aftermath of a tragedy. Heart wrenching and poignant. It can be slow in some parts but is definitely worth a read.  

Lacey

Wow! This is emotionally heavy! 

This is a story about love, loss, how tragedy permeates families. 

Content warning for grief, loss of a parent, fertility issues.

Dear Edward A Novel

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