I loved this book. It was so moving and the story really touched me - hard to read in parts but very well written and I would definitely recommend. I really felt like I knew the characters and they were all unique in their own way. The friendship and collaboration which grew between Edward and Shay is inspiring.

Beautifully written.

Thanks to NetGalley for my free copy.

The story of one boys life after he survives a plane crash. A very original story and very moving in places as it explores death and the associated guilt that it can bring. Also the impact of sudden death for the different characters, struggling with their own loss but still trying to support Edward who has lost so much. An enjoyable read which certainly made me think.

This book was great! I loved the story and how it was both unique and unpredictable. A true page turner with great writing.

Thank you to net galley, Penguin and Viking books for this ARC copy . At first this felt like it was going nowhere but OMG I could not put it down. I noticed a question on Goodreads about the suitability of this book for Middle graders / young adult and I have to say the more i read the more i thought that it raised important questions that such readers could raise and discuss. It has everything going for it in terms of readers groups and long discussion.

The narrative follows Edward as the only survivor of a plane crash in which his parents and elder brother are killed. It follows his inability to eat and sleep and the difficulties his aunt and uncle encounter in dealing with this. It does this in such a way as you don't fell that you are doing a psychoanalysis of Edward but are completely absorbed into his everyday life. It is both understated and yet has real depth as the layers are peeled back.

I loved it, the four stars reflect that it took a while to really reach its heights. I would certainly read more from this writer. it has been a shining star in some very ordinary reading this month

"Dear Edward" captures the ceaseless ripple-effect of a tragedy with such magnitude it has the power to destroy everything standing in its path.

With no control over their destiny the little circles progress in impossible directions, hoping for tranquillity to return to the surface never knowing when, or if it will.

And that is the only way I can describe Eddie’s (Edward’s) role in this story, as a beautifully enigmatic pebble thrown into an inexplicable ocean of ‘afterwards’, kept afloat by the buoy of precious moments whenever he finds himself endlessly adrift.

The manner in which everything developed was simply wonderful. I adored his friendship with his feisty young neighbour and the fern-loving school principle, and those letters… oh my. How hopeful pieces of paper masterfully gave a personality to a passenger manifest was just incredible.

It’s a great coming of age story about a boy who loses his family in the same crashed plane where he’s the only survivor.
It’s scary enough for a young boy to change everything he knew, a new house, new school, new friends and new everything that comes with growing up.
It’s a hard read at times and may have some triggers for some readers but it’s very well written and interesting story overall, if not a bit unique in its way.

An unusual and very well-written coming of age story. I flew through this book in a day. Quietly immersive, touching, original and heart-rending.

Edward was Eddie until it happened. He and his family were crossing the country by plane to start a new life in a brand new place because of his Mum's work. What was supposed to be a new and exciting life for them, very quickly ended with the plane crashing and Eddie being the sole survivor.

It's a plane full of broken people for various reasons ranging from feeling dejected because it's been ages since they last had sex, to basically dying from Cancer. Each person's little problem, which is massive to them, is swallowed by the tragedy that envelopes them all when the plane crashes. This book will put your life into perspective - if it doesn't, well, I don't know what will.

Dear Edward is a coming-of-age story because it traverses the very normal challenges that a child would face with a move to a new area, new school, new friendships and becoming a teenager. But at the same time Edward has the challenges of 191 lost people to contend with, three of them being his immediate family.

The goodreads blurb suggests that this book is perfect for fans of Celeste Ng and Ann Patchett. The former I still haven't read but I would say that Ann Napolitano's style is not really similar to Ann Patchett's. For me, this book was like reading something similar to a publication from Jodi Picoult. Why? Because actually, it's 2019 - and aviation disasters are becoming all too familiar across the globe. So for me, this wasn't just a magical story of hope and light - it was a very real prospect that many families have gone through the pain of.

This book was so emotional. It's about a 12 year old boy, who's the only survivor of a plane crash.
It's a difficult read touching your heart, but it's well written and immersive.

Thanks a lot to NeyGalley and the publisher for this copy in exchange for an honest review.

I wasn't sure if I would enjoy this book, it sounded different,and that appealed to me.I did like it though,it was lovely and different to my usual choices,and I thought it was very well written, and well observed.I liked the gentle pace,and that is not something I would normally say,I am an impatient reader, but the pace suited the book.That is not to say plenty wasn't happening it was.This was a refreshing change for me.Thanks to the publishers and netgalley for an ARC.

What a sympathetically written account of the trauma involving the 12 year old sole survivor of a plane crash. To be thrown from bickering with your brother over a plane seat into coping with such terrible loss and the sights and sounds of the crash. It is certainly well written. I did not like his young friend, Shay. She seemed so heartless and uncaring!
It’s a difficult book to read and it is worth continuing once started, but think very carefully before beginning to read as the subject matter is rather emotive.

Wow! What can I? I loved this book and it really touched me particularly as the details of the crash slowly unravelled.

When 12 year old Edward discovers that he is the sole survivor of a plane crash that killed 191 others included his parents and brother he finds that life will never be the same again. The book follows two narratives; one that follows the doomed flight and the passengers who did not know that this would be their final journey and the other narrative follows Edward after the crash and how he deals with the trauma of surviving the impossible.

What really got to me was the final few chapters and the description of the chaos that ensued as the flight became out of control. I could really feel the fear that the passengers felt and it actually did bring a tear to my eye.

I would 100% recommend this book. The only problem I had was the layout on the Kindle as it was often jumbled together and hard to read but I did persevere and I know that this will be ironed out by the time the book is released.

Now, this was probably not the best book to read before my holiday, namely because it’s all centred around a plane crash. I am not a particularly nervous flyer, but as our departure got closer so did the plot of what really happened to the plane in the book. Serious mounting tension!

But the plane crash isn’t really what DEAR EDWARD is about. It’s about coming back to life after your whole world has been destroyed and finding yourself, your identity, again, in a world where you no longer recognise your place in it. It’s about family, friends, relationships and strangers. It’s about grief, it’s about pain but it’s also about the future and moving on.

That’s a lot to pack into one book and Ann Napolitano has done this very well. With an engaging narrative and complex characters we discover what it’s like to have your word inexplicably turned upside down.

A thought-provoking read - but maybe not one for the holiday if you’re of a nervous disposition! ✈️ Thank you to @vikingbooksuk and the author for the free copy in exchange for an honest review. #gifted

I have mixed feelings on this book. I really appreciated the depth of the story and the exploration of a child's life following such trauma, especially in his early teens when he's already struggling to figure himself out. I also really liked how he wasn't just thrown into the 'perfect' family setting afterwards - he struggled and showed many of the signs of PTSD, and Napolitano did a great job of showing how that can also affect other people around the sufferer.

However, I have to admit that I didn't like Shay at all. She seemed very shallow and selfish. Understandably with them being young at the start, I bypassed the whole 'you're like Harry Potter' thing. But towards the end where she constantly threw survivor's guilt in his face was just terrible. I know she was meant to be the 'relief', almost, a friend for Edward, but that's the highest form of toxicity in friendship, in my opinion.

I also found that I didn't particularly love the plane crash timeline. It was constantly bouncing between different people's narratives, and I found that I really didn't get to know anybody and I couldn't find myself understanding a lot of that. I think there needed to be more substance to those scenes.

Also just a note not about the content of the book but about the formatting of this galley on my Kindle - so many of the words were merged together to the point where I couldn't read the sentences. They were also in italics which made it harder. I skipped a large chunk of the ending because it was just illegible, so that really took away from my reading experience.

Thank you to Netgalley and to Viking at Penguin for this ARC!

What a story! So many feelings, so much sadness, tragedy and loss, then.. so much hope.
Yes, I did shed a tear, it was very emotional.
Thanks to Netgalley for this one!

Thanks for the early copy of Dear Edward. It was a book description that I was really interested in for many reasons, one being that I personally grew up in Lockerbie, a town that suffered an air distaster. With that in mind and experience, I wanted to see how the writer would cover such a topic and tragic circumstance.

Id downloaded the copy of the book via Kindle but unfortunately the formatting makes it very difficult to read and follow, with the copy splitting over multiple lines and every sentence is broken between lines. I'd read for a while but found that difficult to follow and didn't want it to ruin my experience of the book. So I'll wait until the book is released and read a physical copy.

Thanks for the opportunity to review and I do look forward to the release!

I received a copy of this book for review from the publisher a few months before the book was published. I'm basing my review on the assumption that the copy that I received is not the final version. I say this because there were a number of layout issues that made it hard to read at times.

I was particularly interested in reading this book as I have been researching a real plane crash for many years and most days I think what it must have been like on the plane for the 524 passengers and crew and what every day must be like for the 4 survivors. As an independent author I am also planning on writing a book about a plane crash one day. If I could ever write a book like 'Dear Edward' I would be delighted.

I found the whole book very engaging and the way it handled the crash itself was spot on. The book moves between two timelines - the plane crash itself and Edward coming to terms with surviving the crash as a boy. In many respects the book is about the trials of boy becoming a teenager growing up and coming to terms with emotions and feelings, living largely loner's life but supported by a girl of the same age. But he has the additional baggage of having survived a plane crash in which his family died. By having Edward face this tragedy the author cleverly draws the reader into thinking about a range of issues about life and bereavement without making the book too dark or depressing.

It was such a page turner and absolutely loved it. Probably one of my favourite books ever.

A well written, heart tugging read that makes you think about both your life and the ones you love.

'Dear Edward' is a compelling read that makes your heart ache for all the people that died on that flight and the one little boy that lived. I found myself wanting to find out what happened to Edward and about the last moments of those people on the flight. However, I did find that overall the novel was just too short and I found that some moments on the plane felt rushed and that more time could be spent on certain aspects. I also found that I felt sometimes the parts describing the life of Edward after the crash was just plodding along, these moments had a lot of time spent of them, but then other bigger moments were only touched on fleetingly. The blurb gives a lot of meaning to the finding and reading of the letters, which in some ways impacted what Eddie did (especially the one regarding his brothers love) however I found relatively they were introduced late in the story and I was expecting them to be more hard hitting. I usually cry buckets at books like this but I found that although I cared for the characters there was nothing described with enough fleshing out that made me fight back emotion. Although I really enjoyed this book and it made me think, I do not believe that there was any sentence or paragraph that will be memorable which I usually find is the case when reading other books like this.

Thank you for giving me a chance to read this novel in exchange for my review.

This is a beautifully written book which is very emotional
This is a sad story but it’s also about hope
This book made me smile and also cry
A compelling read

This was a different book for me. When the brothers names matched my boys I was tickled, but other than that it didn't pull me in as I had hoped. I think it was the writing style that did it for me. Thanks for chance to read it. Dnf