What initially drew me in was the premise (one young boy is the sole survivor of a plane crash) and in many ways the story lived up to my expectations.
The chapters alternate between the present day (as Edward comes to terms with life after the plane crash, along with the grief and loss that he is experiencing) and the day/moments leading up to the plane crash and the passengers on board.
The passengers are well developed, even though we only see them within the confines of the airport and the plane.
It's a page turner but also a tough read at times, which was to be expected.
However, it is wonderfully written and I would definitely recommend it, other than to nervous flyers.
Thank you to Netgalley for providing me with an advanced copy of this book in exchange for an honest review.

Beautifully written, super emotional and heartbreaking....what a fantastic book - an absolute must read guys

This is a stunning book that I read back in February and I still find myself thinking about it. It’s the story of Edward who boards a plane with his family and ends up being the sole survivor when it crashes. We then follow Edward as he goes to live with his Aunt and Uncle and has to work through the grief of losing his family and having to find a new life for himself in amongst all the guilt and fear. He also has the added struggle of being the only survivor and having to deal with all the attention that this brings, and all the focus on him from the families who lost their loved ones on the flight. The novel is told in alternating chapters with one focusing on Edward now, and one focusing on the plane during its ill-fated flight. This way of telling the story made is so fast-paced but also incredibly emotional to read. I found myself really affected by this book and it’s one I think I will re-read in the future. I highly recommend it.

I really struggled with this book. It has incredible good reviews and the premise sounded really strong. Unfortunately I found the writing style just not right for me. This was a slow moving storyline for most of the book but the part with the letters made it slightly better. For me, I would have liked more of this throughout the book. Although, to be frank, I have an issue with the believability of those letters existing in the first place. The story of Edward being the sole survivor of a plane crash and learning to live with his grief and that of his aunt and uncle was far fetched enough but I cannot believe so many relatives would write to him.
I found the relationship with the Aunt and Uncle odd - they just didn't seem to have strong characters and barely did anything with Eddie, even though he would have been such a major change to their lives.
Not for me this one, I'm afraid.

A beautifully poignant tale.

How do you learn to carry on when you loose everyone you love in an instant?

Edward is the only survivor of the plane crash. Badly injured and having no memory of the crash he spends a long time in hospital recovering. His body heals but his memory takes longer to catch up. Slowly, with the help from a stranger, he pieces together what happens and learns to grieve and reconstruct his life.

Edward's story is full of sadness and regret but there is also light and happiness. A must read.

Ann Napolitano expertly narrates a story no one should ever have to live with - being the sole survivor of a tragedy, as a child. Edward, no longer Eddie, survives a plane crashed that killed everyone else aboard, including his family and our story follows him over the next few years as he adjusts to his new normal. He also comes to terms with what the world expects from him, what the victims' families expect from him, and most of all - what he expects from himself.

Intertwined with Edward's story are the last few hours of some of the other people aboard the plane. I think this device works beautifully to keep the tragedy fresh in your mind. That sounds horrible but it would be very easy to only focus on the aftermath and sort of forget what actually happened. It also gives us more context for the letters written from the victims' surviving relatives.

A beautiful story that definitely made me cry, but also made me smile.

This book was everything I wanted and more.
I loved everything about it. The characters were realistic, the relationships were beautiful, and it was emotionally heartbreaking yet wonderfully hopeful.
Following a young boy who is now the sole survivor of a terrible plane crash. As he is starting his life again and learning to cope without his parents and brother. It follows him into adulthood after moving in with his aunt and uncle and as he finds a new family of sorts and lives a life he was never prepared to live. Call me selfish but this book finished exactly the way I wanted it to. This was a complete and utter five star read for me.

This was great even though you knew it could not happen it just really made you think about the consequences if something like this did.

This novel follows a young boy named Edward through the immediate aftermath of him being the sole survivor of a plane crash. There are time jumps before the accident, during the flight and also into the future as Edward has to carry on with his life. He has to deal with not only the physical implications early on, but also with the loss of his family, the pressure of the media and public and also just trying to grow up with his whole world completely turned upside down.

This is a heartbreaking subject for a novel, and I found I was often reading it with a severe lump in my throat. It is impossible to comprehend how anyone could carry on living after this, which is again something Edward has to deal with. I thought the subject was dealt with wonderfully, the grief, the accident, everything felt so incredibly real and convincing.

The middle of this novel let this book down a bit for me. The pacing ended up a little off and I ended up struggling a little to pull myself back into the story and stay motivated to read. This coming after an insanely strong start though, and led to a very strong ending book too, so overall isn't something that should be worried about. I enjoyed the writing style, everything seemed to flow in such an excellent way. The time jumps all interlinked beautifully with the plot and worked with clever twists further down the line.

This was a phenomenal read which I highly recommend, though do exercise caution too due to the difficult subject matter.

Dear Edward will fill your heart with joy and sadness in equal measure. Twelve year old Edward Adler is on a flight with his family as they prepare for a move from New York to Los Angeles. But the plane never makes it to L.A. and all but one of the passengers is killed. Only Edward survives. Adrift and catatonic with grief, he goes to live with his aunt and uncle, Lacey and John. He is going through life in a fugue state until he meets Shay, a neighbour's daughter. From their first meeting he feels for a second - 'clear, normal, unbroken.' They discover in his uncle's garage, hundreds of letters, many from the families of the victims. All implore Edward to live life fully, to reach out to them or their loved ones to provide comfort, or to provide some small favour. Whilst he cannot fulfil every last request, the letters provide him with a purpose and a reason to live. And he realises that the pain he has felt, 'is love. He has been swimming in love. Grief is love. Loss is love...He is love.'

A haunting and beautifully crafted novel.

I loved this one. Haven’t read anything like it. Big-souled, and a big-hearted. Took an interesting premise and gave it real life. Highly recommended.

What a wonderful book! This is very different from the sort of thing I would normally read, but that is exactly why I joined Net Galley! I wanted to be stretched and read genres & books I wouldn't normally.

Edward is the sole survivor from a plane crash in which 191 people die, including his parents and brother. The story reveals details of the plane journey itself and you learn about the lives of some of the passengers and why they are taking that particular flight . The other half of the story (alternating chapters) is about Edward and his recovery & life after the crash. I loved the way all the stories unfolded, both Edward's and those of his fellow passengers. They threaded through the book and I really enjoyed the way the story evolved.

I have never (thankfully) been in such a situation but this opened my eyes to how people might deal with such a devastating life event, both as a survivor and a relative of those left behind.

I would thoroughly recommend this book - the subject may seem sad and not something you would want to expose yourself to but I definitely feel I have learnt things from this novel.

Thank you to Net Galley and the publishers for allowing me to read this book.

“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.”

12-year-old Edward Adler and his family board a flight from Newark that's bound for Los Angeles. Edward's mother, a writer, has accepted a new position working on a TV show and they are about to start a new life on the West coast. There are 191 other passengers on the flight, including crew, and when the plane goes down, all but Edward are killed.

As the sole survivor of this terrible accident, Edward's name and face are cast into the media and people become obsessed with his story. He moves in with his aunt - his mother's sister - and her husband and the story follows Edward as he not only tries to put his life back together, but also navigate incomprehensible grief.

What Ann Napolitano does in Dear Edward is exceptional. She takes a topic - grief - that is a part of everyone's story, something each and every person must contend with, and places it on the shoulders of a young boy, a boy who has yet to find his place in the world. When Edward, who was lovingly referred to as 'Eddie' by his family, comes out of the accident alive, he realises his life will never be the same and he is lost. Accepting he is now 'Edward', which his aunt and uncle refer to him as, an not 'Eddie' is his acceptance of that. Without his parents and his beloved brother Jordan, Edward feels that he has no anchor. He doesn't know who he is without his family. This wonderful novel is the story of how he copes with that and how he makes moves to change it.

The characters in this novel are brilliantly rendered and not just Edward and those who protect him and build him back up after the accident, but also the cast of characters on the plane - the passengers - who we learn more and more about as the narrative shifts back to the day of the crash. It is not just Edward who is struggling with grief; all of these characters are dealing with individual losses and heartbreak. In addition, Napolitano introduces us (through letters addressed to Edward after the accident) to the families of the deceased, all of whom lay their grief and hope on Edward's shoulders. This is an exceptional character study about shared humanity, new beginnings and finding hope through even the most trying experience.

Dear Edward is a wonderfully tender but devastatingly sad coming of age story that also encompasses so many things: it addresses survivor guilt and the ravaging consequences of grief on people; it is hugely poignant while also being a suspenseful page-turner. But, ultimately, it is a powerful and uplifting tale of hope and the kindness of community.

“Humans need community, for our emotional health. We need connection, a sense of belonging. We are not built to thrive in isolation.”

I loved this book. I laughed, I cried, I loved the characters. Through tragedy came a most inspiring and beautiful story. This book will always stay with me.

Thanks to NetGalley and the publishers for the ARC in return for an honest and unbiased opinion.

You know where you shouldn't read this book? On a plane. Yeah, I decided to go in blind with this and found myself plonked in a window seat contemplating my life choices.

Eddie boarded a plane as an excited and free-spirited 12-year-old and emerged from the wreckage as Edward. A boy who lost his entire world in an instance. A boy who had no idea how to survive in his new world.

You live his life (both past and present) through his eyes whilst he beds down in his Aunt and Uncles home before quickly discovering his neighbour, Shay, is the life crutch he so desperately needed.

This, for me, was incredibly hard for me to read. I stopped and started reading this so many times but it was a massively struggle bus from the start. It's a wonderful little story, but it just didn't hook my attention like I'd hoped.

This was such an emotional read and well written, the characters descriptions are great. The relationship between Edward and Shay was so uplifting after all the heartbreak this young boy goes through.
Although it's a heartbreaking read in places the basic story is really a fantastic book. Will be reading more Ann Napolitano books.
Thank you netgalley

Eddie, a 12 year old boy, emerges as the sole survivor of a horrendous plane crash, in which his parents and elder brother perish. Shell-shocked and alarmed by his sudden thrust into the limelight, he is taken in by his aunt and uncle, but cannot bring himself to sleep in the bedroom dedicated to the child they failed to conceive. The shadow of their grief sits like a fog over the house and affects how his aunt relates to him.

Instead, he bunks down in the basement before creeping out to spend the night with Shay, his neighbour and friend. She is just as inquisitive as everyone else about how and why he survived and others didn't, but she also offers him the gift of acceptance as he adjusts to his new normal in the neighbourhood and school they share.

The narrative shifts between events prior to the crash and Eddie's new life afterwards. As he seeks to learn how to be himself in this altered scenario, he prefers to be called Edward now. His headmaster takes a protective interest in him, and he eventually learns to unwind and trust again.

Bit by bit, he and Shay start their own Investigations into the background to the crash, which intensifies after they discover huge piles of letters addressed to him from the plane crash victims' relatives. Each one opens a door of understanding and several prompt a response from Edward.

He learns he has something precious to offer others that he is willing to give, something which makes his life have worth and meaning again. This is a moving, tenderly told tale, rich in reality and emotional depth, as it slowly unpacks what it's like to lose all you hold dear and the challenges it presents to starting over again when you feel unprepared.

Even though this book starts with a tragedy and unthinkable grief, it is also a beautiful book of love, friendship, strength and healing. The prose is delightful with tense, poignant descriptions of raw pain, "He can't consider how he is feeling, that door is too dangerous for him"; "Edward's brain is too sore and tender to withstand even the slightest touch".
The chapters to and fro from the present day back to the day of the flight from Newark to LA on which the Adler family are travelling to a new life. As the book progresses the lives, characters and histories of the other passengers on the flight are exposed, bringing them to life which all becomes clear towards the end. The main characters are excellently portrayed, have issues of their own and add great depth to the story of Edward, the protagonist.
This is not a depressing book though, rather an uplifting, life affirming one moving from disaster to healing, "Edward feels the kindness of the man across the room"; "The darkness inside him has taken on a new shade", and "He is alive - not just surviving, but alive".
Highly recommended.
Thanks to Netgalley and Penguin Books

A sad but uplifting book that follows Edward a sole survivor of a plane crash, I can't imaging the feeling this poor kid had to go through, but it was expertly written.

It deals with death, heartbreak and grief and walks through every stage with Edward.

A great read, and would definitely recommend.

The setting of a fatal plane crash with only one survivor, a 12 year old boy, might not draw everyone in. However, the story unfolds in a way that makes the reader understand the nature of trauma and loss, not just for him but his relatives with whom he subsequently lives. What is uplifting is the description of the slow but undoubted physical and psychological recovery of Edward. He might not have found his way through without the support of a new friend, who seemed to be able to understand his needs at every stage of the journey to being better. I found the nature of their developing, deep connection the most moving aspect of this book.