This book was a great read on personal growth, the idea of why we are or are not chosen, and the notion of just being lucky at times.

I enjoyed the back and forth of the past and present views. The growth of the characters throughout the story was positive and enjoyable. I would recommend this book to anyone looking for a happy ending from a tragedy.

Thank you to the publisher and NetGalley for an advanced copy!

Thank you NetGalley for providing me with this ARC. Imagine you, out of 191 people, are the lone survivor of an airplane crash. Now imagine you are a 12 year old boy, who was traveling with his parents and 15 year old brother to start a new life in California. Dear Edward tells about the boy’s quick transfer to his aunt and uncle’s guardianship and continues switching back to the last few minutes of the flight and then forward through the following six years as Eddie, now Edward, learns to cope with the tragedy in many ways.

Thank you for the opportunity to read and review this title.

I tried but this ended up not being for me

I noted that Dear Edward was described as women's fiction, a label that usually means "keep away" to this reader. After reading several other reviews, I plunged in and only came up as needed, eager to return to the hero's journey that is Edward's life as he recovers physically and emotionally from the tragedy that has been well described by others. What I can add is this: I imagined what the boy's life might have been like in an alternate and less challenging world. It could not have been better.

One of my favorite books of the year. The sweet story of sole survivor Edward and his struggle to move on from a terrible tragedy was so beautifully written I didn't want his story to end. Interspersing the backstories of those on the plane, then the follow-up with the family and friends left behind was heartbreaking and uplifting. Loved this book.

Great coming of age book with lovable characters. I enjoyed the sibling love throughout this book. Although a tragic premise, this book is hopeful and resilient.

A thoughtful tale of what it means to be left behind. This book rigged at heart strings I didn’t even know I had.

Edward is a sensitive 12-year-old boy who is moving cross-country with his family. At least he was, until a terrible tragedy happened. The plane they were on crashes and Edward is the sole survivor.

The book has a dual timeline. One follows Edward as he recovers from his serious injuries and the other timeline gives readers a sense of Edward’s family and some of the passengers and crew aboard the doomed plane. Edward is now facing the prospect of adjusting to life as an orphan and living with his aunt and uncle. As the timeline switches, readers get a brief glimpse into the lives of the others on the plane. We learn about Edward’s parents and the close bond between Edward and his brother. All of this provides a better understanding of the boy’s difficulties in processing his new life.

The story was inspired by a real plane crash with a single child as the survivor. The characters and events are not based upon that particular tragic event but are fictional inventions. Napolitano researched actual plane crashes and included aspects from her research, including flight recorder conversations and accident reports.

What makes this book special is Edward. He is physically and emotionally wrecked and his journey to healing is painful. Patience is required and Napolitano gives the boy the space needed to find his way back to the world of the living. This is a sensitive story that explores lives cut short and the efforts to save a boy facing the abyss. Though Edward’s life has become frontpage news, he is simply a boy who’s adrift. His aunt and uncle have shielded him from most of the publicity but ultimately, he cannot ignore the realities of being the sole survivor. Moving, sensitive and thoughtful; this book is riveting and powerful.

This is a wonderful novel about an adolescent boy who is the lone survivor of a plane crash (not a spoiler...that is known from the description of the book). The story moves back and forth in time, from events leading up to the crash, and also from Edward's adjustment to his life after the crash. Although the premise is very sad, the book is well-written and very engaging. I highly recommend it.

I absolutely loved this book but the aunt and uncle were kind of drab. I felt so sorry for Edward, being a small child and losing his entire family. How would you even know where to begin to belong. The story dragged on for a bit but I was hoping that he would have found more from his family, from the crash or maybe a letter from them. A sad story but so intriguing right to the end.

What a beautiful, sad and thought provoking book. As humans, we are drawn to stories of survival. This is the story of Edward, the sole survivor of a plane crash and the ripple effect it had on the people that remain. The relatives of the flight crew, the families and friends left behind, and how Edward fits into his new life. It goes back and forth between the day of the crash and after the crash. It was so interesting to read about his adjustment to living with his aunt and uncle, how he learned to deal with survivor’s guilt and how his aunt and uncle, who had been struggling with infertility, dealt with the new child in their home, instead of the baby they’d been hoping for. Edward makes friends with the girl next door and she helps him deal with the life after the crash. The loved ones from the crash seek him out, trying to find a connection to Possibly the last person who saw their loved ones alive. Made me cry a few times. I would highly recommend this book.
Thank you to NetGalley for the ARC in exchange for an honest review.

Considering the fact that this book begins with a devastating tragedy, there is hope & beauty for the future of Edward Adler--he just has to find them. Ann Napolitano does an excellent job of going between the before & the after of the plane crash where Edward was the only survivor of nearly 200 passengers & crew. The narrative rotates between the passengers inside the plane and the aftermath of the crash as experienced by Edward. More & more information about a group of passengers, including the Adler family, is revealed, juxtaposed with the debilitating reality of Edward's new life after the crash. Immediately after the accident & after an extended hospital stay, Edward is barely hanging on physically & emotionally. He moves into the home of his aunt & uncle & quickly meets a neighbor girl, Shay and she becomes his lifeline. Shay helps Edward, who was homeschooled, navigate the confusing public school system. As the story enfolds, Edward becomes her lifeline as well. Shay as an outsider finds comfort & protection in her friendship with Edward, and he is able to sleep at night as long as it's in her house & not in the home of his aunt & uncle.

You feel tremendous sympathy for Edward with the tragic loss of everything & everyone he loved the most. You try to imagine how anyone could possibly cope with such a disaster & move forward. The beauty of the novel is slowly seeing how this could be possible for a young boy of 12. The story captures you from the very beginning.

The drama builds as we shift between pre-crash with the clock ticking away and Edward, alone, afterwards. More & more is revealed about a small group of passengers. They all are carrying a certain sadness, and their stories are explored. It isn't until the paths of these passengers cross with Edward that the reader can begin to see how Edward's life will once again change.

This coming of age story is dramatic in such an intense & unique way. Ann Napolitano captures a time in the life of this young boy where the challenges he faces could easily undue him forever. The story is heartbreaking yet is still heartwarming, & highly recommended.

Thank you to NetGalley for providing this title in exchange for an honest review.

I received a free ARC from NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.

I absolutely loved this book. The writing was beautiful and clear. The characters were great and well developed. I thought the back and forth between the time on the plane and what happens after was easy to negotiate. I cried several times. A great read.

How does one survive a tragic loss while becoming the only survivor of a horrible plane crash? How does a twelve-year old boy survive such a tragedy and define his life afterwards?

Dear Edward is a superbly written story of Edward, the lone survivor of a plane crash from New York to Los Angeles. In a sensitive manner Ann Napolitano gives readers a touching view of how Edward copes with his loss. Following the crash Edward spends three months in the hospital recovering from his painful injuries. When he is released he moves in with his aunt and uncle who try their sincere best to shelter him from the media aftermath of the accident. No matter how much effort they make to help him grieve, it never feels like home to him. Home is with his parents and brother with whom could talk without saying a word. Dealing with their own personal battles, they use Edward as a shield to escape them.

On his first night out of the hospital he goes next door to the neighbor's home and befriends a girl named Shay who his age. At first, she almost treats him like a specimen. As time goes by, they become best friends and he begins to learn how to live again through their friendship and hundreds of letters he received from loved ones of the lost lives on the plane. Incidentally, his uncle hid these letters from him from Edward for about two years before Edward discovered them.

This book truly touched my heart and made me realize how difficult it is for children to move on when all they know is lost to them. Of course, we all grieve differently, but I believe that adults are forced to move on in some manner because of their responsibilities. Children must learn to rebuild a life without the ones they are closest to who guide them into adulthood. Kudos to the author for opening up a conversation about deeply emotional topic.

I loved this book even though I cried through half of it. It's such an emotional story and so beautifully written. It's one I recommend to patrons looking for something different, with the warning to have a box of tissues handy.

Statistically speaking, it is safer flying in an airplane than driving in a car. Not so for 12-year-old Edward and 191 other passengers of Flight 2977, which crashes into a Colorado field on a flight from Newark to Los Angeles. Edward is the sole survivor. While Edward miraculously lives, his brother Jordan will never again feel the kiss of his first love from back home, his father will never finish the complicated math algorithm he's been working on for years, and his mother will never get to write that romantic comedy movie she's always dreamed of. Among those lost are a wounded soldier now on permanent desk duty, hiding part of himself he feels ashamed to speak out loud; a vibrant woman who has lived several incarnations and is escaping a controlling marriage; a dying finance mogul looking for one more miracle; a young finance mogul looking for one more win; an overwhelmed woman who finds herself pregnant and traveling across the country to tell her long-distance boyfriend, and so many more. More stories, more people, more lives left to live who are tragically cut short. Edward drowns in his own grief with a deep emptiness that he doesn't even know how to fill. His aunt and uncle are loving caretakers, but they are mourning their own losses and struggling to find one another again. Enter Shay, the next-door neighbor and possibly Edward's saving grace. How do you process the grief of losing your family in such a horrific way? How do you move on, feeling like there has to be a reason you were left alive? And how do you live a normal life when the weight of 191 lost futures presses on you every day? Dear Edward is a beautiful exploration of grief, of love, and of finding purpose and meaning in life in the face of tragedy.

Thoughts: I would consider this "Jodi Picoult-esque", and I mean that in a very good way! Hope and grief, love and abandonment are all weaved so beautifully throughout this story. Napolitano explores Edward's grief as he wakes up from the hospital, recovers from his injuries, moves in with is aunt and uncle, meets his new next-door neighbor Shay, and begins processing all that has happened to him. This would be quite difficult for anyone, nonetheless a 12-year-old boy. Edward is completely lost in his grief, but small reminders continue to bring him back to reality with the sharp pain of all that he has lost. I just wanted to hug him and shake the adults around him to tell them that he's so lost in his grief and they need to do more to help him. Thank goodness for Shay! His friendship with Shay is so moving -- at first, I thought, "Who is this girl and how could she say to him?!" but then I came to love and care for her almost as much as Edward did. Alternating between Edward's recovery and him growing into a teenager and trying to find his purpose in life, Napolitano weaves in the story of the day of the crash, sharing with readers the POV of Edward's brother and parents as well as several other people on the plane. We get to know the soldier, the reincarnated free spirit, the scared soon-to-be new mother, the dying Wall Street tycoon, the gorgeous stewardess, and more. We get to know these characters just before they meet such a terrible, untimely end, with just enough plot for readers to care about each of them while also carrying our own grief in knowing that they have no idea what is about to happen to them. It is a poignant juxtaposition that will keep readers turning pages and wiping tears throughout.

Do not, I repeat, do not read this book on a plane- like I did!

A story of loss, love and survivor’s guilt.. Edward is the sole survivor of a plane crash - he lost his whole family, mom, dad and older brother- and now must live with his aunt and uncle. A story of loss, love, survival and how giving back can help one recover.

Dear Edward by Ann Napolitano was an easy read with an interesting plot, but I found myself unengaged and easily distracted while reading. To be fair, I think much of this was about me and not necessarily the book itself.

The story focuses on Edward, a 12 year old who is the only survivor of a terrible plane crash. His mother, father and brother were among the passengers that perished. Once Edward has recovered from his injuries, he goes to live with his aunt and uncle. We see his struggles as he tries to adjust to his "new normal".

Although I didn't love this book, if it sounds interesting to you, I would recommend that you give it a try. I really do believe that my feelings about the book have a lot to do with my timing in reading it and that I would have enjoyed it more if I had picked it up at a different time.

My actual rating woud be 3.5, but since Goodreads doesn't allow half stars, I rounded down to 3.
I am grateful to Netgalley for the early digital copy!

I don’t even know where to start with this book. I felt my attitude through most of it was just ho-hum. I was reading it just to get a review done. But I found that I couldn’t put the book down by the last third of the book. When I finally finished, my cheeks were wet with tears I didn’t even know I was shedding. Obviously, it impacted me.

Edward, his brother, and his parents board a plan along with 190 other passengers to en route to California. The plane doesn’t make it. Everyone dies except Edward.

The author goes back and forth between the actual happenings of the flight an some of its passengers and Edward’s emotional struggles and physical recovery. I really enjoyed getting to know more people on the flight than just Edward and his family. Hearing the passengers stories, their dreams of better lives, things they were running from, made the impact of their loss just as important as the loss of Edward’s family.

I also loved the evolution of Edward and Shay’s relationship, and the realistic struggles of Edward’s aunt and uncle as they deal with the loss that they also experienced.

One thing I struggled with is the inflight chapters. At the beginning, I wanted to know more about the flight crew and their experience of the start of this flight and the turbulence. Instead, they weren’t even brought up until things were going wrong. Then when things were going wrong, the author focused primarily on the crew but very little on the passengers and what they were experiencing. I was torn here.

Overall, I just loved this story. It brought back a lot of feelings I had when my father died in an automobile accident. The extent of grief and how people recover is so different. I feel that the author really captured this: the dullness of life, the expectations from others for you to just be fine, the need to get on with your life but the lack of desire to really do it. The relatability and the emotional impact I felt from reading is what led me to a 5 star review.

Thank you to NetGalley and Random House for a free copy of this book in exchange for an honest review.

I might not be to travel via planes anywhere due to this COVID but I also don't want to after reading this book. The premise was so intriguing that I requested this book immediately. However what I didn't realize was that how difficult it would be to read it. I never knew the author would write about the entire flight, right up to the point the incident happens.

Even though it was a tough book to read, I still couldn't put it down. I did take breaks during the day but still finished it in one day. I don't know if it's actually possible for just one person to survive such an accident but the way the author has written about his life post that, how he heals and makes new relationships doesn't feel fictional. Her writing makes you feel his pain.

Even though Edward is the main protagonist, you learn about other people who were on that plane and what was happening in their lives. It makes you think that you travel with so many other lives, sit beside them for the entire journey but never know them.

In the last chapter, when Edward thinks about his family, specially his brother; that how that relationship with his brother was the one which he was supposed to grow old with. He would have moved out of his parent's house but his brother, he would have been with him always. And this paragraph touched me the most.

Books surrounding family dynamics and/or losing a family member always makes me emotional and are close to my heart. This book made me cry and feel a whirlwind of emotions. I grew up with Edward and felt his pain. That's how good the writing and the story was.

Trigger warning for anywhere who can't deal with reading about losing family, accidents, plane crashes etc. But if you have a strong heart and want a cathartic read, do pick this book up.