541. Dear Edward
Rating: ☆☆☆1/2
Recommended by:
Author: Ann Napolitano
Genre: Fiction
340 pages, published January 6, 2020
Reading Format: Book
Summary
When a flight from Newark to Los Angeles crashes in Colorado, twelve year old Edward Adler survives while all of the other 183 passengers and crew perish. Instead of relocating to LA with his parents and brother, Edward must start a new life with an aunt and uncle who he doesn’t know well and deal with the rapt attention of a nation that considers his survival a miracle.
Quotes
“The air between us is not empty space.”
“Humans need community, for our emotional health. We need connection, a sense of belonging. We are not built to thrive in isolation.”
“So much could be solved, she thinks, if we simply held hands with each other more often.”
“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.”
“There was no reason for what happened to you, Eddie. You could have died; you just didn’t. It was dumb luck. Nobody chose you for anything. Which means, truly, that you can do anything.”
“Everything ends,” she says. “That’s nothing to be sad about. What matters is what starts in that moment.”
“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.”
“My wife is pregnant, and her physician told her that physiologically and medically speaking, there are three different kinds of humans: men, women, and pregnant women. I think the same idea applies to you, Edward. There are grown-ups, children, and then you. You don’t feel like a kid anymore, right?” Edward nods. “But you won’t be an adult for years. You’re something else, and we need to figure out what you are, so we can figure out how to help you.”
“When in doubt, read books. Educate yourself. Education has always saved me Edward. Learn about the mysteries.”
“Eddie was leaning against his father’s chest, and the sensation of that weight — the complete trust and lack of inhibition with which the boy relaxed every ounce of his body into his father’s — was one of the things that made parenthood unmissable.”
“What do we live for, if it is not to make life less difficult to each other?” —GEORGE ELIOT”
“It feels unkind that they are shoving their emotions at him when his own sadness and fear are so vast that he has to hide from them.”
“All motivators are valid if they produce good work, son. And frustration can be a powerful
“that the smallest, truest reason he will never fly again is that the last airplane seat he ever sits in has to be the one beside his brother.”
“When frazzled, people tend to revert to the familiar and the well rehearsed.”
“if you think about one memory for most of a day, is that not your present? Some people live in the now; some people prefer to reside in the past—either choice is valid.”
“Edward wasn’t supposed to leave Jordan, though. They were meant to age together. That loss continues to be spiked with pain; it will never be soothed. And he can see, objectively, that Shay’s life without him would have been woven with different moments, friends or lack of friends, different fights with Besa, different books and different struggles.”
My Take
First off, I made the mistake of starting this book while on a flight without knowing its subject matter. I recommend you avoid that since it deals with a plane that crashed, killing almost everyone on board. I finished it in the comfort of my home and, since I didn’t have to worry about crashing, really enjoyed the rest of it. Author Ann Napolitano has some interesting insights into the human condition and weaves a believeable and compelling tale of what it would be like to be the sole survivor of a plane crash.
