FIVE FEET APART

 

GENERAL OVERVIEW:

RATINGS:4.8/5

GENRE: Drama, Romance, Fiction

AUTHOR: Rachael Lippincott, Mikki Daughtry, Tobias Iaconis

PUBLICATION DATE: November 20, 2018

ABOUT THE AUTHOR:

This book consists of three authors.

Rachel was born in Bucks County, Pennsylvania. She is an American author. She has received her education in Bachelor of Arts in English from the University of Pittsburgh.

Mikki Daughtry is the second author of the book. She is an American screenwriter and young adult fiction author. She is best known for writing, along with writing partner Tobias Iaconis. She is from Georgia. She studied theatre arts at Brenau University.

Tobias Iaconis is a third author of the book. He is a  German American screenwriter.

INTRODUCTION:

It is a story of two Cystic Fibrosis patients who are to be six feet apart at all times. Stella Grant is a cystic fibrosis patient who is active on social media clarifying her daily routine to her friends to cope with her illness. She is so positive to be all fit and fine. She is so optimistic that she can overcome her illness.  She meets another CF patient, William "Will" Newman, who is at the hospital for a medication trial for the same disease.
They try to have a relationship despite always being forced to stay a certain distance (6 ft) away from each other. They are to maintain that particular distance to reduce the risk of cross-infection, as contracting bacterial infections from other CF patients can be dangerous and even life-threatening. It is so interesting and intriguing at the same time to watch how their relationship goes ahead.

ANALYSIS:

I recently finished reading this emotional tragic love story. You are so crestfallen towards the end. It gets stuck inside your head for hours and most probably for days.

The plot is so relatable in the present context. Here the two patients are to be five feet apart from CF while today we are five feet apart(till now hopefully) from coronavirus. We ought to put on masks and gloves the whole time. It's even mandatory when we meet the covid patients. And what's the major point is we must maintain a distance of six feet every time.

The main characters in the movie are patients of cystic fibrosis. Where in the present context everyone we see is suspected to be a patient of coronaviruses. They had to prevent themselves from other CF patients. Now we need to abstain from people as a whole.

Two teens who are inside the same hospital are not able to touch each other because they have CF. Cystic Fibrosis. It is a genetic disease where the patient needs to remain within a distance of six feet from the patient of the same disease.
They are to be suffered from severe health complications if the bacteria from one patient enters the body of the other patient with the same disease. So it is so indispensable for them to put on masks and gloves and maintain a distance of six feet. She is assiduous enough to follow her strict daily routine on time.

The book starts with emotion and ends with the same. I connected here the most where Stella urges us to feel that human touch when we still can. The circumstance is so analogous now. We are far from human touch. We are quarantined away from our loved ones. The only way we could touch one another is through a virtual screen. Many of us took the time we had in 2019 for granted and locked ourselves within ourselves. We were so into us that we never cared about the value of the human touch. And now when we need to abstain from the touch we have the sharp urge to go and hug our friends and hang out with them. Without any fear of any kind of virus.
The plot they imagined is so like predicting the future. The distancing, gloves and masks were inevitable for the CF patients but now it's omnipresent. If only they could have predicted the virus and the same situation back in 2018. Just in two years, the situation faced in the book by two CF teens has become the destiny of the whole world.
I couldn't resist copying the exact lines from Stella. It's just not lines, it's full of emotions. An emotion that is so relevant now.
"Human touch is the first form of communication. A baby recognizes his mother touch even though he is not able to see. It connects us when we are happy. Bolsters us in time of fear, excites us in time of passion. We need that touch from the ones we love as almost as we need air to breathe."

But Stella is brave enough to go 1 foot closer to her loved ones and make that five. The movie is accordingly named Five Feet Apart.

MY CLOSING THOUGHTS:

It's emotional, heartbreaking and upsetting. Despite all this, it is so full of hope. Stella is always confident in defeating the disease.
Will is positive for his love for Stella. We need to have hope as well in times like these. We need to strengthen ourselves and surround ourselves with positivity. CF patients need to remain in isolation from other CF patients to prevent the infection and so is the case today with coronavirus.  

CF was a lonely disease and Corona Virus is a lonely disease. It abstains oneself from other people which can be so chagrined and annoying.
But people should never lose hope as Stella never did.

HAPPY READING💕

BY SANJITA NAPIT