I struggled with this book and eventually gave up on it. The formatting to the kindle was quite poor.

Twelve year old Eddie and his family are moving to Los Angeles when their plane crashes. Eddie is the only survivor and the book mainly looks at how he copes with this. He goes to live with his aunt and uncle and is helped by their neighbour's daughter who befriends him. The narrative goes between the build up to the crash centring in on a few passengers and Eddie's (now Edward) journey through grief to hope for the future.

I found this a difficult book to like. Much of it is centred on the premise that relatives of the passengers write to Edward and I just found this hard to swallow. I could have believed a handful of relatives so doing but there seemed to be endless letters for Edward exhorting him to do things their relatives might have done had they lived. The most believable part is him coping with his grief.

Thanks to the publisher and NetGalley for the ARC.

I have to be honest in saying that I cannot read this book. The storyline and style of writing is good but the for.at and layout makes it very hard to read.

I requested this book only a few hours ago. Since downloading it all I have done is read, and cry.
I don't have the language skills to properly convey just how good Dear Edward is. If you read the blurb and think this would never happen, trust me, you must read it.
The style of writing and the way the sections are broken up - before, the flight, now - all merge to make this a book you cannot stop reading at the end of the next chapter. The flow of words, at least for me, had to remain unbroken.
My only disappointment is that I can no longer read Dear Edward for the first time.

Im almost ashamed to say that I quit this book 15% in..... it was confusing and thready.
I very seldom do this and it’s never an easy decision, but there are too many wonderful books waiting to be read for me to be reading one which I can’t concentrate on..... I found myself distracted and mentally writing my shopping list, which is never a good sign.

It goes without saying that this book will make you feel emotional. I felt so much sadness and admiration for Edward and, despite him being only 12 years old, I found him to be a relatable character. I liked how the book switched between Edward's life after the crash and the flight before it crashed. It made the book more of a page turner and it felt like I was reading both fiction and mystery (in a good way).
Ann Napolitano tackles grief, friendship and survival in an extremely moving way. Edward isn't the only one that I came to love, the passengers on the plane and those who support him after the crash all feel equally real and like characters in their own right, rather than accessories to the plot.

I was unsure at first whether I would like 'Dear Edward' but I thoroughly enjoyed it and would highly recommend it.

Edward is a young boy who is the sole survivor of a plane crash that claims the lives of his family. Edward is sent to live with his aunt and uncle who had been trying for a baby for a long time but stopped when he moved in. I thought this book got off to a really promising start but it just dragged and became a total chore to read. I don't like marking anything unfinished so I kept going but really didn't enjoy it. It isn't badly written but the plot seems to go around in circles for most of it.

"The most common qualification is the fact that it is statistically more dangerous to travel in a car than in an airplane. In absolute numbers, there are more than five million car accidents compared to twenty aeronautic accidents per year, so, in fact, flying is safer. People are also helped by etiquette; because commercial air travel is public, a kind of group confidence comes into play. People take comfort in each other's presence. Sitting side by side, shoulder to shoulder, they believe that it is impossible for this many people to have taken a foolish risk at the same time."

188 Passengers board a plane heading to Los Angeles on a clear, summer morning. Only one passenger makes it out alive. Twelve year old Edward, previously known as Eddie, is the sole survivor of Flight 2977. His older brother and parents are now dead, along with 183 other passengers. Edward is taken on by Lacey and John, his aunt and uncle, and with the help of a nearby neighbour, Shay, has to relearn how to navigate a world where he has lost everything.

This was such a gruelling read, it definitely wasn't a book that I could devour in one setting as it was emotionally draining. The careful focus on character development by the author was done with incredible precision. Eddie overcoming the loss of his family - and strangers who technically he should have died with - was a long, overwrought process.

I felt like Ann Napolitano put a lot of thought and research into this book for it to result in such an intense read. I was grateful for this because I think if it had been rushed then the book would have lost it's effect.

I found the narrative quite aloof, but I also felt that this was more from how Eddie was getting over the shock of the recent trauma than that being the author's actual writing style, and his perception of things was very detached because he didn't feel like he should have been a part of the world. I could be reading too much into it but the fact that I found Shay's dialogue engaging and John and Lacey's relationship routinely passionate made me feel that the narrative was done in a certain way.

I also thought that the depiction of the lives of the other passengers on Flight 2977 - who we know will die - are a touching addition and also helped break up the deep introspection of Edward. The flashbacks to the flight and the characters thinking about their personal lives was also cause for great sadness because the reader knows that their linear lives will become inevitably and inexplicably intertwined with Edward's.

I wouldn't say I loved this read as it was very heavy and emotionally exhaustive. But I did find it extremely moving and incredibly profound, which is why I have rated it so high.

Thank you to Net Galley and Penguin Books for providing an ARC of this book in exchange for an honest review.

Dear Edward by Ann Napolitano is about twelve-year-old Edward Adler who is the sole survivor of a plane crash that kills his older brother and parents and all the other passengers on board.