Edward was Eddie until it happened. He and his family were crossing the country by plane to start a new life in a brand new place because of his Mum's work. What was supposed to be a new and exciting life for them, very quickly ended with the plane crashing and Eddie being the sole survivor.

It's a plane full of broken people for various reasons ranging from feeling dejected because it's been ages since they last had sex, to basically dying from Cancer. Each person's little problem, which is massive to them, is swallowed by the tragedy that envelopes them all when the plane crashes. This book will put your life into perspective - if it doesn't, well, I don't know what will.

Dear Edward is a coming-of-age story because it traverses the very normal challenges that a child would face with a move to a new area, new school, new friendships and becoming a teenager. But at the same time Edward has the challenges of 191 lost people to contend with, three of them being his immediate family.

The goodreads blurb suggests that this book is perfect for fans of Celeste Ng and Ann Patchett. The former I still haven't read but I would say that Ann Napolitano's style is not really similar to Ann Patchett's. For me, this book was like reading something similar to a publication from Jodi Picoult. Why? Because actually, it's 2019 - and aviation disasters are becoming all too familiar across the globe. So for me, this wasn't just a magical story of hope and light - it was a very real prospect that many families have gone through the pain of.

This book was so emotional. It's about a 12 year old boy, who's the only survivor of a plane crash.
It's a difficult read touching your heart, but it's well written and immersive.

Thanks a lot to NeyGalley and the publisher for this copy in exchange for an honest review.

I wasn't sure if I would enjoy this book, it sounded different,and that appealed to me.I did like it though,it was lovely and different to my usual choices,and I thought it was very well written, and well observed.I liked the gentle pace,and that is not something I would normally say,I am an impatient reader, but the pace suited the book.That is not to say plenty wasn't happening it was.This was a refreshing change for me.Thanks to the publishers and netgalley for an ARC.

What a sympathetically written account of the trauma involving the 12 year old sole survivor of a plane crash. To be thrown from bickering with your brother over a plane seat into coping with such terrible loss and the sights and sounds of the crash. It is certainly well written. I did not like his young friend, Shay. She seemed so heartless and uncaring!
It’s a difficult book to read and it is worth continuing once started, but think very carefully before beginning to read as the subject matter is rather emotive.

Wow! What can I? I loved this book and it really touched me particularly as the details of the crash slowly unravelled.

When 12 year old Edward discovers that he is the sole survivor of a plane crash that killed 191 others included his parents and brother he finds that life will never be the same again. The book follows two narratives; one that follows the doomed flight and the passengers who did not know that this would be their final journey and the other narrative follows Edward after the crash and how he deals with the trauma of surviving the impossible.

What really got to me was the final few chapters and the description of the chaos that ensued as the flight became out of control. I could really feel the fear that the passengers felt and it actually did bring a tear to my eye.

I would 100% recommend this book. The only problem I had was the layout on the Kindle as it was often jumbled together and hard to read but I did persevere and I know that this will be ironed out by the time the book is released.

Now, this was probably not the best book to read before my holiday, namely because it’s all centred around a plane crash. I am not a particularly nervous flyer, but as our departure got closer so did the plot of what really happened to the plane in the book. Serious mounting tension!

But the plane crash isn’t really what DEAR EDWARD is about. It’s about coming back to life after your whole world has been destroyed and finding yourself, your identity, again, in a world where you no longer recognise your place in it. It’s about family, friends, relationships and strangers. It’s about grief, it’s about pain but it’s also about the future and moving on.

That’s a lot to pack into one book and Ann Napolitano has done this very well. With an engaging narrative and complex characters we discover what it’s like to have your word inexplicably turned upside down.

A thought-provoking read - but maybe not one for the holiday if you’re of a nervous disposition! ✈️ Thank you to @vikingbooksuk and the author for the free copy in exchange for an honest review. #gifted

I have mixed feelings on this book. I really appreciated the depth of the story and the exploration of a child's life following such trauma, especially in his early teens when he's already struggling to figure himself out. I also really liked how he wasn't just thrown into the 'perfect' family setting afterwards - he struggled and showed many of the signs of PTSD, and Napolitano did a great job of showing how that can also affect other people around the sufferer.

However, I have to admit that I didn't like Shay at all. She seemed very shallow and selfish. Understandably with them being young at the start, I bypassed the whole 'you're like Harry Potter' thing. But towards the end where she constantly threw survivor's guilt in his face was just terrible. I know she was meant to be the 'relief', almost, a friend for Edward, but that's the highest form of toxicity in friendship, in my opinion.

I also found that I didn't particularly love the plane crash timeline. It was constantly bouncing between different people's narratives, and I found that I really didn't get to know anybody and I couldn't find myself understanding a lot of that. I think there needed to be more substance to those scenes.

Also just a note not about the content of the book but about the formatting of this galley on my Kindle - so many of the words were merged together to the point where I couldn't read the sentences. They were also in italics which made it harder. I skipped a large chunk of the ending because it was just illegible, so that really took away from my reading experience.

Thank you to Netgalley and to Viking at Penguin for this ARC!

What a story! So many feelings, so much sadness, tragedy and loss, then.. so much hope.
Yes, I did shed a tear, it was very emotional.
Thanks to Netgalley for this one!

Thanks for the early copy of Dear Edward. It was a book description that I was really interested in for many reasons, one being that I personally grew up in Lockerbie, a town that suffered an air distaster. With that in mind and experience, I wanted to see how the writer would cover such a topic and tragic circumstance.

Id downloaded the copy of the book via Kindle but unfortunately the formatting makes it very difficult to read and follow, with the copy splitting over multiple lines and every sentence is broken between lines. I'd read for a while but found that difficult to follow and didn't want it to ruin my experience of the book. So I'll wait until the book is released and read a physical copy.

Thanks for the opportunity to review and I do look forward to the release!

I received a copy of this book for review from the publisher a few months before the book was published. I'm basing my review on the assumption that the copy that I received is not the final version. I say this because there were a number of layout issues that made it hard to read at times.

I was particularly interested in reading this book as I have been researching a real plane crash for many years and most days I think what it must have been like on the plane for the 524 passengers and crew and what every day must be like for the 4 survivors. As an independent author I am also planning on writing a book about a plane crash one day. If I could ever write a book like 'Dear Edward' I would be delighted.

I found the whole book very engaging and the way it handled the crash itself was spot on. The book moves between two timelines - the plane crash itself and Edward coming to terms with surviving the crash as a boy. In many respects the book is about the trials of boy becoming a teenager growing up and coming to terms with emotions and feelings, living largely loner's life but supported by a girl of the same age. But he has the additional baggage of having survived a plane crash in which his family died. By having Edward face this tragedy the author cleverly draws the reader into thinking about a range of issues about life and bereavement without making the book too dark or depressing.

It was such a page turner and absolutely loved it. Probably one of my favourite books ever.

A well written, heart tugging read that makes you think about both your life and the ones you love.

'Dear Edward' is a compelling read that makes your heart ache for all the people that died on that flight and the one little boy that lived. I found myself wanting to find out what happened to Edward and about the last moments of those people on the flight. However, I did find that overall the novel was just too short and I found that some moments on the plane felt rushed and that more time could be spent on certain aspects. I also found that I felt sometimes the parts describing the life of Edward after the crash was just plodding along, these moments had a lot of time spent of them, but then other bigger moments were only touched on fleetingly. The blurb gives a lot of meaning to the finding and reading of the letters, which in some ways impacted what Eddie did (especially the one regarding his brothers love) however I found relatively they were introduced late in the story and I was expecting them to be more hard hitting. I usually cry buckets at books like this but I found that although I cared for the characters there was nothing described with enough fleshing out that made me fight back emotion. Although I really enjoyed this book and it made me think, I do not believe that there was any sentence or paragraph that will be memorable which I usually find is the case when reading other books like this.

Thank you for giving me a chance to read this novel in exchange for my review.

This is a beautifully written book which is very emotional
This is a sad story but it’s also about hope
This book made me smile and also cry
A compelling read

This was a different book for me. When the brothers names matched my boys I was tickled, but other than that it didn't pull me in as I had hoped. I think it was the writing style that did it for me. Thanks for chance to read it. Dnf

Easily one of the best books of the year. Two threads going back and forwards on the aftermath of a terrible plane crash. Moving, funny and makes you want run through the story to find out what happens to the characters we became attached to

This novel has a devastatingly inspired theme which I believe could have been loaded with suspense had it been written chronologically. The flitting from before, during and after the disaster coupled with threads from passenger to passenger without breaks - the unfortunate formatting of long strings of words joined together in a sentence made it tough reading. It started magnificently with Edward, and his family, a typical middle-class American family who was well fleshed out, credible and likeable. Sorrow and sympathy diminished with the oddities Florida and Benjamin. I didn’t feel the pull of my heartstrings at their plight. There was a lot of slang unknown or used in the UK and unnecessary ripe language employed. Occasionally, I get a telephone call when someone rambles on, changing the subject rapidly before I’ve absorbed the first conversational opener. This book reminded me of that kind of situation. Thank you to NetGalley and Penguin Books UK.

The interesting premise of a boy being the sole surviver of a plane crash drew me in, but ultimately I found it pretty hard to engage with Dear Edward. The story is intercut with flashbacks to the plane before the crash, but most of the stories of the passengers run together, and I found myself skimming through towards the end.

12-year-old Edward Adler was the Lone Survivor of Flight 2977 to Los Angeles where 215 people lost their lives. He was travelling on the plane from New York to Los Angeles where it is to be his new home. His mother a writer was starting a new job and Edward and his family was moving there.
The story continues with Edward moving in with his Aunt and Uncle that he barely knows with no children of their own, it’s a new experience for them, as it is to himself. He must learn to bear the guilt he feels as the only survivor. He was also home schooled by his father so, he must learn to communicate with his peers at school and cope with the other students believing him to be like a god as he cheated death. He has one ally Shay. Who seem to be the only one that understands him.
After his 15th Birthday he discovers letters from the siblings of the survivors which he goes through. Trying to meet some of the people to give them some sort of peace. And, for him to come to terms with everything that has happened and his future.
Thank you NetGalley and Penguin for a copy of Dear Edward. This book was completely different to what I was expecting. I did like the premise of this story, but I thought this book was a lot of hard work. I thought that the story was quite rushed and didn’t flow. It just jumped from one thing to another which prevented me to really connecting this book and the characters in it. I wanted something spectacular to that didn’t happen. So, in some parts my mind wondered off not caring about the story.

Edward is the sole survivor of a horrific plane crash. His new life afterwards, with no family, living with his auntie and uncle brings many big changes for him. A great read which immerses you.
ARC copy.

This book was not quite what I was expecting really.

It tells the story of Edward, a 12 year old boy who boards a plane with his brother Jordan and his parents as they are flying to LA to start a new life there. However, during the journey the plane crashes and Edward is the only survivor. This is quite an unusual story as the point of view flip flops back and forward between Edward's recovery and what happens during the flight so the information about the plane crash is only revealed in tiny fragments told from the perspective of different people on the flight: Benjamin, a soldier flying to LA for an operation; Linda, flying to LA to marry her boyfriend; Florida, a woman who believes she has lived many lives and been reincarnated numerous times; Mike, a business man flying to LA who has a tryst with the airhostess; a billionaire who is elderly and being cared for by a nurse who he doesn't like; and the airhostess too. In fact, there is nearly as much of their story as there is of Edward's story!

Edward struggles with his recovery and spends much of the first half of the book being quiet and withdrawn and refusing to eat. This part of the book felt so slow paced that I almost gave up reading it, however, I am glad that I stuck with it as the second half of the book feels more sprightly in tone and faster paced and this coincides with Edward starting to come to terms with what has happened to him.

It's an interesting story and I found myself thinking about what I would feel like if I had been in that situation.

Thanks to Netgalley and the publisher for the ARC in exchange for an honest review.

This book was really hit and miss. I'm not sure if i'm heartless but this book just seemed a bit lackluster to me.