One summer morning, a flight takes off from New York to Los Angeles. There are 192 passengers aboard: among them a young woman taking a pregnancy test in the airplane toilet; a Wall Street millionaire flirting with the air hostess; an injured soldier returning from Afghanistan; and two beleaguered parents moving across the country with their adolescent sons, bickering over who gets the window seat. When the plane suddenly crashes in a field in Colorado, the younger of these boys, 12-year-old Edward Adler, is the sole survivor.
Dear Edward depicts Edward's life in the crash's aftermath as he struggles to make sense of the meaning of his survival, the strangeness of his sudden fame, and find his place in the world without his family. In his new home with his aunt and uncle, the only solace comes from his friendship with the girl next door, Shay. Together Edward and Shay make a startling discovery: hidden in his uncle's garage are sacks of letters from the relatives of the other passengers, addressed to Edward.
As Edward comes of age against the backdrop of sudden tragedy, he must confront some of life's most profound questions: how do we make the most of the time we are given? And what does it mean not just to survive, but to truly live?
Dear Edward is such a beautifully written story that really grabbed at my heart and didn't let go until the very end. And even then I couldn't stop thinking about it, about the people in the crash, how would their lives have gone on, the young and the old, they all had hopes and dreams and it was all cruelly taken away from them.
But, this is not a depressing story, not at all, in fact it's the opposite.
Full of triumph, survival, hope, friendship, guilt, caring and surmounting the impossible with the possible.
Overall I thought this was a thought-provoking and moving story.
