Five Feet Apart by Rachael Lippincott with Mikki Daughtry & Tobias Iaconis

     I can’t lie, the reason I requested this one was the absolutely gorgeous cover. I usually try to stay away from “sick romances” because I don’t like the angst or the crying induced headache I normally get after finishing one. But this time it didn’t matter because I enjoyed it anyways. 

     Stella and Will have had a very demanding disease for most of their lives. It’s controlled the way they get to live so they’ve both had as much as they can stand. Stella decides to do as much as she can to stay on top if it and Will just wants it all to be over. He doesn’t care for his treatments or the new drug that can help him. He just wants out. But when the two meet, they can’t stay away from each other. They decide to take the leap and break the rule of not being closer than 6 feet to another person with “C.” To just a tiny bit closer and step 12 inches closer….. To 5 feet. 

     The best part of this is the characters. I loved Will and I loved Stella, but I loved seeing their opposing viewpoints. One of them seems like a huge stickler and wants to follow every rule and look at everything. And then there’s the other that thinks following the rules are pointless because it’s not going to work anyways. Seeing both sides (even if I didn’t agree with one of them) was a great way to show their feelings. It felt more realistic to give both sides, because like with most things, after constant let downs, it makes it hard to think anything else might work.
     As for their romance, I thought it was the cutest, most heart-breaking thing ever. It was a bit insta-lovely, but seeing as they had never been in a real relationship before, I wasn’t surprised by that. (Also the book was about 200+ pages in the physical copy, so I wasn’t surprised because of that too.) But overall, its really cute the way they made time for each other and the way they did things for each other. I was glad they were able to give each other those small swoony moments.
     And last but not least, I can always tell that I like a book when it tugs on my emotions. I normally cry at the drop of a hat, and this time I only got glassy eyed. Normally when I read books like this I full-on ugly cry to the point where I get a headache. This didn’t happen this time. And I’m even exactly sure why. I loved the characters and the story was interesting, but I just didn’t FEEL it like I expected to. Maybe it was the writing style, but it just didn’t grab me. The writing swept me away and I was already listening to it on 1.5 speed, so maybe that’s what it was? I sped through it? Maybe I was expecting something like that to happen, so when it did I wasn’t surprised? Whatever the case may be, it was the reason I couldn’t give this a full 5 stars.
     The other thing I wasn’t a fan of was the troupe that becomes present in this one. Let’s be honest, SPOILER:CAN WE GET A BOOK WHERE THE ONLY POC THAT’S OPENLY GAY LIVES?! As a POC. I think I would have made it more of a point to be upset if the person who died was one of the MC’s. But nope. It was the only POC and they just so happened to be gay. The only scrap of diversity in this book was killed off.
     With the book I didn’t cry, but I don’t think I’ll be as lucky with the movie. This wonderful book of friendship and love shows that a disease doesn’t define you. In this novel you meet teens just living their best life, the best way they can.