5 Feet Apart: Life is Too Short to be Wasted

 Alina Bijoy

5 Feet Apart

11/8/21

“I trace the outline of my sister’s drawing, lungs molded from a sea of flowers. Petals burst out from every edge of the twin ovals in soft pinks, deep whites, even heather blues, but somehow each one has a uniqueness, a vibrancy that feels like it’ll bloom forever... I wonder, all too often, what it would be like to have lungs this healthy. This alive. I take a deep breath, feeling the air fight its way in and out of my body.”

5 Feet Apart is about a girl and a boy who both have a syndrome called cystic fibrosis. They are both dealing with the uncertainty of their futures and first love. At the beginning of the book, we learn that the 2 characters are total opposites; Stella is an organized person who makes sure to take her meds and treatments on time. Will is the total opposite who is tired of taking medications and staying in hospitals. When these two first meet each other, they hate each other. But eventually, they fall in love, but since Will has contracted a bacteria called B.cepacia, they have to stay 6 feet apart. In the book, these two teens face obstacles throughout their relationship and their teen lives, including their battle against cystic fibrosis. 

5 Feet Apart is a great book to read if you love bittersweet romance. This book tells us that even though you are different you can still find love since Stella and Will fall in love with each other even though they have opposite personalities. This book also teaches us that life is too short to be wasted and that you should live your life to the fullest. The book has loveable characters and an interesting plot, and a very emotional and beautiful portrayal of how you can find similarities while having totally different personalities. This book also has a lot of quotes that grab your attention and help you really understand the characters' emotions well.

There are also many striking sentences in the book. For example, in the book, Will says “If I'm going to die, I would actually like to live first.” In this part of the book, we can see Will describing his thoughts about being sick of staying in hospitals and being cut off from regular teenage life and his friends at school. We can see that Will is tired of getting treatments that don't work and gives up on the fact that he can have a future when we read the previous sentence: “No more hospitals. No more being stuck inside whitewashed buildings all over the world as doctors try drug after drug, treatment after treatment, none of them working.” I found this line striking because it shows Will's frustration and how much he just wants to live a normal life. He doesn't believe his cystic fibrosis can be cured anymore and just wants to be free from his meds, treatments, and staying in hospitals. We can see that since Will's whole life up until now has been taken by cystic fibrosis, he just wants to live like how a normal teen would live; going to school, seeing his friends, and getting to spend time with his family. 

Another sentence I found striking was the line “...Don’t think about what you’ve lost. Think of how much you have to gain. Live, Stella.” In this part of the book, Stella has the chance to get new lungs and live the normal life she has always dreamed of, but getting these lungs means that she can't be with Will anymore. This line is what Will tells Stella when she turns the offer of new lungs down. She eventually accepts the offer, knowing that her family and Will would want her to get the new lungs. I found this line striking because it contradicts the line in the previous paragraph: Will is showing Stella that she can finally live a normal life after she gets these new lungs and that she shouldn't give up her life like he did. He is telling her that she can live her life to the fullest when she receives her new lungs. This is also striking because we can see that he doesn't want Stella to give up her life to cystic fibrosis like he did. 

The final line that I found striking was “It's just life, Will. It'll be over before we know it.” In this scene, Stella is trying to convince Will to go see the lights with her, even though she knows her lungs won't let her go that far. This line is striking to me because it tells us that life is too short to be wasted and that you should live life the way you want to live it. 

Overall, 5 Feet Apart is a beautiful novel about finding connections and living life to the fullest: life is too short to be wasted. The book has intriguing and likable characters that you just easily fall in love with and also has alternating perspectives between Will and Stella, giving us a better description of their feelings and experiences. I loved the bittersweet plot of the book and how two people who don't have anything in common fall in love.