‘Dear Edward’ is my first book by this author and has been on my TBR for a long time now. I had been waiting for a couple of other books to arrive, and figured I would pick this up meanwhile.

The story starts out ordinarily enough. Bruce and Jane Adler, accompanied by their two sons, arrive at Newark Airport to board their flight to LA for their cross-country move. In the opening chapter, the author introduces the family and several other passengers boarding the same flight – a young woman stepping out from under her father’s wing, traveling to LA in the hopes that her fiancé will propose, a powerful multimillionaire traveling for his cancer treatment trial, a black soldier, a Hispanic woman that remembers all her past lives and an alluring flight attendant, among others. In the second chapter, the author throws a curveball at you. At about three-fourths of its journey, the flight crashes, killing everyone on board except young Edward Adler.

Edward moves in with his aunt and uncle in the aftermath of the crash. Having tried multiple times, in vain, Lacey and John have only recently abandoned the idea of having their own baby. So when they are forced to become parents to a twelve-year-old, instead of a newborn, they struggle. Edward finds comfort in his new neighbor, Shay, who’s around the same age as him. Together, they discover and write back to the countless heart-wrenching letters that are addressed to Edward from the families and friends of the deceased. These letters, addressed to him as ‘Dear Edward’, serve as the namesake of this novel.

This book was an easy read, although other than the story itself, I have to say that I didn’t find the author’s rendition of it particularly remarkable. The chapters alternate between the events in the flight before it crashes and Edward’s life, as he grows up, grappling with the situation he’s been handed. In the chapters that build up to the crash, the author delves into the lives of the other passengers. I found myself enjoying Edward’s parts of the book more. The author has done a convincing job of exploring a twelve year-old’s emotions, which can be challenging.

At the same time, I feel like the author didn’t do justice to the other characters on the plane, in that I didn’t feel any attachment to them. I found myself rushing through these chapters so I could get to the ones with Edward. Another negative aspect of this book for me was the age-old stereotypes the author has employed. For instance, during a family dinner, men discuss computer programming while women are in the kitchen discussing neighbors (Sigh). And another one where the back of the plane smells like Indian food (What even?!). Also, this may just be me, but I felt like the ‘diversity’ among the passengers aboard the plane felt forced. It seemed as though the author added a black and a Hispanic character just to avoid writing a story solely about white people.

Overall, this book was a well written story, and it did move me to tears towards the end. The author has done a splendid job of capturing raw human emotions in this “coming of age” novel. It didn’t however, make me fall in love with it. Even as I was able to finish the book in about two and a half days, the aftermath of it didn’t leave me feeling heavy, which I would expect from a book like this. Nonetheless, I would definitely recommend this book – it is a great one-time read.