by Emmy Kirkham
“Five Feet Apart” recently came out in theaters, starring Cole Sprouse and Haley Lu Richardson, yet many people are unaware that the film is also a novel, written by Mikki Daughtry, Rachael Lippincott, and Tobias Iaconis. The plot focuses on two teenagers, Stella Grant and Will Newman, who both have Cystic Fibrosis (CF). Stella is a popular Youtuber, who has frequently visited the Saint Grace Hospital. On her most recent visit, she ran into Will, who contracted a bacteria called B. cepacia. Will is at the hospital for a drug trial for B. cepacia, which is currently an incurable bacteria. CF patients are told to never be closer than 6 feet to each other, due to the possibility of cross contamination of bacteria. The title came from Stella’s decision to “steal” a foot away from CF. She couldn’t stand all the things CF had stolen from her, such as going on trips with her family and friends and a short life expectancy. She decided that she would stay only five feet apart from her friends, instead of six.
Although Stella and Will can never touch, they began to fall in love, but that was not always the case. When they first met, Stella and Will were complete opposites and could not seem to get along. Stella likes when everything is orderly and she likes to feel in charge. Will loves to break the rules and is very unorganized. Stella cannot handle the fact that Will is not completing his treatments or taking his medicine, so she makes an agreement with him to do their treatments together, just so she can know he is doing them. As the story goes on, they begin to spend more time together, but not in typical ways. They FaceTime frequently and they sit very far from each other in the same room, yet the urge to be close is still there. The rest of the story explains how CF affects their daily life, how they get through tough times together, their friendships with other patients, and how they just want to live their lives to the fullest, with the time they have. The novel was released before the movie came out, yet the movie was filmed and completed several months before the book was released. I liked how this was done because the book and movie were very similar, with only a few differences, and I liked the book so much that I didn’t want the plot to change. The book and movie even had almost the same dialogue.
Although they were so similar, the book was more descriptive than the movie. In the book, Stella’s best friend Poe, who also is a CF patient, had a backstory and we knew exactly who he was and the problems he was going through. In the movie, he was just put in all of a sudden, and although who he was had been explained eventually, he still did not have much backstory on his life. I liked the book’s descriptions of Poe a lot better than the movie, just because it felt as though he was a main part of the story, which I think was the goal of the story. The typical trope of “the lovers cannot be together” was shown in this story, as well as many other popular stories, such as “Romeo and Juliet.” I was impressed with the authors and screenwriters because “Five Feet Apart” was completely different than anything I have ever read or watched before. They took a typical trope and made it unique and unfamiliar. The story also gave a lot of insight to a disease that is rarely talked about in media. Before watching the movie and reading the book, I had little knowledge on CF, but because of the story, I was able to get a better understanding of their daily struggles and how the disease could affect them.
The story did have a few unrealistic aspects of CF. Both Stella and Will were risking their health and their lives to be with each other and they were in a fancy hospital, but hardly mentioned the cost of it or the medical bills.
I would recommend the novel and film to anyone who enjoys John Green or Rainbow Rowell novels, but I would not recommend this book if you are just trying to learn about CF. The story gives background information about CF and shows the impact of it on people’s lives, but it is a fictional love story, not a informational nonfiction novel.
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