BOOK REVIEW OF RACHAEL LIPPINCOTT’S FIVE FEET APART

By: Phsyrene Kamylle E. Quierre & Mark Joeped C. Pareño

1. INTRODUCTION

1.1 Background of the Study

Five Feet Apart, a novel written by Rachael Lippincott with Mikki Daughtry and
Tobias Iaconis. Five Feet Apart is all about the difficulties about life and love while
struggling with an inherited chronic disease of a two young teens, Stella and Will. These
two young teens fell in love with each other knowing that their relationship will end their
lives if they continued to follow their hearts. This novel appeals a demand for its readers to
think about the priorities of a normal life, that often a person with a persistent sickness fails
to enjoy.

1.2 Purpose of the Study

The purpose of this study is to review Rachael Lippincott's novel, Five Feet Apart
and to know about the difficulties and conflicts the characters in the story have faced, and to
know how they conquer or what keeps them in believing theirselves that they can manage to
stay positive and alive despite having the negative things happening on their lives. And also
for readers to know what moral lessons in this novel they can apply on theirselves to enjoy
what they have in their loves.

1.3 Authors and their Works

1.3.1 Rachael Lippincott

Rachael Lippincott is a New York Times bestselling American novelist. She was
born in Philadelphia on December 5, 1994 and was raised in Bucks Country,
Pennsylvania. She graduated from George School in 2013, and holds a BA in English
Writing from the University of Pittsburgh. She is best known for writing the book
adaptation of Five Feet Apart (2018), which become a major motion picture directed by
Justin Baldoni. She’salso the author of the book The Lucky List (2021), She Gets the Girl
(2022), and Pride and Prejudice and Pittsburgh (2023).

1.3.2 Mikki Daughtry

Mikki Daughtry is an American screenwriter and young adult fiction author. She
was born in Atlanta, Georgia. She graduated from the University of Brenau. She is best
 known for writing, along with her writing partner, Tobias Iaconis, the film The Curse of
La Llorona (2019), Five Feet Apart (2019), and Nightbooks (2021)
1.3.3 Tobias Iaconis
Tobias Iaconis is a German American screenwriter born in Landstuhl, Khiheland-
Palatinate, Germany. At the age of eighteen, he moved to the United States to attend
Haverford College, where he studied English Literature with a concentration in creative
writing. He is best known for writing, with Daughtry, the films The Curse of La Llorona
(2019), Five Feet Apart (2019), and Nightbooks (2021).

2. SUMMARY OF THE BOOK

Stella Grant is a cystic fibrosis patient who actively uses social media to cope with
her illness and tries to live a normal life. Stella absolutely loves babies and spends most
of her days at the NICU or where they keep the babies. She meets another CF patient,
Will Newman, who is at the hospital for a medication trial, in an attempt to get rid of the
bacterial infection in his lungs called Bulkholderia Cepacia (B. Cepacia). He follows her
to the NICU while his friends use his room for stuff. CF patients are strictly kept six feet
apart to reduce the risk of bacterial infections from other CF patients can be life-
threatening. Stella is determined to keep the distance and dislikes Will initially, who likes
to break the rules and take dangerous risks. Stella notices that Will isn’t taking his
treatment regimen and it drives her mad as an organized and responsible person, and she
gets him to agree on one condition, he will draw Stella.

Will and Stella begin to fall for each other and go on their first date to the hospital
pool wherein they reveal their scars from their past surgeries. The day after that, Stella
made a scavenger hunt for his birthday, which catches him by surprise. It ends with Will
meeting up with Stella, who leads him to a room for a surprise dinner party, prepared by
Stella and Poe, and in that room there’s Stella’s bestfriends, Camila and Mya, and Will’s
friends too that prank him that they’re not going to visit him to celebrate his birthday. But
later that night, their therapist Barb opened the door, seeing the three of them in a room.
Barb got mad and call the three of them to assist them to their rooms. Later that night,
Poe dies and Stella is sad because she never got to hug him. But then Stella felt
someone’s hand on her shoulder and when she looked up, it’s Will. She got more mad
and yelled at him to get out of her room. Will panicked because he didn’t know what he
did, he just want to comfort Stella yet he made her more mad.

Stella decides that she is living her life too strictly, that’s why she decided to go
outside the hospital to be like a normal teen who is free from any diseases. Stella wants to
see the lights but then he saw Will inside the hospital and orders him to come with her
 And that’s when Will decided to leave the hospital too with her in order to view the lights
from the city. Stella suddenly grabs Will’s hand, scarring Will. However Stella argues
that she has gloves on. They come across a pond and decide to slide around on the pond.

During this moment, the hospital is notified that they had a pair of lungs for
Stella to get a transplant. She ignores it so she can spend more time out with Will. When
Will finds out that Stella can get a transplant, he pleads with Stella to take the transplant.
Stella refuses, before falling through the ice. While Stella’s under the water, she saw her
sister’s drawing and she slowly hears her sister's voice singing their favorite song. And
that’s when she saw her sister asking if she’s dead too. But her sister stops her from
coming with her because she wanted her sister to live. Suddenly, Stella heard Will’s
voice calling for her and that’s when her sister told her that she has to wake up for Will.
Will is able to pull her out of the water, but Stella is unresponsive. Despite the risk of
infection, Will performs CPR and Stella wakes up. They are then brought back to the
hospital by ambulance. At first, Stella is hesitant to do the transplant because she knows
that she will have to be more apart from Will, but Stella agrees to do the transplant after
Will convinces her to do it for him. The transplant is successful. Will finds out that Stella
did not contract his infection. When Stella wakes up from her surgery, she sees Will
through the glass window of her room. He has set up a display of lights outside of her
room, saying that his only regret was that she did not get to see the lights so he brought
them to her. He tells her that his drug trial isn’t working, and he doesn’t want her to have
to deal with his eventual death. Confessing his love for her, Will makes her close her
eyes, because he says he won’t be able to leave if she is looking at him. Stella closes her
eyes and Will walks away.

Eight months later after the transplant, Stella and Will run into each other in an
airport, both on their way to separate travel destinations, Stella is on her way to Rome
while Will is on his way to Brazil. They remain changed by their time together. Stella’s
health has improved with her new lungs, and while Will remains sick, he sticks to his
regimen as prescribed by Stella.

3. REVIEW OF THE BOOK

3.1 Elements of the Story

3.1.1 Characters

Characters are the life-giving element of the story, that’s why this is also the most
important element when it comes to writing stories or novels because they are the ones
who completes the story.
3.1.1.1 Stella Grant

Stella is one of the main character in this novel. She is a type of girl who’s super
organized and responsible when it comes to herself and to the things around her. She is
also a planner, that’s why she has these to-do lists where in all the things she wanted to
do are written on it. Stella has a lung disease called Cystic Fibrosis (CF) since she was
just a kid and that’s the reason why she kept coming back and forth in the hospital. She
has her parents, her sister Abby, Camila and Mya who dearly care for her. And despite
her illness, she managed to stay positive and alive for her parents and the people who
loves her.

3.1.1.2 Will Newman

Will is also one of the main character in this novel. He is a type of a guy who wants
to explore the world because he believes that he doesn’t have much time left because of
the disease he had developed, the Bulkholderia Cepacia also known as B. Cepacia. Will
is an only child of her mother. His mother is the only one who’s taking care of him
because his father left him when he was a kid after he knows that he had an illness that’s
incurable. He loves to draw everything, most likely views, that’s why he wants to explore
the world before he dies.

3.1.1.3 Poe

Poe is the first friend of Stella since the day she got into the hospital. Poe also has
Cystic Fibrosis that’s why Stella and him didn’t get close to each other ever since even
though they’re bestfriends for so long. He loves football, skateboarding, and mostly men.
He’s always there for Stella whenever things get rough for her. He’s also a type of person
who brings joy to everyone that’s why every hospital staff loves him.

3.1.1.4 Dr. Hamid, Barb and Julie

Dr. Hamid is the doctor assigned for Stella, Will and Poe. Barb and Julie are the
ones in charge in monitoring and taking care of the three of them since the first time they
got into the hospital. That’s why they are like the second parents of them, specially Barb,
because they are always there for them every time.
3.1.2 Setting

The entire novel takes place in Saint Grace’s Hospital, where Stella and Will have
both recently been admitted as patients. But at the last part of this novel, both of them
went to a hill all the way to the Park to see the city lights. And at the very last part of the
novel, they met at the airport having a separate travel journey with their friends.

3.1.3 Plot

Plot is the logical series of events in the story. There are five essential parts of the
plot namely Exposition, Rising Action, Climax, Falling Action, and Denouement. And
these essential parts of the plot are almost the same as the summary of the book of this
study. The plot of this novel is so romantic and touching because of the characters on it.

The major conflict of the novel is driven by the fact that patients with cystic
fibrosis—such as Stella Grant and Will Newman—cannot be within less than six feet of
each other, as the risk of cross-contamination of bacteria is too high and could lead to
death. But Stella, furious at all that her illness has taken from her, decides that she and
Will are taking something back. She tells Will they will remain five feet apart instead of
six using a billiard pool cue. But they still broke their own rules because Will have to do
the mouth to mouth and CPR in order for Stella to live and have the new lungs awaiting
for her. But at the end of this novel, Will decided to let go of Stella for her to be safe
from any danger and to him.

3.1.4 Theme

The themes of this novel are love, rebellion, and life and death. In the novel, there
is the love of a family, friends, and romantic love. But the characters tried to figure out
how to rebel against the guidelines and barriers that are in plase to protect their lives. In
this novel, they want to live a more meaningful life rather than an extended one. As what
I read in this novel, the characters both have a serious illness that if they get really close
or touch each other, they will die due to the bacteria infections they both have.

4. CONCLUSION

The novel Five Feet Apart is a romantic novel by Rachael Lippincott. This novel is
also known as bestselling and even made the film version. This novel is not just romantic but a
truly touching novel where a girl who has a chronic disease never thought that she’llfall in love
and be loved again by a guy who also happens to have a more serious disease other than the
same disease she has.
 Rachael Lippincott's Five Feet Apart is not only romantic, it is also very
inspirational. Inspirational for every people specially those who also have the same disease Stella
and Will have, the Cystic Fibrosis. Because this novel raises awareness about the cystic fibrosis
disease and tells that even if you stand different and have difficulties to deal with in your life and
health, you can still find love even at places it is least expected to be found. But there is always a
limitation in everything, just like the relationship between Will and Stella where Will decided to
leave Stella’s life forever in order for her to have a life to live.

REFERENCES
https://www.google.com/url?q=https://ciliandini.files.wordpress.com/2019/05/five-feet-apart-
rachael-lippincott.pdf
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rachael_Lippincott
Moving On Up: ‘Five Feet Apart’. Publishers Weekly. Retrieved 2020-04-12.
BIOGRAPHY. Rachael Lippincott. Retrieved 2020-02-29
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mikki_Daughtry
Mikki Daughtry. Simon & Schuster. Retrieved 2021-02-12
Mikki Daughtry, WC ‘01”. Brenau Window. 2019-09-20. Retrieved 2021-02-12
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tobias_Iaconis