Five Feet Apart

By: Rachael Lippincott

Companion book

By: Harshita Rai

Note: I am posting the whole book in parts. This part has ch 2 and ch3. To read ch 1, check out my last post. The next part will have ch 4, ch 5 and ch 6.

Chapter 2

The Three Main Characters

Who are really the main people in this novel? The main characters are Stella and Will, but Poe is also very important. Stella and Will are lovers and Poe is Stella’s best friend. What are these characters’ personality, needs, and wants. What are these characters’ problems? To find out the answer read chapter 2, Welcome to the characters in which you will find a graphic in the form of a table.

Chapter 3

-You can never understand the importance of something until you lose it

What really is the theme of this book? Five Feet Apart is obviously a very emotional novel with many themes but there is one main theme that seems to pop up a lot throughout the book. To dive deeper into the wonderful theme of this wonderful story, finish reading chapter 3.

Showing Appreciation

People complain all the time for the things they don’t have, but have you ever shown appreciation for something small but important. You can never understand the importance of something until you lose it. This theme is shown in the novel Five Feet Apart by Rachael Lippincott. The main character, Stella, has a lung disease which has always kept her from doing what all the normal kids do. Stella didn’t really mind because she knew she wasn’t normal. Sometimes it was hard, but Stella had always been a fighter. Unlike Stella, Will had given up a long time ago. He didn’t care if he died. He just wanted to spend his numbered days touring the world. When Stella met Will, everything changed. She started questioning herself. Was trying to fight the cancer useless? Could she really just be carefree like Will? Stella finally started to understand the importance of what she was missing out on.

During their date by the pool, Will and Stella have a conversation where Stella starts to realize that she is falling in love with Will and how much she wants him. Stella realizes, “For the first time, I feel the weight of every single inch, every single millimeter of the six feet between us. I pull my sweatshirt closer to my body… trying to ignore the fact that that open space? It will always be there”(Lippincott 142). This proves that finally Stella starts to realize how important touch is and that she will never be able to have that. Stella wants to try to ignore her loss but the weight of that space is overwhelming to her. There is so much space she lost because of her disease. People might think six feet isn’t a lot but when you don’t have that six feet of space anymore, it becomes something big. Stella always took her meds and listened to the doctor in hopes of being healthy one day. Even after all that fighting she still couldn’t have what she most wanted.

Another piece of evidence to support this theme is, “I wonder, all too often, what it would be like to have lungs this healthy. This alive” (Lippincott 1). Anyone who has healthy lungs, has almost never had difficulty breathing. For Stella, every second of her life has been dedicated to fighting for a breath. The last time anyone wondered about having healthy lungs probably wasn’t anytime soon but if they didn’t have healthy lungs that’s all they would wonder about. People never realize how important something is until they don’t have it anymore. When that something is gone they regret that they didn’t have more appreciation for it. For example, Stella loved her sister, Abby, but she never really appreciated how much Abby had done for her. When Abby died, Stella felt she should have been there for her sister and appreciated what she had instead of always being worried for herself.

Touch is the first sense we acquire and the secret weapon in many a successful relationship. Touch is a language that we instinctively know how to use, but apparently it’s a skill we take for granted. In the book Stella explains, “We need that touch from the one we love, almost as much as we need air to breathe. I never understood the importance of touch, his touch… until I couldn’t have it”(Lippincott 270). This quote clearly supports the theme. Before meeting Will, Stella never understood how important touch was. After she met Will, and fell in love with him, she finally started to understand. When you love someone, you usually show that love with some form of communication, like hugging or kissing. Stella and Will loved each other but they had to stay six feet apart because of their disease. All of Stella’s hard work was for nothing when she couldn’t have Will. When Stella’s best friend, Poe, died Stella realized that in all her years of being friends with Poe she had never hugged him. How frustrating it must be for Stella, that she is being robbed by her disease of simple things like a hug from a loved one. Stella finally understood the importance of her loss and that hurt her a great deal.

In conclusion, Stella’s actions show that people don’t understand the importance of something until they lose it. People never realize what they have because they are always looking for something better. In our everyday lives, we think about what we don’t have instead of thinking about what we do have. You should appreciate every single moment before it becomes a regretful memory. What people should take away from this book is to always show appreciation because what’s taken for granted, will eventually be taken away and then you will end up missing the things you least appreciated.