Is Five Feet Apart suitable for younger teen readers?

It is written for a young adult audience and deals openly with serious illness, medical procedures, and death. Romantic tension is present throughout. Readers who are sensitive to death themes, or who are reading for a younger child, may want to consider those elements before starting.

How does it compare to The Fault in Our Stars?

Both are teen love stories shaped by serious illness. Five Feet Apart centers on the physical rule that keeps the couple apart and on cystic fibrosis, while The Fault in Our Stars is more philosophical and dryly witty. If you liked the emotional intensity of one, the other will likely appeal too, though the tone differs.

Reader-supported: when you buy through links on our site, we may earn an affiliate commission. Learn more

Buy on Amazon Listen on Audible

We earn a commission if you buy through these links. Learn more

Five Feet Apart

Name: Five Feet Apart
Author: Rachael Lippincott
ISBN: 9781534437333

by Rachael Lippincott

Young Adult

A tender, tearful YA romance about two teens with cystic fibrosis who must keep their distance, showing how serious illness shapes love, control, and hope.

What It's About

Five Feet Apart is a young adult romance about two teenagers with cystic fibrosis who meet in a hospital and are told by their medical teams to keep a strict physical distance. Stella Grant has spent much of her life in and out of hospitals and is waiting on a lung transplant, so she treats every germ as a threat. Will Newman is older, impatient with his treatments, and counting down to his eighteenth birthday, when he can stop living around machines. The premise is simple, and the book's tension comes from the rule that keeps them apart.

Lippincott writes in a warm, direct voice that leans on everyday detail: medication schedules, sterilizing hands, and the small humiliations of being sick around other people. Much of the book is built from conversation, which lets the characters' humor come through even when the situation is grim. Expect emotional sincerity rather than literary experiment. The prose is accessible and the pages turn quickly.

What kind of experience this is depends on what you bring. If you want a tender love story with a clear emotional arc, it delivers that efficiently. The illness is treated seriously and without much sugarcoating, and the book pays attention to how sickness reshapes a teenager's sense of control, future, and friendship. It is a short, intense read that is more about feeling than plot surprises.

Read this if you…

want an emotionally intense YA romance with a clear hook
are drawn to stories about chronic illness told from a teenager's point of view
enjoyed The Fault in Our Stars and want something similar in tone

Skip it if you…

want a light, breezy romance with lots of comic banter
are looking for a clinically precise portrayal of cystic fibrosis or a medically detailed account

Key Ideas

1
Control as the central struggle
Stella's life is organized around what she can manage: rules, routines, and distance. The book shows how those rules protect her and also how they can become a kind of confinement. Her relationship with control is the emotional engine of the story, and it shapes how she responds to Will from the start.
2
Two responses to a limited future
Stella and Will share the same disease but face it differently. She is focused on the transplant and the chance to keep living, while he is focused on escaping the hospital before he is old enough to decide for himself. The contrast gives the book its argument about how people cope when their time feels uncertain.
3
Love defined by what it cannot do
The six-foot rule turns ordinary closeness into something that matters. Because touch and proximity are risky, small gestures carry a lot of weight. The romance is built on restraint, longing, and the question of whether a relationship can be real when its physical boundaries are imposed from outside.
4
The hospital as a place for adolescence
Much of the story happens in a setting most teen novels avoid, yet it still feels like a place where friendships form, jokes are shared, and small rebellions happen. The book suggests that being sick does not stop a person from having a normal adolescence, even if the rules around that adolescence are strict.

Limitations

Critics often point out that the book leans heavily on tears and sweeping declarations, and that the romance can feel predictable to readers who know the genre well. Its portrayal of cystic fibrosis is emotionally focused more than medically detailed, so readers wanting an accurate picture of daily disease management or long-term course should look to nonfiction or memoir. Readers have discussed its disability representation in both appreciative and skeptical ways, so it is best approached as a romance rather than a medical account.

Questions Readers Ask

Is Five Feet Apart suitable for younger teen readers?: It is written for a young adult audience and deals openly with serious illness, medical procedures, and death. Romantic tension is present throughout. Readers who are sensitive to death themes, or who are reading for a younger child, may want to consider those elements before starting.
How does it compare to The Fault in Our Stars?: Both are teen love stories shaped by serious illness. Five Feet Apart centers on the physical rule that keeps the couple apart and on cystic fibrosis, while The Fault in Our Stars is more philosophical and dryly witty. If you liked the emotional intensity of one, the other will likely appeal too, though the tone differs.

Published: 2018
ISBN: 9781534437333
Difficulty: beginner
Category: Young Adult

Book details and cover from Google Books.

Ready to read Five Feet Apart?

Get your copy on Amazon, or listen to it on Audible. We earn a commission if you buy through these links.

Buy on Amazon Listen on Audible