Opposition & Five Feet Apart | Mini Reviews

Five Feet Apart by Rachael Lippincott, Mikki Daughtry & Tobias Iaconis

Published: November 2018
Read: May 2019
Rating: 3 stars

Synopsis: Can you love someone you can never touch?

Stella Grant likes to be in control—even though her totally out of control lungs have sent her in and out of the hospital most of her life. At this point, what Stella needs to control most is keeping herself away from anyone or anything that might pass along an infection and jeopardize the possibility of a lung transplant. Six feet apart. No exceptions.

The only thing Will Newman wants to be in control of is getting out of this hospital. He couldn’t care less about his treatments, or a fancy new clinical drug trial. Soon, he’ll turn eighteen and then he’ll be able to unplug all these machines and actually go see the world, not just its hospitals.

Will’s exactly what Stella needs to stay away from. If he so much as breathes on Stella she could lose her spot on the transplant list. Either one of them could die. The only way to stay alive is to stay apart. But suddenly six feet doesn’t feel like safety. It feels like punishment.

What if they could steal back just a little bit of the space their broken lungs have stolen from them? Would five feet apart really be so dangerous if it stops their hearts from breaking too?

Ah, ill-fated romance gets me every time. 

This story was so endearing, engaging and vivid—it completely sucked me in. Having said that though, I couldn’t help but feel like something was missing and struggled to put my finger on what that thing was. Whilst I really enjoyed the characters and couldn’t help but cry through the last quarter, something about the pacing or the way it was written felt off to me. 

That said, I really liked how this story raised awareness and taught me about a disease I knew nothing about; cystic fibrosis. It was eye-opening to learn about and every time it talked about characters struggling for breath, I found myself inhaling heavily, realising how often I take my own health for granted.

I watched the movie after reading this and later found out that the screenplay was adapted into a book and not vice versa like I’m used to. Maybe that’s what was throwing me off with the pacing and the way the story flowed in novel form. I thought the movie was great though and felt that this story was much more at home on screen.

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Opposition by Jennifer L. Armentrout

Published: August 2014
Read: March 2019
Series: Lux #5
Rating: 3 stars

This is book 5 in the series, my thoughts on Obsidian (book 1) can be found here, Opal (book 3) here and Origin (book 4) here

~Spoilers ahead~

Sadly, I feel like I was reading this book just for the sake of finishing the series, and if I’m being honest, most of the time I wasn’t really enjoying it. 

That said, I did still enjoy the ending and the story did manage to evoke real emotion, which means it must have resonated with me in some way. I cried when Daemon was shot (that scene was beautifully written) and I laughed-out-loud at Archer and Daemon’s bickering most of the time (in particular that scene in the car). I especially enjoyed Archer and he quickly became my favourite character. I wish he was introduced earlier in the series. 

Unfortunately, I just couldn’t get past all the cheesy one-liners and the many many plot conveniences. The sex scenes also got old and repetitive.

I wish I finished this series years ago when I first started it. I feel like I outgrew it in a way, which saddens me as I feel like I would have rated it much higher and enjoyed it far more years ago.