Themes
Key
LitCharts assigns a color and icon to each theme in Five Feet Apart, which you can use to track the themes throughout the work.
Love and Sacrifice
Death, Grief, and Guilt
Risk and Consequences
Survival, Terminal Illness, and Hope
Hardship and Family Dynamics
Summary
Analysis
Stella reminisces as she sits alone in her hospital room, looking over old photos and drawings that her sister Abby brought for her. Stella’s best friends Camila and Mya come to visit her at the hospital. Camila and Mya are leaving soon for their senior trip to Cabo, but Stella will have to stay in the hospital. She’s spent a lot of time in Saint Grace’s Hospital since she was first diagnosed with cystic fibrosis at six years old. Stella lives a normal teenage life most of the time, but sometimes during flare-ups she has extended hospital stays for treatments. Stella is scared because this flare-up is particularly bad, and her lungs are functioning at a low capacity. She’s on a list for a lung transplant.
Stella often sacrifices valuable experiences due to her illness, and missing the trip to Cabo with her friends is a major sacrifice. Over the course of the novel, Stella’s relationship to cystic fibrosis becomes more complicated as she feels increasingly impacted by everything she misses out on—especially normal teenage and coming-of-age experiences—due to her treatments.
Themes
Stella is especially scared for her parents, because they recently got divorced. She thinks that they would be lost if Stella died, now that they no longer have each other. Stella is nostalgic for past times she spent with her family, and she hopes her parents will get back together. Stella’s favorite nurse, Barb, tells Stella that Poe was also just admitted to the hospital. Poe and Stella have been friends since they were little kids, and Stella is happy that he’s there now. Poe also has cystic fibrosis, so he and Stella have to keep physical distance between them so that they don’t infect each other. Barb also tells Stella that there’s a new patient who was just admitted. Stella goes to his room and immediately thinks he’s very attractive. She watches from outside as he appears to let his friends have sex in his hospital room. Stella leaves, disgusted.
The fear and stress Stella feels about her medical situation is amplified by her anxiety about her parents. Curiously, Stella doesn’t mention her sister Abby here when she reflects on her family. It’s also not yet clear why her parents separated. There is still much for readers to learn about Stella’s family situation, but it seems likely that Stella’s illness complicates her family dynamic. She feels responsible for her parents’ wellbeing, even though she’s still a teenager in high school.
Themes
