A reporter holds up a copy of The New York Times to a camera, to show the huge block headline, the kind normally reserved for presidential elections and moonwalks. It reads- 191 die in plane crash; 1 survivor. The relatives have only one question when the press briefing comes to close; they all lean toward it like a window in a dark room- "How is the boy?" One summer morning, a flight takes off from New York to Los Angeles. There are 191 passengers aboard- among them a young woman taking a pregnancy test in the airplane toilet; a Wall Street millionaire flirting with the air hostess; an injured soldier returning from Afghanistan; and two beleaguered parents moving across the country with their adolescent sons. When the plane suddenly crashes in a field in Colorado, the younger of these boys, 12-year-old Edward Adler, is the sole survivor. Dear Edward depicts Edward's life in the crash's aftermath as he struggles to make sense of the meaning of his survival, the strangeness of his sudden fame, and find his place in the world without his family. As Edward comes of age against the backdrop of sudden tragedy, he must confront one of life's most profound questions- how do we make the most of the time we are given? And what does it mean not just to survive, but to truly live?