One summer morning, Flight 2977 takes off from Newark Airport headed for Los Angeles. There are 216 passengers aboard- among them a Wall Street wunderkind worth $15 million; a young woman coming to terms with an unexpected pregnancy; an injured vet 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. Told in alternating points of view, Dear Edward recounts the stories of the passengers aboard that flight as it hurtles toward its fateful end, and depicts Edward's life in the crash's aftermath as he tries to make sense of the loss of his family, the strangeness of his sudden fame, and the meaning of his survival. As Edward moves through adolescence, coming of age against the backdrop of sudden tragedy, he must confront some of life's most profound questions- How do we make the most of the time we are given? For whom do we reach in life's final moments? What does it mean to live well?