I Fell in Love with Hope
2022
- romance
- inspirational
- self-love
- hope
- faith
- spirituality
- personal growth
- transformation
- new beginnings
- overcoming challenges
The story
Against the unforgiving landscape of a hospital, I fell in love with a mischievous, sun-eyed boy who became my only joy in that desolate place. That’s what made it all the more soul-crushing when he committed suicide in front of me. Since then, I've sworn never to love anyone again. With three exceptions: My friends, Sony, Neo, and Coeur, a little gang of rebellious, dying kids. Sony leads the charge with the air of freedom and only one lung to breathe it. Neo, a bad-tempered and wheel-chaired writer, keeps track of our great deeds from stealing to terrorizing our nurse. Coeur is the beautiful boy, the muscle, the gentle giant with a failing heart. Before death inevitably knocks down our doors, my thieves and I have one last heist planned. A great escape that will take us far from abusive parents, crippling loss, and the realities of our diseases. So what happens when someone else walks through the door? What happens when a girl joins our party and renders me speechless with her mischievous smile? What happens when she has suns in her eyes, and as terrified as I am to lose again, I start to fall? Trigger warnings found in foreword
What it’s like
Warm, sun-struck YA romance with a hospital-ward ache running underneath it. The voice is first person, breathless and wry, full of teenage bravado and bitter jokes that keep cracking open into grief, so the mood swings between giddy and heavy from one page to the next. The setting is sterile and fluorescent, with antiseptic corridors, bleached linens, and the drip of IV poles, then escapes into imagined sunlight, open roads, and summer heat. Pacing runs in bursts: long, aching stretches of waiting and small rebellions, punctuated by sharp emotional turns. Its heart is a group of dying kids who refuse to be pitied, and a narrator learning to love again after a devastating loss, the arc moving slowly from guardedness toward reluctant, fragile hope. Intensity is high emotionally: a suicide is depicted in a pivotal scene, with grief, terminal illness, and abusive home lives throughout; there is no gore, and sexual content is limited to romantic longing. Not gentle. For readers who want an emotionally raw, hopeful story about found family and courage in the face of loss, and who can handle heavy themes handled with tenderness.
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