Lancali

The first thing I want to say is that this is 100% worth reading despite what I'm about to say.

Pretty much all of my problems with this book stem from the prose. Another review said something like this book "reads like "excerpts from a novel I'll never write inspiration images all strung together to form a semi-cohesive story" which is the most accurate description. Every line tries to stand out to the point it becomes annoying, even the character's dialogue.

The plot, characters, and message show more of the book are all wonderful though. You can tell it's written with the kind of love that only comes from writing about real world experiences. The parts of this book that hit, hit HARD. And I think it's important to read about a topic like this from an author who knows what they're talking about.

The issues I had with the prose improved a lot throughout the book too. The last 40% felt a lot more readable. That really excites me. I hope the author continues to write and develop more. I'll definitely pick up another of their books if they were to publish anything else. show less

The characters Lancali creates in her hospital setting are full of raw emotion. They're a tangled mix of the innocence of childhood and the brutality of a chronic illness. Couer, Neo, Hikari, Sony, and Sam all struggle to build a home and a family whilst their diseases wreak havoc upon their bodies. It's chock full of emotion. However, it did feel hard to connect to these characters. Sometimes it felt like the characters were reduced to their single defining personality trait and that was show more it, the depth of their personalities didn't feel like it got a full chance to shine. At the beginning of the story everything was so obscured by prose it became hard to determine where the metaphor ended and the story began. It made it difficult to discern the plot rather than adding an element of beauty to the tragedy. Even the characters spoke in those over eloquent, too thought out ways, and it took away from it a little bit.
I still don't know how I feel about Sam being the soul-made-flesh of Hope. It lent this weird extra reincarnation dynamic to their romance with Hikari that felt weird and colored both romances in a different light with that information.
I will say there is something to be said for a book with chronically ill characters that not only do not let their illnesses define them, in true teenage fashion the completely ignore them sometimes. I've seen people criticize the way they would push past their limits, potentially making things worse for them in the long run; but I think there is something to be said for people who have to spend so much time in hospitals and have so much taken and decided by an illness being allowed to express their bodily autonomy. show less

This is cute, it is somewhat well written, has some lovely quotes and nicely crafted but somehow falls flat. You can definitely tell this is a debut, it’s a little too flowery, trying too hard and far too many metaphors that make it a little difficult to read. It’s sweet and I love the idea and the characters, it flows nicely but doesn’t give you enough to go on, it’s confusing not having a main character description, reading the entire book not knowing the narrators gender even. show more Made it difficult to picture with no description or an explanation as to why there’s no description. I feel like it could have been amazing but was just too ambitious for a debut. It is emotional and meaningful but not quite there show less