A review by shalisa
I fell in love with hope by Lancali

emotional hopeful sad medium-paced
  • Loveable characters? It's complicated
  • Diverse cast of characters? Yes

1.75

Trigger warning for everything under the sun: self harm, eating disorders, illness, death of a parent, suicide, sexual assault, child abuse, rape, homophobia, medical trauma, domestic abuse, cancer, etc  

I could’ve loved this but somebody lied to me. 
Firstly, and if I read this wrong then my mistake but creating fictitious symptoms from very REAL diseases and illnesses is not okay. I’m talking about what I read in the foreword and how things went in the book. I can’t imagine why you wouldn’t just come up with your own illness at that point? It’s safer and less problematic. However, that’s beyond me.

I couldn’t keep the characters straight until the middle of the book. I finally learned their names and how they identified with their illness at the 50% mark. That’s not good but im not saying that’s the author’s fault. 

There’s a quote in here, something like “Her injuries aren’t from her disease. They’re all her own” referring to Hikari who self-harms and is suicidal. I think this is a wildly dangerous statement to make. The assumption that just because she does something to her body means that it is done by her and only her meaning she has all the control. What about the illnesses that accompany it? This was wholly irresponsible writing/storytelling. If I read that wrong then my bad, I have a tendency with this book to mistake something for something else because of the purple prose but damn if I’m right then damn somebody better tell me something. 
Neo’s eating disorder is revealed to have been “faked” but all I’m saying is at some point when does it stop being “fake” and become something that is serious and requires actual medical attention. He was in the hospital, on tubes and whatnot, what he was not doing was faking an illness. I don’t care how beautiful the sentiment sounds in a book that romanticizes these illnesses/diseases. 
 
I can’t deny there were some things beautiful here. There were some beautiful moments and quotes littered through purple prose. I can appreciate that but I also know that that’s not enough. I can’t with good faith give this more than 1 stars because there’s so much dangerous content here. I can’t in good faith be okay with what was said when it came to mental illness and not because I’m a therapist but because as a human being who care and love people with mental disorders…I know that they do not do these things to themselves. I’d never imagine a thing. I hope the next reader knows that. I hope y’all know. 
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