Terrified that her vision might never return, Tessa feels like she has nothing left to be happy about. But when her grandparents place an ad in the local newspaper looking for a typist to help Tessa continue writing and blogging, an unlikely answer knocks at their door: Weston Ludovico, a boy her age with bright eyes, an optimistic smile…and no legs.
Knowing how angry and afraid Tessa is feeling, Weston thinks he can help her. But he has one condition — no one can tell Tessa about his disability. And because she can’t see him, she treats him with contempt: screaming at him to get out of her house and never come back. But for Weston, it’s the most amazing feeling: to be treated like a normal person, not just a sob story. So he comes back. Again and again and again.
Tessa spurns Weston’s “obnoxious optimism,” convinced that he has no idea what she’s going through. But Weston knows exactly how she feels and reaches into her darkness to show her that there is more than one way to experience the world. As Tessa grows closer to Weston, she finds it harder and harder to imagine life without him — and Weston can’t imagine life without her. But he still hasn’t told her the truth, and when Tessa’s sight returns he’ll have to make the hardest decision of his life: vanish from Tessa’s world…or overcome his fear of being seen.
100 Days of Sunlight is a poignant and heartfelt novel by author Abbie Emmons. If you like sweet contemporary romance and strong family themes then you’ll love this touching story of hope, healing, and getting back up when life knocks you down.
I received a complimentary copy of this book from Abbie Emmons through NetGalley. Opinions expressed in this review are completely my own.
What book could be better for summer than one that has ‘sunlight’ in the title? This debut novel combines poetry with PTSD with fluffy romance, so it’s safe to say it’s a whirlwind. It’s an interesting balance to strike in a YA novel, but I think author Abbie Emmons does it well. While it was an enjoyable and fast read, the execution of ideas wasn’t always done well, and in the end I wasn’t able to love it as much as I wanted to.
What I liked
Creative premise
When I first read the summary, I was immediately interested. I had never heard of transient cortical blindness, and I thought the idea to have a character dealing with that meet a character who is also living with a disability is so creative. I love that it offers the opportunity to explore how different people react to tragedies and what it’s like to have strangers immediately judging you based on a disability.
Characters
I really did fall in love with the main characters, Weston and Tessa. The story is told from both of their viewpoints, and I thought they were both fleshed out characters with distinct voices. Even when Tessa is being snippy, we understand why and sympathize with her as she goes through the hardest thing in her life and deals with the PTSD from it. Weston was so caring and compassionate, but also didn’t take crap from anyone, and is basically impossible not to love.
Romance
This book promises to be a love story, and it delivers. Practically from the first time they meet, we’re rooting for Weston and Tessa to get together. Weston is determined to help Tessa realize that her life can still have meaning even after a tragedy, and continually forgives her even when she’s rude to him. Tessa’s anger is slowly thawed by Weston’s kindness, and as the reader we watch their feelings grow into friendship and then beyond.
What I disliked
Prose
While I enjoyed many aspects of the book, the writing style felt forced to me at times. It was a little too flowery, and the dialogue seemed too self-aware. These are teenagers, after all, and even though Tessa is a writer, her speech still seemed too elevated. This wasn’t throughout the novel—there are definitely large swaths of good writing. But some passages came across as awkward or unnecessarily poetic.
Predictable
When you pick up a romance, you expect a happy ending. Which is fine! It’s why we read romance. But you also expect some hardships along the way that force the main characters to have to fight for each other. There really wasn’t much of that in this book. It was almost like the author decided their separate hardships from before the novel happened were enough, and once Tessa and Weston meet, it should be smooth sailing. Of course, there were some bumps, but nothing that seemed so large that they couldn’t overcome it. It made the novel feel a little too predictable, and boring in parts.
Why did Weston go see Tessa?
The impetus for everything that happens in the book is that Tessa’s grandparents try to place an ad in the paper to hire someone to transcribe for Tessa, in hopes that writing again will help lift her spirits. She’s horrified, and they retract the ad, but Weston is the newspaper editor’s son and decides he’s going to go help Tessa anyway. It’s never really explained why Weston feels this way. I guess we’re supposed to assume it’s because he has been through something similar to what Tessa is going through, but that’s never really made clear.
Did she consult people with disabilities?
My final point isn’t necessarily a critique, but I think it’s important to point out. Both of the main characters are dealing with disabilities: Weston has had both legs amputated, and Tessa is temporarily blind. Emmons never mentions if she consulted people with disabilities when writing the novel or what kind of research she did. Obviously, that doesn’t mean that she didn’t do this, but I’ve found that authors tend to either thank the people they consulted in the acknowledgments section, or mention their research/applicable experience in an author’s note, and Emmons did neither. As an able-bodied person, I really have no idea if Emmons was able to capture the experience of living with a disability, especially one as obvious as wearing prosthetic legs. It seemed like she did a fairly good job, other than how Weston was always optimistic. That seemed unrealistic to me, but again, I don’t have any experience in this area. I would be curious to hear from people with disabilities about their thoughts on the portrayal in this novel.
100 Days of Sunlight releases on August 7th! Click here to pre-order.
Are you excited to read 100 Days of Sunlight? What other summer releases are you looking forward to?
