I fell in love with Hope by Lancali

 I Fell In Love with Hope 

By Lancali 

Published Year : 2022

Page count: 420 pages 

Genre : Contemporary Fiction, Hospital, Death, 2024-read. 

Rating : 2.5/5 

Verdict : Boring. More than boring, its depressing. 

Not only does the narrator kill off a couple of her "true" loves, she does away with all the other kids too - making this way too depressing to stomach. 

This is just an awful book which is drawling, constructed on a weak plot - but the author shows promise. She has potential. She can write. I would be checking out her future works for sure despite this massive debacle of a work. I think this book could have been salvaged if it wasn't so long. Under 200 pages and it would have been fantastic! But now, with over 400 pages, its a nightmare read. Most of the time, we either spend reading about their adventures in and out of the hospital or how they fall sick and spend time in surgery / treatment. 

Probably my review is going to be harsher than my usual reviews. But I can't help it. If I didn't own a paperback, I would have DnF-ed this very much earlier into the story. The thing is it didn't make me care for any of the sick characters - kids, none the lesser - or what their future is going to be.  I attribute it to bad scripting. And bad writing. Dragging the scenes too long than needed, perhaps, with a motive to evoke sympathy and compassion for the so called struggling (yet playing and racing) characters. Their love affairs, pain and suffering, fears of time, death and disease are all highly overblown. I am more of an optimistic(glass half full) person and this too much dabbling in the negative stuff somehow didn't jive well with me. 

I don't think I can review this without coming across as insensitive. There are five kids at a hospital who are really, really sick. Each has his/her own ailment to be wringing hands and feeling despondent about. But they all swear to not be bogged down by fear and despair though. So they set themselves up for adventures and heists to escape to their land of "heaven". This story should have some gravitas and should touch the empathetic nerve within right? But it doesn't. I felt their emotions and feelings are overblown and there are parts where I was desperately languishing wishing I didn't pick this book. There are also some parts that invoke tear jerking and kept me afloat through this nightmarish read. :) 

I also have some questions on this weak and flimsy plot that is a wreck. How come children who are sickly and abandoned by parents allowed to live rent free in a hospital? Who is covering their costs and paying their bills? How are these children allowed to race and wander loud around the building where other patients have come for peaceful treatments? It shows the immaturity and the lack of real experience on the part of the author. I usually research on book prior to buying or atleast depend on the good name/fame of the author but for this one, I did neither. I blindly went ahead with buying it because it was coming at a cheaper discounted price!