ARC Book Review: 100 Days of Sunlight

Firstly: HEY EVERYONE!

I may or may not be screaming irl because I got an ARC (Advanced Reader Copy) of this amazing, beautiful book that shall be indie published, 100 Days of Sunlight by Abbie Emmons through NetGalley and it’s making me feel super important! Plus, this book really made my week brighter and shone some sunlight back on to me 🙂

Disclaimer: I received a free copy of this book in exchange for my honest review. All thoughts and opinions are my own.

So… what is this book, you may be wondering? Here’s the Goodreads blurb.

When 16-year-old poetry blogger Tessa Dickinson is involved in a car accident and loses her eyesight for 100 days, she feels like her whole world has been turned upside-down. 

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 give this book:

Four Beautiful Stars

Review:

I really enjoyed this book- it had well-written main characters and a sweet slow-burn romance. What really struck me and made this book unique and not your stereotypical YA romance (though maybe it actually is) was the fact that Tessa and Weston, the two sixteen-year-old main characters who (you guessed it) slowly fall in love is that they’re both disabled, at least temporarily.

Tessa, the female main character, got hit by a drunk driver and temporarily lost her sight completely for around a hundred days. Weston has prosthetic legs after (stupidly, I might add) trying and failing a horribly dangerous stunt. Teenagers, you know? The premise of this book involves Tessa, a poetry blogger prior to her accident, not wanting any help to publish her poems and continue blogging (since she obviously can’t by herself) and Weston, our stupidly sweet and optimistic MC continuing to help her until he starts teaching her about her other senses.

A main theme in this book that was creative and well-written was the whole idea about using your other senses. Emmons was right- we tend to take our senses for granted and only use our sight. Tessa, through losing her vision, learned to rely on and appreciate other senses- smell, hearing, taste, and touch. The book was divided into five parts: Smell, Hearing, Taste, Touch, and Sight.

The writing was smooth and neatly done. Abbie Emmons really made you love the characters. Some might think Tessa is ungrateful and plain rude, especially compared to Weston, but I do think that she was just reacting to the circumstances around her- I mean, she was blind, okay?- and afterward with Weston’s help she learned to be more patient and enjoy the world in all its glory.

Weston, that dearie, is sweet and compassionate towards Tessa, yet you can also see that sometimes annoyingly stubborn side of him. His character was well-developed and those two sides of him were merged nicely and didn’t seem out of place. It was really nice to read about his accident and the time-travel; jumping back a few years. Weston was an interesting and lovable male protagonist and I really liked the fresh perspective on life that he brought- one lesson that anyone can learn from 100 Days of Sunlight is from Weston.

He never gave up. Weston took whatever life threw at him and dealt with it. He cursed in life’s face and spat at the feet of everyone who doubted him. Weston is a truly inspiring protagonist and can teach us all a lesson.

Tessa’s character seemed like a fairly typical teen girl in the YA romance genre, which was part of the reason this book lost a star. Most girls are written the same way, and although it was quite nice to see her throwing fits and standing up for herself (even if she was wrong), she mostly fit the label of a stereotypical teen girl.

Also, there was a scene that almost edged into sexual harassment and poor Tessa reacted accordingly and was shell-shocked and frightened. I personally think that that incident was glossed over and Tessa and Weston should have talked it over and he should have comforted Tessa instead of brushing it in the closet.

This book, although really nicely written and with interesting circumstances, lacked racial diversity and queer representation completely. We have two white, straight, cis-gender protagonists who are blonde and blue-eyed. One is Christian, one is atheist. I mean, how much more stereotypical can one get? I wish Abbie Emmons had written other sorts of people into it because we all deserve to see ourselves in books.

Other than those three reasons, 100 Days Of Sunlight was a great book and everyone who enjoys YA romance should grab a copy as soon as it releases, on August 7th this year!

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Be sure to check out this book and if you read an ARC, let me know how much you liked it! If not, lemme know if you want to! 😀