and then never actually did anything to help. Despite the savior complex, they also claimed they weren’t allowed to interfere. It just doesn’t make sense. If the hospital can create its own physical body, be able to talk and touch and feel and love, then why couldn’t Sam interfere with the patients’ diseases or other issues? Their selective complacency is exactly what killed their friends. Sam never told anybody about Neo’s ED or abuse. They never told anybody that C and Sony were overexerting themselves. They never told anybody that Hikari was suicidal and was cutting herself. Obviously it’s not like Sam could’ve cured them, but Jesus, they could have TOLD someone! By the way, the trigger warnings in the book are BURIED. They’re in the foreword — which should actually be called a preface, by the way — under paragraphs and paragraphs of the author kind of ranting about why this book means a lot to her. The TWs are not listed out; they’re simply lumped into another paragraph. Many people could not find the TWs are were very upset with this book. They fact that the TWs don’t stand out at all should have been my first red flag.)

Sam’s genderfluidity was not genuine in the slightest. Remember, Sam is the incarnation of the hospital. They created a body for themself. Do you see the issue? It’s just thinly veiled pedophilia. I think the author tried to hide the age gap by having Sam be, like, SUPER ignorant to the workings of the world. You mean to tell me Sam is at least eighty years old but doesn’t know what chocolate or sarcasm is? For being an entity that has observed people for all their time existing, that doesn’t make sense. Again, Sam is a super inconsistent character. But sometimes parents love the idea of their child more than the person they are. That kind of love is suffocating.”That’s why we came up here, right?” C piles on. “We said we’d plan it today. Our great escape from the hospital.” Neo glances his way. The possibility of today, but grander, stirs between us. C shrugs. “What’s stopping us?” I want a friend like Sony, and I honestly want to be more like her. She was this ray of sunshine in all of this. She managed to persevere through everything and was as strong as ever. I'm nothing like her if I'm being completely honest. She is strong and friendly and loud and so kind, and I just know she gave the warmest hugs.

This book explores the theme of grief and how to overcome it to find hope again. At the beginning Sam is always negative and is always trying not to give others too much hope because they now believe that in a hospital there is no hope due to the amount of death he has witnessed, especially Sam’s death. Even though it’s been years since Sam’s death he still carries the pain and hopelessness, and it isn’t until Hikari arrives at the hospital that he starts to see a small glimmer of hope, of a chance of love for the first time in a long time. Overall, I thought this book was absolutely amazing, it was so beautifully written, and the character development was golden. I think everyone should read this at least once in their life. It’s a heartbreaking novel, but with all the pain for all the in between moments; for all the heists and adventures, for all the shared smiles and laughter, for all the moments shining bright with hope. AND OH GOD THE WRITING. It was the worst part. As someone else mentioned, this book tries too hard to be quotable. Every. Line. Tries to be quotable and most of my annotations are just me telling the characters to speak normally for once. The dialogue is so unrealistic and the constant poetic language is distracting. Sometimes less is more and that goes for purple prose. Description should be balanced. It’s fine to toss in a few metaphors but not every sentence in a book needs to stand out. this story was definitely heart wrenching. for it being a debut novel, it was really good. it follow along the story of sam and their friend group of terminally ill hospital kids trying to live their life to the fullest. sam meets hikari and falls in love with her but is terrified to allow themselves to feel because the last time they were in “love” not sure if it’s the right word, it ended with sam seeing their lover take their life. Time, Disease, and Deathare rueful mechanics that way. They enjoy crafting nooses out of fear, and they love playing games. Shadows their dresses, they curve over your shoulder with eerie fingers coaxing you into the dark, taking your body, your mind, and anything they please with it.He’s staring at her chest in good conscience,” Neo bites out, like he’s about to chew on the fist holding his head up. when it comes to the triggering content of the book, which happens to be present all the time because, apparently, life is awful, i do have some points to make. essentially, the author gets you attached to the characters to then make them endure endless suffering because that's how life is. while i have no issue with the depiction of mental illnesses or diseases or anything of the such, i do have an issue when it ends up being almost romanticized and harmfully portrayed. all of the characters needed therapy and yet none of them had it and you could tell. and before you all come from me, i'm also a chronically-ill teenager, and i found it really hard to resonate with this story. second. i felt so disconnected from the main character and the writing itself tbh, and i only ever cared about two of the side characters - neo and coeur, my beloveds. they both deserved everything in the world, and they just needed to be happy and ugh 😭❤️‍🩹 i'm sad. but i also loved their story so much. People have this delusion of inherent purpose as if fate is written in stone when really the pen has always been in our hands”