37 pages • 1 hour read
LancaliI Fell in Love with Hope
Fiction | Novel | YA | Published in 2022A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more.
Chapters 21-26Chapter Summaries & Analyses
Chapter 21 Summary: “Before”
In the past, Sam the narrator and his love Sam spend time with another patient, Henry, who tells them stories about his time in the war and gambles with them using a deck of cards he had Sam buy at a nearby grocery store. Nurse Ella reprimands them all, but she allows them to continue playing their games. Before the Sams go to bed, they sneak out of the hospital and find a nearby school dance. They dance together for a while before sharing their first kisses and lying down to look at the stars.
Chapter 22 Summary: “Broken Things”
Six days pass after Sony’s death before the time comes to spread her ashes in the ocean. Hikari, Sam, and C are ready to go right away, but Neo needs time to find Hee and accept that she is truly gone. Eric drives them all to the beach, where they say final words and Eric spreads her ashes. C has a panic attack, no longer wanting to give up his heart because it is his heart to keep. Only once Neo assures him that they’ll be together in their forever does C calm down and accept the upcoming surgery.
Chapter 23 Summary: “Music”
C was always a lonely child. He didn’t understand why people connected with each other, nor did he understand why anyone liked other people. He swam because it temporarily helped fill the emptiness he regularly experienced when he struggled to make friends or find people who wanted to spend time with him.
Chapter 24 Summary: “Before”
In the past, Sam starts calling the narrator “his love,” but the narrator does not understand what love is. He tries to understand it through Sam but struggles. A few days later, Henry dies, leaving the narrator confused because Henry’s health showed improvement.
The narrator’s love Sam takes the narrator to a supply closet for comfort, where they talk about leaving the hospital forever to travel the world. As much as the narrator wants to leave the hospital, he cannot leave forever. Sam leaves him, angry that the narrator cannot promise the forever they hoped for.
Chapter 25 Summary: “The In-Between Moments”
Neo writes a letter to his father. In the letter, he explains that he chooses to hold onto the memories of the in-between moments—the moments when his father cared about him, rather than the abuse he endured. When C dies in surgery, Neo asks to be alone, and he finds his father in his room. His dad came to the hospital to confront him about the letter; Neo laughs because there’s nothing left to say. He knows he disappoints his father, but he loves books and writing and refuses to be something he isn’t for a man who never cared about him. His father moves in to hit him. Eric interrupts and calls security to escort Neo’s father out of the building. Neo’s letter ends with a thank you to Hikari, Sony, Sam, and C for teaching him to love himself.
Chapter 26 Summary: “Great Expectations”
Neo and Sam have a conversation in the limbo between life and death. Neo talks about the novel Great Expectations and the layers of meaning readers can take from it. In the end, he hates the book because of the characters and the ending. However, he loves the beginning and cherishes the moments that start events. He knows he will die that night, with Sam and Hikari sleeping in his room, and he accepts that because he knows he will go to their Heaven and reunite with Sony and C.
He gives Sam one last message—love Hikari and let her love him. With that said, Neo gets in the boat and crosses the ocean to the opposite beach where Sony and C wait for him.
Chapters 21-26 Analysis
For the first time, the novel shows how Sam defies the laws of reality. When C goes for his heart transplant surgery, Sam leaves his body and spends time talking to C about how to care for Neo. C’s life is currently on the line, but he worries about Neo and ensuring someone cares for him. By breaking the laws of reality, Sam grows further as a character. He learns C’s lesson—disease and death do not mean you can forget the feelings and experiences of other people. C could focus on himself and ask Sam for assurance that his surgery will go well. Instead, he wants assurance about Neo’s future. C reminds Sam that other people, not just the person with chronic illness, suffer when people they care about hurt. C’s pain does not negate Neo’s.
Sam becomes more mature with the knowledge imparted by his friends, which makes him more receptive to the next lessons he must learn from them. Sam no longer believes that death causes individual pain, or that the past and future hold more power than the present. This allows C to leave the narrative quickly after Sony. Sam does not need as much time to process the loss and lessons as he had previously.
Sam becomes less bitter about his friends’ deaths as the narrative continues. Though he still feels the loss of his love Sam, he no longer feels that life cheated his friends to the same extent he did. He knows that they died content and with their dreams fulfilled: Sony having a good day and C finding a place where he belonged. Until Sony and C died, Sam saw death as something that ended stories early. Now, he is beginning to understand that some people live more with less time than others do with more. He recognizes that life, death, disease, and time are not as clearcut as he believed when Sam died years ago.
Neo dies content. His dream is fulfilled, and he died knowing that he stood up to his father and accepted himself without judgment. Sam’s conversation with Neo in limbo is another moment where Sam’s narration breaks reality. The impact is smaller because Sam and Neo discuss it as a dream rather than a real moment between life and death. When Neo joins C and Sony in the afterlife, Neo imparts the final lesson Sam still needs. Though Sam opens himself to Hikari, he still fears loving and losing her. Neo’s final words emphasize a key message of the book: One cannot allow fear to prevent love; likewise, fear of dying cannot get in the way of living.
Sam can now make memories with Hikari. He now must prove that he has internalized the lessons of his friends.
