I Fell in Love with Hope

“Disease is greedy. It takes pieces of you until you no longer recognize yourself, and Neo, C, and Sony don’t recognize themselves outside of this place anymore.”

Lancali personifies illness, giving it human-like characteristics. It becomes greedy, something humans feel, and steals from the characters until the disease becomes their entire identity.

“Try walking away from someone who knows you so well they ruin you. You’ll find yourself wondering how you could ever love anyone else.”

Neo’s fictional novel mirrors the plotline of I Fell in Love with Hope. It foreshadows how Sam will wonder how he can love the new person who arrives in his life after grappling with the loss of Sam.

“Her baggy white T-shirt doesn’t quite fit, and the skirt that bares her legs flows with the wind as her hair trickles like liquid gold down her forearms.”

Lancali uses many similes, where something is compared to something else using “like” or “as,” to compare Hikari to the sun. In the above quote, Hikari’s hair is the “liquid gold” of the sun. Hikari and the dead Sam are both sunlike, and in this way are connected.

“Humans have a knack for self-destruction. Only those of us who love broken things will ever know why.”

The novel suggests that part of loving is knowing that what you love can be lost. Humans only value things specifically because they can lose them. This becomes clear when loving a person with a chronic illness.

“Stars aren’t eternal. They should burn and shine with everything while they can.”

The symbol of stars takes on a new layer of meaning. Until now, stars have only represented hope; now, they represent living and mortality as well.

“This girl. Yellow and amorous. She’s a story. A novel I’ve already read, but in a foreign language.”

Sam uses imagery to draw comparisons between Hikari and the deceased Sam. She is familiar—“[a] novel I’ve already read”—but different from what he knows from Sam—“a foreign language.”

“Death is a taker, plain, direct, no tricks up its sleeve. And it will give you nothing in return but a last endless kiss for those you leave behind.”

Death is personified with human qualities—this turns it into something understandable, rather than something vague and unknowable. Lancali juxtaposes life and death to highlight the importance of life, a crucial message of the novel.

“The roof was never a place to steal but a place to elude time entirely.”

Lancali creates a space that is in a mystical place almost outside the setting. Here, the characters can exist as their true selves without fear of disease or exterior forces that attempt to change them.

“Suns can’t see their own light.”

The sun takes on several symbolic meanings throughout the text. The sun is hope, happiness, and joy that others radiate. It can conceal one’s personal struggles, but others don’t see the darkness, only the light.

“Death is not a being. It is a state of being. We humanize it, demonize it, because it is easier to condemn something with a face.”

Sam steps back from the story and explores bigger picture ideas, such as why people personify death. He considers events and ideas from outside of the story as well as within it.

“Everyone dies, and everything ends. Sometimes endings are abrupt. They hit you in the face and it’s too soon and it’s unfair, but that doesn’t matter. The last page doesn’t define the book.”

Neo uses his reading and writing background to craft a book-related metaphor for life that Sam will understand, a metaphor being where something is compared to something else without using “like” or “as.” The end is part of the story, like death is part of life, but the end is not the entire story.

“Control doesn’t exist, sir. Only uncertainty does.”

Sam’s confrontation with Neo’s father shows Sam’s growth. At the beginning of the novel, Sam fought for control over all elements of his life—he wanted to save everyone and detested his inability to do so. Now, he recognizes that no one can control everything.

“The moment despair fell in love with hope.”

Hikari plans to draw an extended symbol to signify her and Sam. Sam represents despair—the one who could never love—while Hikari represents hope for love.

“The sun sifts through the leaves, casting shadows that flutter with the breeze as if to prove my point. They play on his face the same way rays of light kiss him in the mornings.”

Sam, the narrator’s love, embodies light and symbolizes hope. Where the sun is, so is hope; even when there are shadows, or moments of doubt, there is still hope. Because of the color of his eyes, Sam will always have the sun within him, and therefore hope for a better future.

“This place—this exact spot where land and sea meet—is where the world was born. It is where time ceases, disease festers, and death dies.”

In this moment, time does not exist and hope is eternal. The quote highlights the importance of time and creating spaces where characters can pretend time doesn’t exist for themselves.

“Yellow shines in the flares like amber. The only language the light knows is mischief.”

The meaning of hope differs for each character. For the narrator, it’s feeling alive, like his own person, and helping others to feel the same. This is why mischief plays a critical role for Sam—stealing and mischief help Sam connect with his friends and help them all feel alive.

“Because you don’t lose someone once. You lose them hearing a song that reminds you of their smile. Passing an old landmark. Laughing at a joke they would’ve liked. You lose them infinitely.”

The novel suggests that loss just doesn’t happen once, with a person passing away, but with reminders of them. Time and death are challenging for the characters. Death creates pockets of time that are both limited and limitless. Each character has unique reactions to loss. Through them, Lancali emphasizes that everyone will experience loss across time differently.

“Grief can be destructive, a parasite that needs expulsion, water flowing over a dam, but like most terrible, necessary things, it can be shared. Time is kind with grief.”

The narrator Sam isolates to protect himself from caring about others. His growth allows him to recognize the benefits of having people close, rather than continually pushing them away. In the above quote, Lancali uses metaphors, comparing grief to a consuming parasite and to the destruction of flowing water.

“I’ve told you before that I’m not tied to my body. Similarly, my body is not tied to common perceptions.”

Sam makes a contradictory statement about himself. Though he claims he is not tied to “common perceptions,” his role is to grow past them as he learns from his friends.

“He does not think of loneliness, hollowness, or hearts. He thinks of Neo’s lips and the laughs he breathed against his neck and his cold yet gentle hands, and his little smiles, and the tear that rolled down his cheek the last time he saw him.”

The novel suggests that people consist of the memories they choose to cling to. Sam explores this here. He knows what C thinks and feels, and the memories that he holds onto while going into surgery. C chooses love rather than emptiness.

“It was never me you were attached to, nor your authority. It was that image. That idea. That person who doesn’t actually exist.”

Lancali provides closure between Neo and his father. For years, Neo worked to be the person his father wanted him to be. His happiness came from accepting himself as he is, a literature lover and a writer.

“But hope is fragile. It isn’t infinite.”

Hope, an intangible force, is impossible to see. Lancali embodies hope in the most tangible form possible—Sam, a human. Humans, fragile and mortal, break and continue to fight, just as hope continues to endure even when broken.

“Her yellow dimpled dress is replaced by a dull hospital gown. Her lively, curious steps are now slow, her breaths focused on the next.”

As yellow fades so too does hope. Yellow’s vibrance reflects the strength of hope and the desire to live. As Hikari loses her will to survive, she also loses the yellow that’s such a part of her.