“100 Days of Sunlight”-Review

By: Hasa Telajala

In the novel “100 DAYS OF SUNLIGHT” by Abbie Emmons, a girl named Tessa struggles internally when she temporarily loses her eyesight after she was involved in a car accident. The doctors’ inform her she has a chance of having her vision back after 100 days, but she fights to believe them. Tessa was a writing blogger who shared her thoughts through stories, and such a big change was horrifying for her as she couldn’t see anything. Due to this, her life starts to fall apart, and she doesn’t think she can bring herself back together. Her grandparents are affected negatively as they mourn for her situation and try to help in the best ways possible, but Tessa’s trauma prevents her from seeking outside help. 

“How are you feeling this morning, Tessa?” Grandma’s voice is smiling, and now I’m beginning to wonder why. It can’t merely be this realistic optimism, which has suddenly become such a trend.” 

Based on this quote from the novel, we can understand Tessa’s situation impacts others around her in a negative way as they try to relate to her situation. Meanwhile, Tessa thinks pessimistically, due to her trauma and doesn’t understand how helpful her grandparents are to her. Instead, she decides to criticize her actions of kindness. Along with this, Tessa shows signs of being shocked and horrified in the novel as represented in this quote. 

“My head whiplashes and slams into something hard behind me, and pain explodes through my body. The world goes dark. I wake up, gasping for air. I open my eyes, but see nothing. Nothing. Nothing. Darkness.” 

This quote explains how Tessa adapts to her life when she is still recovering. Based on the comments and narration from Emmons, we can interpret Tessa is feeling awful, as her situation is helpless.  We can see how her actions, thoughts, comments, and her effect on others, evolves her as a profound character in the novel.

After having a full character analysis on Tessa, I felt the book “100 Days of Sunlight” by Abbie Emmons, deserves a full 10 out of 10 stars. I believe that the book has a touching conflict, and it allows us to understand that “realistic optimism” might not help people get better from drastic situations. I feel people in the age group of 13-18 would connect to the book on a stronger level as it is written from the view of a teenager. Have fun reading!