Well, this might be a first. I was under the impression that the 2018 movie, Midnight Sun, was based off of a book given the fact that I’ve seen this book around since I saw the movie. Sometimes that happens where I don’t realize a film or show is based off of a book until after the fact. Never in my wildest dreams did I think I would be picking up a book that is based off of a film?! Also, please let me know if I’m wrong, but from what I can tell, the film version of this story is actually based off of a 2006 Japanese film called A Song to the Sun. Crazy!
Anyways, the story is told from Katie Price’s point of view. She immediately lets us know that she’s relegated to the indoors and functions mainly at night due to the fact that she has super rare (and real) XP. That means that if she ventures into the sun at all that her body will start deteriorating because they can’t repair damage caused by UV light. If she’s not careful then the sun can cut her life pretty short. On top of that bummer of a disease, she also lost her mother when she was six years old. Just before she was diagnosed with XP. All things considered though, she seems pretty happy with her life. She’s got a very loving and protective father, a best friend, and a crush that she admires from far away.
Katie is very bright and seems to have a talent in singing and songwriting, as well as the guitar. Sometimes at night she’ll head to the train station to try out her new material, which is where she runs into that far away crush, Charlie, for the first time. As most tend to do when interacting with their crush for the first time, she bombs it and hightails it out of there. Obviously living with her days and nights mixed up from everyone else’s, she’s fairly confident they won’t meet again. Well now what kind of young adult romance novel would that be? Of course they meet again, and of course Charlie is both a popular jock and super sweet. Life can present you with perfect people in works of fiction. I digress.
With Charlie in her life now, Katie is getting some more experience living a “normal” life and she sort of loves it! That means she becomes a little reckless when it comes to monitoring her XP. It also wouldn’t be a very good novel if there wasn’t some drama! Too bad that drama took a turn into The Fault in Our Stars lane! Yes, Katie’s watch malfunctions after an impromptu swimming date, which means she gets to catch a sunrise and trigger her XP. Unfortunately, the news is not good and it appears she is deteriorating quickly with not much time to live. Knowing that her time on earth was going to be cut short anyways, she makes sure her dad is set up for a bright future, and gets to spend more quality time with Charlie. He even helps her record a song that makes it to the radio!
Look, this book, as well as the film, was unbelievably cheesy in parts, but I’d be a liar if some parts towards the end didn’t make me tear up a little bit. I think this story functioned better as a film, because reading some of that stuff was rough. All in all though, it was a quick read and I got to re-learn about a disease that does in fact impact people around the world. I’d say you can give either the book or the film a fair shake if this sparked any interest. Or, if you’re looking for something better with the name Midnight Sun, read Stephanie Meyers’ book (Twilight, but in Edward’s perspective)!