Will has been blind since birth, but he's learned to adapt to the world. Now that he's in high school, he wants to leave his school for the blind and attend public school. This leads to the expected complications, but he manages to make friends and quickly finds a way to fit in. Then he learns about a surgery that could potentially give him eyesight, but it's incredibly unlikely that the surgery will be successful. And even if he is able to see, the effects of such a surgery could lead to additional problems. Now Will has to decide if he wants to undergo such a risky surgery, or if he believes his life is full even without the use of his eyes. I thought this book would be a generic boy meets girl, boy has risky eye surgery, boy can suddenly see and has no more problems, boy and girl live happily ever after. So I was pleasantly surprised when nothing went as expected. Will meets his potential love interest when she leaves the classroom in tears because she believes he's staring at her, and their friendship awkwardly stems from that exchange. The most impressive writing in this novel, though, happens after Will makes his decision regarding the surgery. The consequences of his decision are portrayed so realistically and it's impossible not to see (or to not see) what Will is experiencing. As far as coming-of-age/disability novels go, this is quite possibly one of the better ones. I'm especially a fan of the fact that no one behaves as though Will can't live a perfectly full life even without eyesight.

When I saw that Josh Sundquist had written a Young Adult fiction book, I was so excited. What a great story told from the perspective of a teen that has been blind from birth and how his choice to enter a regular high school changes him and those around him. This book made me think of how a blind person thinks about the world around him or her...and appropriate ways to interact with him or her that are not patronizing or offensive. It's such a cute, sweet love story too. It tackles the of issue of how outward beauty is not as important as inward beauty in such a cool way. Too bad we all can't learn to love with our minds, hearts, and ears first!!! Also, I enjoyed the fact that this book is clean enough for me to booktalk it in the sixth grade. So many teen books are adult in language and sex; it's refreshing to find a book that stays more on the innocent side. I'm looking forward to seeing what the teens at my library think of this book...I'm pretty sure they are really going to enjoy it! I"m also looking forward to more from Josh Sundquist!

Unable to review due to lost download file. I would be happy to read if I could redownload.

Born blind, Will is attending mainstream high school for the first time in his life. Can he find friends? Will he fit in? And what about Cecily, the girl with the beautiful voice, could she possibly be interested in him?
To add to the drama, Will is told that he is a candidate for highly risky surgery that may allow him to see. What will he decide?
Give this to those who enjoyed Nicola Yoon's Everything, Everything. This is a great book for those who like romance and books about first love.

My reading got off to a great start in 2017 with Love and First Sight by Josh Sundquist. This young adult contemporary story is about a teenager named Will who was born blind. Will decides to attend public high school for the first time, and the book opens on his first day of school. What follows is an absolutely adorable story filled with romance, friendship, and seeing for the first time.

I was a bit nervous going into this book, as I read We Should Hang Out Sometime by Sundquist a couple years back and thought it was just okay. Unlike his earlier memoir, Love and First Sight sucked me in right away. The story is told from Will’s first-person perspective, and I absolutely loved his voice. Will sounds like a teenager does in real life, but his narrative flows really well. I was also very impressed with how Sundquist was able to use his writing to create a unique atmosphere for the reader. Since Will is blind, Sundquist describes things without any visual cues. I could feel the difference in his storytelling, and I really appreciated his attention to detail.

Similarly, Sundquist did extensive research in order to accurately represent what it is like to be visually impaired. While I am a sighted person, it felt like this representation was done quite respectfully. A big part of Love and First Sight focuses on how sighted people treat those who are visually impaired, and also what it is like to learn to see after being blind. I learned a lot from this book, and I really like that Sundquist does not hold back when it comes to pointing out some of the horrible things sighted people do when around the visually impaired. For example, I was shocked at the secrets and deception in the novel!

Moreover, I absolutely love the romance in Love and First Sight. Will meets a girl named Cecily and the two get paired up for a project in journalism class. I was on board with their romance from the beginning, and I found it so cute! I am not usually a big fan of romance, but this one had me swooning and hoping for the best. Plus, Cecily plays an important role in the novel in addition to being Will’s love interest. I am impressed with how Love and First Sight is so multi-layered. I loved the theme of beauty in the novel, and what it means to be beautiful in society versus being beautiful to another person. I can see myself rereading this book in the future to get a new perspective on it now that I know what is to happen.

My criticisms of the novel are quite small. First, some sentences are repeated in the novel in order to introduce a person or theme. I did read an advance copy of the novel, so it is possible this repetition got edited out. In addition, I found Love and First Sight to be extremely fast-paced. However, I did think the ending was a bit too rushed, and I would have appreciated the action slowing down a bit to make the book last just a bit longer. Otherwise, I truly loved and enjoyed everything about this book!

All in all, I highly recommend picking up Love and First Sight by Josh Sundquist. It is a very balanced novel in that it will make you laugh and make you cry, and you will be swooning over the adorable romance as well. Plus, I loved the inclusion of the board game Settlers of Catan! Sundquist gets some bonus points for that. I hope to see more novels from Sundquist in the future, as I adored his storytelling and will definitely pick up more books by him if they are released!

It's definitely an interesting concept. *spoilers*

I liked the part where he was blind much more than the part where he could see. It seemed like Will just expected the universe to grant him immediate understanding of a new sense as a reward for having been blind, and he was put out when he realized it was something he was going to have to learn and adjust to.

After reading the synopsis, I was set on reading this book. After reading the first few pages, I was a little concerned it was going to be another one of those after school cornfests ( I secretly love those, so it's okay)...but I'm glad this was so much more.

Love and First Sight is about Will Porter and his life as a blind teenager. After coming from a special school where all the kids also had visual impairments of one sort or another, he ends up going to a mainstream high school where he encounters things like never before. He befriends a small group of quirky teens and fits in just perfectly.

The way Will changes and grows throughout the story is wonderful and I especially love how the author did quite a bit of research about blindness and the changes one would face if they went through what Will had.

I will be recommending this to many and gifting to some. :)

I received an eARC from the publisher in exchange for an honest review.
Will was born blind and has been sheltered by his parents since the "Incident" when he was still a small child. After the incident he was sent to a boarding school for the blind where he grew to master the skills necessary to survive in the sighted world. Now that he's sixteen he wants to enroll at a mainstream high school. The descriptions Sundquist uses to describe the sensation of blindness and how everyone still uses sight based explanations to describe things they think are being made perfectly clear is really interesting. The characterizations of the other cast of kids are pretty standard and don't really engage the reader. Much of it is predictable, but that doesn't stop it from being a fun read. I've ordered it for my library.

I really enjoyed this book. I loved reading about Will and his friends. I am glad he was able to have the surgery and get his eyesight. I am slo glad he was able to be with Cecily.

I think fans of John Green would enjoy this book.

Love and First Sight is one of those books you just know you’re going to love – I just knew it was my kinda book and I raced through it in just sittings. I remember reading Josh’s memoir We Should Hang Out Sometime, which I really enjoyed and that was why I was so excited to read Love and First Sight, I know how good a writer Josh is and this absolutely proves it to me because I loved Love and First Sight.

The most shocking, stark thing about reading Love and First Sight was how I clearly take my eyesight for granted. To go into Will’s world, into complete darkness, and even more than that, when Will is offered the treatment to have vision, and it’s not just waking up and seeing things and knowing what they are was so, so scary. Can you imagine opening your eyes and not being able to understand what you’re seeing? No? Me neither. I very much take for granted my ability to look at my fingers and know that they’re fingers. To look at a picture and understand perception and depth. To know a book is shaped like a rectangle. For Will to not understand any of that made my heart break.

What I also loved about the book was the friendships between Will, Ion, Nick, Whitford, and Cecily. How their little group accepts Will is amazing, and they just fall into a routine of hanging out together, without Will being blind being an issue, but it’s really the friendship between Will and Cecily that made me so happy. It’s just this amazing thing, two people who just seemed to have found the right person that they never even knew they needed. *Happy sigh* Going to the art museum, watching a sunrise (well, Cecily watches the sunrise), homecoming, it was all just so perfect.

Love and First Sight was just an amazing read. It made me laugh, it made me want to cry, it made me appreciate the fact that I can see way more than anything ever has done. Josh Sundquist is a fantastic writer, I felt like I was with Will every step of the book, and I just loved every page, this was such a cracking fiction debut, and everyone needs to read this book, it’s so, so cute.

I laughed and gasped throughout this book. It was if you were on the adventure with them for each situation, wanting to help, warn or celebrate their fates. Thank you for allowing us to experience such a delightful read.

Love and First Sight by Josh Sundquist is a sweet YA story that follows a young man named Will, who is blind. He finally transfers out of the blind school and into a regular high school where he wants to live as easily as he can--even in the face of people who constantly want to help him with things he can do on his own. During his time at the new school, he makes friends and tries new things, like journalism. But when he's offered the chance for a life-changing surgery that has the possibility of giving him sight he's never had before, will he take it?

This is a story that is filled with a lot of stereotype-busting about the blind and provides a picture of how blindness doesn't make people as different as they appear to be because of their ability to adapt their other senses. However, the narrator does seem to be a bit long-winded at times, wanting to give big explanations to the reader for the things he's about to do. Other than that, this is a great story.

I couldn't find this anywhere on my kindle. It shows I downloaded it but I can't find it so I guess I can't review it.

I first discovered Josh Sundquist by reading his memoir, and giggling the entire way through it. I'm not generally a non-fiction reader, but I devoured that book. That meant that when I found out that Sundquist had written a YA book, I knew I had to read it. I couldn't wait to see how his wit and honesty translated to a fiction novel.

First off, I have to give credit where credit is due. It's very obvious from the first few pages of this story that Sundquist did a tremendous amount of research on visual impairment, and worked hard to make sure that he was accurately portraying Will's day to day routine. Pair that with a lovingly crafted character, complete with Sundquist's signature wit, and you have a story that is a joy to read. I fell in love with Will, and the rest was history.

When the experimental surgery came into the picture, I found myself riveted. Everything was described in intricate detail, but it never felt overbearing. Instead, I found myself in the same situation as Will. Wondering if the surgery would be worth it, cheering him on when he was doing well, and lamenting with him when things weren't going well. His parents were so wonderfully supportive, if a little over involved at times, and there was this whole aura of growth and love to this book. It was a happy place to be.

Even if the friendship turned romance hadn't been a main portion of this book, I would have still loved it. Still, I couldn't help but fall for the slow growth of Cecily and Will's relationship. Cecily's acceptance of Will, her ability to open things up for him with wonderful analogies, tugged at my heart strings. I knew that fight was imminent, and of course I was right. What is YA without teenage tension? Still, it all felt so perfect. Not a single sentence of this book felt out of place. It all worked to build up Will, and show how amazing a person he was.

I'd highly recommend this for your reading list! If it's not there already, it's well worth a second look.

This was so cute and funny. I've never read a book from a blind person's point of view and found this very interesting. I really didn't think I would enjoy this as much as I did. I loved that Will was able to make friends so easily and none of them cared that he was blind. Everyone was really supportive of him and that is something I love seeing in books. More often then not we see people bring others down or bully scenarios more than supportive roles taking the lead.

After the surgery I was glad to see Will struggle a little bit with grasping sight for the first time. As bad as that sounds it's realistic and that made it better in my opinion. He obviously got the hang of it eventually but being able to read about someone growing and changing in such a huge way was very humbling. I rooted for Will every step of the way and couldn't even begin to imagine what it must have been like to go through such a transformation.

Will is a blind 16 year old transitioning into a mainstream school after years in a safe blind school. If he's going to make it in a sight centered world then he'll have to learn to maneuver through whatever they throw at him. Cecily is one of a new group of friends Will grows closer and closer to. As soon as he's adjusted to the differences between him and his new friends his parents learn about a radical new surgery that could restore his sight to him for the first time in his life. His brain isn't wired for the sense of sight and as he adjusts to the massive new information he's also realizing that sighted people don't share everything with their sight-less friends...

"Yeah, independence and self-reliance sound nice in theory, but in reality they are just synonyms for loneliness. And before I met Cecily I was so tired, without even realizing it, so tired of being lonely."



I love books where I get to truly experience what it means to be a person different from myself. I am a sighted person so to follow Will around and to get a sense of his perspective was truly a treat, especially since this was so well written, writing wise and story wise! It's definitely a teenager book, set in a high school - ignore the setting, it is what it is. The setup was really strong. I totally bought why Will was coming to the school suddenly and I loved how it was used as a means to show us how his life as a blind person is. It's all in the details, from meeting Nick and his new friends to learning about Mrs. Chin's blind techniques. Even his parents are funnily stuck up, but still loving and ultimately, parents.

"Parents ask you questions about your life the way police officers interrogate subjects on TV cop shows. No matter how much information you provide, they will always follow up a hundred times with slightly reworded questions. So you might as well give short answers and let them pry out the facts incrementally so they feel they are making conversational progress."



I just loved Will. You can see why from the quote above - he's full of presence and personality. From the stickers on his wall, to his goal to be a reporter. Best of all I love his interaction with Cecily. How many of us would love for someone to get to know us without being able to judge us by our looks? I hope most of us raise our hands! We learned about Cecily only from Will's perspective! I totally loved that... And it made total sense to me why he was upset and also why he eventually let it go. I bought into them as a couple because of the clever dialogue between the two of them in the museum. She explains art and perspective in a way he can understand and is brave and kind enough to tell him he committed a faux pas and their whole class knows it! The morning announcements was a lovely part of the story that made the school setting an actual plus. The love story is very good and creates a nice ending to the book in which the story continues way past the end.

The really incredible part of the book is when Will regains his sight. There are some really great conversations that help us understand his perspective as a blind person who has never had sight. And a lot of effort was made to help us to understand what Will was going through being able to see color and to need depth perception, etc. I cannot play up this part of the book enough!

"... Is this how vision works? Is this how shapes work? They disappear and materialize, twist and morph, shift in and out of your field of vision without warning?"



I loved the perspectives of his parents in deciding whether to get this surgery or not. The conversation with his dad and how his dad explained it to him - wow! And his mom's sudden decision at the end just made me melt! We need more books like this with parents that can be casually cruel (cause they aren't thinking) and yet love and support in the best ways at the most important times.

I think what made this book so powerful was the strong dialogue that fit the characters but also wasn't wishy washy or bland and all the showing! There are many plot points that come together to show us why Cecily and Will grow closer. We see the things the group of friends to together that binds them. Will's narrative voice is super strong but we were also shown what he experienced and so got to experience it for ourselves! It's quite a powerful example of writing and story craft coming together in a book everyone should read!

The end of the book was really spot on to me. I wasn't expecting it so it really blew me away. The sighted friends have been an understated part of the story and they come together here at the end in a lovely way. It's not a huge, major thing so much as spot on for a group of teenagers in high school with a blind friend who can see for the first time in his life.

BOTTOM LINE: A must read for anyone who wants to experience blindness.

Thanks to Netgalley and the publisher for providing me an ARC in exchange for an honest review.

I figured this would be a quick but silly read, but I was wrong about the silly part. Will is a newly mainstream 16 year old blind kid. He was born blind and has always attended the blind school. now he has to/gets to try to make his way in his new public high school. This is YA but it's also wonderful. Josh Sundquist did so much research to try to understand blindness and blind culture. as someone who is newly aware of impairments of this nature, I found this book both fascinating and wonderful.

High school is hard enough, but imagine going through it blind. Will is going to a new mainstream high school for the first time. He is the only blind student there. As he learns to navigate the school and make friends he learns that there is an operation that could give him sight. What he doesn't know is how hard the results can be and how it will affect his new friendships and himself.
This is a great new book, with a perspective I have never seen. I found myself loving Will and his friends. I feel like I learned a lot from this book too on being blind and all the complicated steps to having sight (if it's a possibility). This was a lighthearted read, but touched on deep high school issues. I think many students will be able to relate to this book, just in dealing with the stresses of school and being bullied. Not everyone can relate to being blind in high school. I felt the author did a great job of helping us "see" as Will sees and really helping us get a feel for what he was going through.
I thoroughly enjoyed it!

Love this book! The flow, the sounds, the incredible insight, it's compelling and genuine. Five stars