Hopeless Review

TITLE Hopeless (Hopeless #1)
AUTHOR Colleen Hoover
PUBLICATION May 7th 2013 by Atria Books
READ April 22 to 23, 2013
SOURCE Atria Books via Edelweiss for review

Sometimes discovering the truth can leave you more hopeless than believing the lies.In this #1 New York Times bestselling novel by Colleen Hoover, author of Slammed and Point of Retreat, Sky meets Dean Holder, a guy with a reputation that rivals her own. Holder has the ability to invoke feelings in Sky she's never had before. In just one encounter he leaves her terrified yet captivated and something about him brings up a rush of memories from the past that she’s worked so hard to bury away.

Sky knows Holder is nothing but trouble and tries to keep him at a distance, but he is adamant about learning everything he can about her. Sky finally caves to his unwavering pursuit, but she soon finds out that Holder isn't the person he's been claiming to be. When the secrets he's been keeping are finally revealed, every single facet of Sky's life changes forever.

HOPELESS has been read by pretty much everyone on my Goodreads and at this point in the game there isn’t too much new that I can point out that isn’t out there already. So what I am going to do with this review is just give you what I liked and what I didn’t like. I know that a lot of people will probably disagree with me but I have to say that this novel just didn’t have the WOW factor that I went into it expecting. Maybe it’s a case of my expectations getting the better of me? I guess we’ll never know, but here is my take on it all:

What I liked: I loved the characterization of Sky and her relationship with her best friend, Six. Sky was very head strong and she didn’t let all of the garbage that the girls at school put her through get her down. I loved how even though she was in a completely new setting she was able to walk away with her head held high and just brush everything off. Her and Six were perfect, they completely understood and supported one another. Sky also had a very good relationship with her adoptive mother, Karen. They were very open with each other and there was a level of trust that you don’t always see. I also adored how all of the little threads that were exposed throughout the story weaved together beautifully in the end. This story is definitely much more than a romance, it’s also a mystery and it turns out to be quite a psychological one. As it all wrapped up I found myself looking back on little details that were presented throughout and realizing just how significant even the littlest of details were.

What I didn’t like: Ok. So, there were only a few scenes where I was completely sold on Holder. The way that he came off in the beginning of the story was always in the back of my mind and you never knew when he would fly off the handle. I don’t think that would have bothered me too much if maybe Sky wasn’t so damn quick to forgive everything because she apparently needed him so badly. Sky was written as a character who wouldn’t put up with such bullshit but the minute that Holder came into her life she was a swooning puddle and it kind of annoyed me. What really annoyed me about this story is much of the dialogue, especially near the end. These people did not talk like real people, they talked like trained psychologists who have spent years getting their pHD’s in physiological trauma. This is what Holder says in the middle of a love scene: “The negative connotation you’ve been associating with physical touch your whole life doesn’t apply to me.” (quoted from uncorrected ARC copy) That’s just not something an 18 year old boy would say in the heat of the moment so it completely took me out of the scene and actually garnered a laugh from me. There are pages and pages where these two talk about their feelings and even do an exercise in embracing who they once were and it just came to be way too much. I think the story could have been much shorter if a lot of the annoying unnecessary meat was cut out and I would have appreciated that a lot more. The wrap up of the story came across to me like a cheesy after school special where everything comes together in it’s own twisted/perfect way and it was just far too over the top for my liking.

I know that if the majority of people on my Goodreads were taking a survey on how much they agree with my assessment of this novel they would check “strongly disagree” so there is definitely something here that people are loving, it just didn’t work for me. I can see how getting wrapped up in the romance can sweep you away and there were definitely a few scenes I found pretty swooney but this story just failed to blow me away. There was some gritty realism to it but the way that the characters responded to these terrible events was a bit too cheesy for me. If you are reading this amongst the sea of 5 star reviews just remember to go into this one with a bit of trepidation and maybe you will come out much more pleased than I did.