Hopeless – Colleen Hoover

Synopsis

Sometimes discovering the truth can leave you more hopeless than believing the lies…

That’s what seventeen-year-old Sky realizes after she meets Dean Holder. A guy with a reputation that rivals her own and an uncanny ability to invoke feelings in her she’s never had before. He terrifies her and captivates her all in the span of just one encounter, and something about the way he makes her feel sparks buried memories from a past that she wishes could just stay buried.

Sky struggles to keep him at a distance knowing he’s nothing but trouble, but Holder insists on learning everything about her. After finally caving to his unwavering pursuit, Sky soon finds that Holder isn’t at all who he’s been claiming to be. When the secrets he’s been keeping are finally revealed, every single facet of Sky’s life will change forever.

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My Review

Seventeen year old Sky has been homeschooled all of her life. She doesn’t have a TV, internet or a phone but it doesn’t seem to faze her, until she begs to go to public school for her senior year.

Everything changes for her after school when she goes to get her secret hit of sugar from the supermarket. That is when she meets Dean Holder who has a reputation bigger than her but also stuns her into silence as with just one look he causes her body to feel things she’s never felt before.

Although he scares her, she’s captivated by him and the more time they spend together, the more he seems to bring out so many emotions but then he also brings out memories that she seems to have forgotten to the service. Ones that she has seemed to forgotten for a reason.

Holder is harbouring a secret and although he wants to stay away from Sky, he can’t. He needs to know everything about her but this secret he has will break Sky but when it’s finally revealed, it changes everything in Sky’s life forever. Thankfully Holder is there to catch Sky throughout it all.

Sky never knew why she didn’t feel attracted to any guy she made out with. She just went along with live thinking she’d never feel attracted or feel lust with anyone, but one look at Holder in the supermarket she was stunned. He was the first guy EVER to make her feel these things and he literally made her heart skip a beat which confused the hell out of her as she has NEVER felt anything for any guy before! Although she had been home schooled, she seemingly has a reputation around the town they live in. She and her best friend Six know the truth but Sky plays along with everyone’s opinions on her when she goes to school.

You can see she’s strong, sarcastic and bluntly honest girl who can definitely hold her own against Holder when they argue. But she’s also a girl who has started to feel new emotions that are foreign to her but she acts questions and Holder answers her as honestly as he can. They are the perfect match for each other and although they got together fairly quickly, it seemed to right for them to do that and I love that they didn’t hold back.

The first time Dean Holder is introduced, he’s smoking hot and a little intense. He blows hot and cold the first few times he is around Sky, which only makes her assumption about him being intense all that more truthful. With her attraction to him, she gets pissed off numerous times over his ‘tantrums’ he seems to pull every so often until there is a period where he stays away from her. But Holder is harbouring a secret that he cannot and will not tell Sky as it will break her but staying away from her is something he cannot do. He needs to be with her and needs to know everything about her. There’s just something about her he can’t pinpoint…

I loved Holder from the beginning. You get to understand why he acted the way he did further along in the book and why he just couldn’t stay away from Sky. He’s been on a mission for the past few years and he was beginning to give up until he found Sky. He’s also very attracted to her and even though they hadn’t known each other long, their chemistry and their charge just kept pulling them together. In the short time, they seem to become everything to each other and to me, it didn’t seem all that strange that they were falling in love quickly, especially when they secret comes out.

Everything that came out of Holder’s mouth was just perfect. He seemed to know what to say in the darkest of moments and also in the lightest. He’s not like any boy I’ve ever known and it was such a relief to read about a guy who felt so many emotions and had me hanging on his every word. He just knew what to do and say to make Sky and himself try to forget everything that was going on and he would do anything for her. Just you read and find out yourself!

There is one scene, okay quite a few, but this one, I KNOW everyone has probably written about it in their review and I’m just another person who will too. The scene where it was the best first kiss, that wasn’t a first kiss. HA you will have to read the book to see what I mean. I was getting so flustered over that scene and it makes it much more intense and sexually charged that my heart was pounding so fast in my chest, it felt like I was experiencing this too – that sounds pretty weird I know, but holy moly, that scene!!

Also the scene where I felt all panicky like Sky was a scene near the end where she’s in the shower. I felt all her emotions and my heart was beating with how much I would be like her if that had happened to me. I kept running a hand through my hair while reading that scene.

I really liked reading all the flashbacks. They are an important part in the story and you see how they integrate into Sky’s life and how they mould her into the person she is today. Since her adoption at 6 years old, she has seemingly forgotten everything about her childhood but slowly she starts to remember things she has pushed away from memory and the dreams are just the click into remembering everything before the adoption. She has never emotionally or physically been attracted to any guy until Holder enters her life and down the line you will see why that is…The flashbacks are essential to the plot.

I had many different theories about the secret, some which I were hoping were not true – I have to say, some of them were – but when the BIG secret was revealed , HOLY SHIT, that secret hadn’t even crossed my mind. That was a complete shocker to me and I’m glad I didn’t figure it out because I sat up in bed, mouth open, rereading that sentence. I don’t think anyone saw that coming!

The ending was a flashback and it kind of pulls the whole story together and makes you think back over the whole book, putting the final finishing thoughts to it as a whole. It took me a while to sleep after I read it as tears were continually falling down my face and I couldn’t stop them. Hopeless is now one of my favourite books and I don’t know why it took so long for me to read it.

Colleen Hoover has made me fall in love with her! Her writing style was refreshing, the book had me hooked from the very beginning and I was captivated until the very end, needing to know what was going to happen next to Sky and Holder. From the Sky and the stars to the pinky holding, it all made complete sense to me as to why they felt so familiar and this book is definitely real. It will drag your emotions out and make you feel things for the characters involved; you will feel connected to them.

A book with so much depth, so many emotions, so much love, and one big secret is definitely a book that needs to be read. Seriously, if you haven’t read the amazing Hopeless, download your copy now and understand why this book is now one of my favourites.