Point of Retreat – Z. Elizabeth

Synopsis

Layken and Will’s love has managed to withstand the toughest of circumstances and the young lovers, now married, are beginning to feel safe and secure in their union. As much as Layken relishes their new life together, she finds herself wanting to know everything there is to know about her husband, even though Will makes it clear he prefers to keep the painful memories of the past where they belong. Still, he can’t resist his wife’s pleas and so he begins to untangle his side of the story, revealing for the first time his most intimate feelings and thoughts, retelling both the good and bad moments, and sharing a few shocking confessions of his own from the time when they first met.

In This Girl, Will tells the story of their complicated relationship from his point of view. Their future rests on how well they deal with the past in this final installment of the beloved Slammed series

5/5 Stars

My review of SLAMMED
My review of P.O.R

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My Review

“So you keep your ocean, I’ll take the Lake”

Layken and Will have stood the test of time. They have overcome scenarios that no one would even want to be in but their love has come out the other side stronger than ever. Now on their honeymoon, Lake wants to know everything about Will, about his past and about theirs. Although Will would prefer not to rehash these painful memories, he cant resist his wife’s pleas and so he begins to tell the story, his side of the story from his parents death to the very part of their marriage.

Will reveals intimate thoughts and feelings, retelling good and bad parts and sharing confessions that Lake never knew from the time they both first met.

So join Will and fall back in love with his versions of events.

I’d like to first start off and say, if you haven’t read Slammed and Point of Retreat yet…HOLY CRAP get to Amazon, 1-Click or order the book and get this series in your life right now. You will love every single character in this book; they will evoke all sorts of emotions from you, from tears, to laughter, to smiles to anger, you name it, this book has it. But it also makes you fall in love. Fall in love with the journey that all the characters go through – In both books now. You see that love and family and friendship can survive anything when you have each other to get you through painful and also happy scenarios.

Colleen Hoover is a god and This Girl is the perfect book to end the Slammed series. It isn’t just a rehash of Slammed and P.O.R in his point of view, oh no. We get the scenes which we loved and disliked (disliked in a good way because they were so sad to read) and we also get to see Lake’s reactions in the present time when Will finishes his versions of events as well as a special epilogue!!

Normally I would sum up what happens in the book, but if you read my reviews of Slammed and P.O.R then you will get the jist of what This Girl is about, but there are new events, events that weren’t in Slammed because it was Layken’s POV, events that will tear at your heart, make you catch your breath, make you cry; just have that pounding in your heart for Will. There are new slams, and by god are they powerful. They captured my attention, had me sitting up straight. They conveyed so much depth; you couldn’t help but reread them.

This Girl had me hooked. I was going to wait to read it, but my fingers kept hovering over the title until I clicked on it. I couldn’t have cared less if I had a load of ARC’s to read; This Girl had to be read. I had to love Will even more, I had to know his versions of events, and I had to see how their story ended. It didn’t take me long to read because I couldn’t put it down.

Throughout the book, from Will’s POV, you really see how much pain he has gone through. From losing his parents, to having to give up the girl he loves – Lake. You can see how much he loves Layken from the beginning. From the very first moment he set eyes on her. He was completely hooked and it killed him so much to find out she was his student. Killed him that he has to try and stay away from her even though all he wanted to do was be with her; to have found this girl, to have fallen in love and not be able to be with her.

God the emotion you feel coming from Will and Lake in these scenes really hit you. You feel the pain and heartbreak and the anger from both of them that they can’t be together, that they have to try and stay away, act like they don’t know one another. My heart was hurting so much.

Throughout the stories, you will see every emotion pour not just from Will, but from yourself as well. Will bears his heart and soul into this book, and when telling Lake – from losing his family, to the Slam poetry, this all comes from his heart. You will melt, you will sigh, you will want to give him a massive hug. Seriously, you will be a wreck reading his POV.

What I also loved was how close Gavin and Will are. You never really see their friendship until Will and Layken are ‘figured’ out and are together, but it was brilliant to see that Gavin and Will were close. BFF’s ;). We never really got to see anyone be on Will’s side, to talk to him and keep him in line. Tell him what he is doing wrong. I really like Gavin and he was there from the very start when Will took Lake on the first date and he’s there until the very end too!

Now, what I loved was the epilogue. I was laughing at Gavin’s reaction, crying at Kel – the sweetest little man even – or should I say teenager? And crying at Will and Lake. It was the perfect way to end the Slammed series and it was so nice to see everyone get their happily ever after. They all truly deserved it after all the things that had been through and to be together, still so close and so happy; it was the greatest ending that could have been – especially with the last slam poem at the end. Oh. Floods. Of. Tears!

I don’t really want to say a lot about This Girl, but I beg you to read this series. You get added bonus scenes in This Girl, you get to see Will and Lake on their honeymoon, being all cute and you get to see them in the future, in the epilogue. I cannot express how much I love this series. How much emotion has gone through me with these books and how much I will cherish these characters and their journeys.

It’s butterflying amazing.

“You want to know my sweet?” I ask her.
She nods.
I kiss her on the forehead. “You. Always you.”

Synopsis

Hardships and heartache brought them together…now it will tear them apart.

Layken and Will have proved their love can get them through anything; until someone from Will’s past re-emerges, leaving Layken questioning the very foundation on which their relationship was built. Will is forced to face the ultimate challenge…how to prove his love for a girl who refuses to stop ‘carving pumpkins.’

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My Review

Point of Retreat picks up from where Slammed ends. If you haven’t read Slammed, don’t read anymore of this review, as it will tell you what happens next in Lake and Will’s life.

After Julia’s death and the hardships to get to where they are now, Lake and Will are together, with nothing to keep them apart anymore. Lake and Will have proved that love can concur all, and they have waited so long to be together. The four of them are now a little family and although Julia is missed every day, they get by; with the love they have for each other.

But when someone from Will’s past emerges, she seems to do more damage than good and when Layken watches an interaction between Will and that person, it devastates her and leaves her questioning and doubting everything about their relationship.

With Lake heartbroken and not listening to a single word Will wants to say, it’s up to Will to prove just how much he loves this girl and how he can’t live without her. And with the help of his new neighbour, he’s determined to make Lake realize just how much he needs and loves her. Will he succeed in getting his soul mate back?

Colleen Hoover is perfection. Utter perfection. Oh Point of Retreat has my emotions all over the place. I was smiling, I was cursing, my heart fluttered, I was angry and I was in floods of tears. WHAT.A.SEQUEL! I couldn’t put this book down either. In Slammed, it’s about the forbidden relationship, the love but also about the loss of the one remaining parent between them both – Julia. Point of Retreat shows us the bind that both Will and Lake have, not only losing both parents, but having to bring up their respective brothers. But more than that, their love and connection that binds them together is also foremost in Point of Retreat too. Their determination to be together, to stand strong together and still try to be the young adults they are whilst helping each other find that balance between being parents and still acting their age.

With Julia’s death, Lake and Will have more in common, dealing with the heartbreak of another family member’s death, but could this be something that could tear them apart? Having so much in common? With them both attending college, yet on different days, Will encounters a blast from the past that he would rather forget about, but since she’s in his classes, he can’t.

Enter Vaughn, the ex-girlfriend who deserted him when he needed her the most. Deciding it’s probably best not to tell Lake about her being in his class, Vaughn wants Will back after coming to her senses and realizing she threw someone as amazing as Will away. But no matter what Will tells her, that he loves Lake, Vaughn hits him with a hard blow and asks him the question: What if he’s only with her because he knows how it feels and he feels sorry for her?

After a confrontation and witnessing something so heartbreaking, Lake takes that question and turns it into something that could ruin their relationship forever. Yes, they have the loss of parents, the bringing up their brothers in common but is that why he loves her? Lake is planted with doubts over his love and tells him he can have days, weeks, even months to think about why he loves her. Months? Like he needs months to tell her but if only she would listen and not block him out, then he could tell her how much she means to him. So what does a guy like Will do to prove him love? Slam Dunk with poetry of course!

But with their love back on track, something even worse is coming their way and now it involves everyone. It’s times like these where this small close family of friends need to stick together and pray that it will all be okay.

I felt every single emotion when this happened – around the 75% mark. Will was frightened, he was scared, he was tired of waiting, not knowing what was happening, but he had to be strong. I cried so much during these few chapters because I hated seeing Will hurting so badly and I just wanted to crawl into my kindle and give him a hug and console him. His love was so strong and powerful that he would do whatever it took to make sure Lake was okay.

Lake kind of annoyed me when she began questioning Wills love for her, but in a way, I could see where she was coming from. They had so much in common at such a young age, that it could be seen as just being together for the sake of this, but in Slammed, they overcame so many obstacles to be together and proved that even when they weren’t together, their love couldn’t be vanquished. I know that now Lake has had to grow up after losing her dad and now her mum, and with Will already knowing what it’s like, their love could be built on that foundation, but even when she’s not here, Mama Julia knows best and is still there in spirit and there with her advice and wisdom to guide both of them through the hard times they are both experiencing.

And she of course, has something for every scenario and feeling both of them are going through, to prove that they can get through anything together. The lyrics, quotes and wisdom throughout the book gave it so much depth and meaning and each one integrated into the scene that was happening with grace and gave a whole lot of emotion back.

I loved the determination of Will to make everything right again with Lake, to prove that their relationship isn’t just based on the factors they have in common, that it runs much deeper than that – about the little things about Lake, her personality, their favourite band, the booth they shared their first Slam together. He poured his heart out during his Slam to win her back and prove that he was so in love with her; everything about her that who cares if they have deceased parents and brothers to look after, he loves her despite those factors.

Point of Retreat was in Will’s POV and I absolutely butterflying love it when authors write in the guys POV because so many are in the females’ that you have to guess their feelings and go off from what the girl is saying. HOLY SHIT! This book made me fall even more in love with this god of a man. I love that we got to see his true feelings, his emotions, his love and his fears come through. He wasn’t a guy afraid to show anything, he bared his soul, and of course, his soul is also bared through his poetry which is why he is so passionate about it. Can’t wait to read the third book which will also be in Will’s POV 😀 WOOP WOOP!

Gavin and Eddie are heavily involved within this book and I love them as much as I did in Slammed, as are my favourite boys Kel and Caulder who are now 11. Oh my boys are growing up! But two new characters in the form of Shelly and Kiersten, the new neighbours are brought into the book.

Oh Kiersten! She’s the boy’s age but well old before her time. I loved her wisdom and advice, which she had obviously inherited from her amazing mother Shelly. She and the boys are really close and they protected and stuck up for her when things in school weren’t going too well, but she never once had a sad smile on her face, she was always happy and always happy to help, much the same as Shelly who was like the adopted mum to Will, Caulder, Lake and Kel. She was there with advice and medicine when they all got ill. It was great to see that even though Julia had gone, they had Shelly to go to.

This close knit family of friends were always there for one another, through thick and thin and you could see how much they loved one another and would help out whenever they could.

I can’t say how much I love this series and Colleen Hoover. This series is perfection. Its powerful, its full of love, its full of amazing poetry and quotes that integrate within the situations at hand and it’s about finding that one person who will own your heart forever, even though the hardships and it’s about loss. I can’t wait to read Slammed from Will’s POV now when it’s out later this year. I can’t get enough of Colleen’s writing. She has be hooked from the beginning, the book begging me to keep going until the end and not stopping till I’ve finished. Read Slammed and then this book – you will not be disappointed and I assure you, you will fall in love with Will and Lake and everyone else involved in this series! I butterflying LOVE IT.