My rating: 3.5 of 5 stars
This is the second series of Colleen Hoover’s that I read this month.
I’ve read three of Slammed series last week and really really loved them. I’ve had the same high expectation on this series to begin with. But sadly this book didn’t grab my attention as hard as what Slammed did. I do find the story is good and heartbreaking, really. But I just don’t love this book like I loved Slammed. And I have my own reason for this.
Linden Sky Davis thought herself wasn’t like any other normal teenagers. When girls her age liked having intimate moments with boys, Sky couldn’t feel anything but numb whenever she’s making out. Maybe she did it with the wrong boys, but she’s been making out with several of them and the feeling was still the same. When the last boy she made out with decided to take a step beyond the line, Sky put a halt on wasting time with all those stupid boys.
Sky’s been attending home school on the past thirteen years before her best friend slash neighbor Six, confronted her to join public school this semester. Sky was pretty nervous, added it with Six leaving abroad for 6 months, and the already-spreading rumors about her record making out with lots of boys, Sky knew the first day of school would be a total hell. Until she met Dean Holder. The first guy who strangely made her ‘feels something’ just by his stare. But he also happened to be the most evitable guy at their school.
Just like her, Holder was also surrounded by floating rumors: the violence act he’d done at some guy at school which resulted with him being arrested last year, his disappearance for a year afterwards, the negative rumor about her sister’s suicide, some saying him was also suicidal. All of that should be enough reason for Sky to back off. But the more she knew him, the more he seemed less like what was being rumored about him. And Holder seemed had no intentions to stay away from Sky despite what rumor said about her.
When Sky for the first time could experience the feeling of ‘something’ –thanks to Holder, and when Holder for the first time could feel ‘hope’ in his life –thanks to Sky, something from the past brought them down to the darkest part of their life. Something that Sky never imagined could ever happen. Something that Holder thought would never been discovered. Knowing their path had been tied with some black scarf once, could they fix whatever damages they got and moved on? Or would they just stay being hopeless and give up?
Colleen’s writing style is amazing. Even when I didn’t find my joy while reading this, her writing style was an enough reason for me to keep going. The characters, Sky and Holder were good, too. Sky’s behavior might be a bit confusing at first. I just had no idea why would she make out with all those walking testosterone if she couldn’t feel anything from the actions. If it was because her past, I don’t think that’s the right step to make. I mean, shouldn’t she have some panic attack or something like that? But when Sky met Holder, I began to like her slowly bit by bit. Holder might not be my favorite hero of Colleen’s but his determined act made me attracted to him. Every slow step he took toward Sky proved just how gentleman Holder was. Sadly, something inside the story made me couldn’t love this book completely.
As much as I tried to enjoy the story with all the likeable characters, I’m just not okay with certain issue that was brought up in this story. No, it’s not the suicidal act (I read several books with suicidal issue as the main focus and okay with that) and it’s definitely not the stalking act (this is what I read from the negative reviews about this book, they said something about the main character was creepy stalker but seriously it was not like that at all). This had something to do with their past. Some people might be okay having this issue on their reads, but I personally felt disturbed about that issue. It’s really the worst inhuman thing a human could ever do. Well, yes, I once heard about this on the local news and I am truly aware that that kind of thing did happen somewhere around us but I just don’t feel comfortable talking about it moreover having it on the book that I read. And sadly due to my uncomfy feeling toward the issue, I couldn’t thoroughly enjoy the romance in the book :(
But don’t let this stop you from reading Hopeless. After contemplating myself whether or not I should read the next book on the series: Losing Hope (it’s Hopeless story from Holder’s POV but we all know Colleen always do more than that in reverse POV book), I finally decided to read it anyway. Surprisingly so far I liked it and didn’t feel disturbed yet... hopefully I could completely enjoy the next book!
Love, read, and review,
Cynthia D.
0 comments:
Post a Comment