Reviews with content warning for Suicidal thoughts - Hopeless

Reviews tagging 'Suicidal thoughts'

pippamillerxoxo_'s review against another edition

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challenging dark hopeful mysterious sad medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? No
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.0

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ilikeshortchapters's review against another edition

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dark emotional sad medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? No
Diverse cast of characters? No
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

1.5

Gross and cringey

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a_alves00's review

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dark emotional inspiring sad medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? It's complicated
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? No
Flaws of characters a main focus? No

5.0

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xlaraxk's review against another edition

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dark medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Plot
Strong character development? No
Loveable characters? No
Diverse cast of characters? No
Flaws of characters a main focus? No

1.0

I wanted to read one of Colleen Hoover's book to see what the hype is all about. Unfortunately, I really cannot understand why people would want to read this. This book has just so many issues and was just not sexy or romantic at any point.

The writing: The writing in this book was so bland. Nothing about it was clever or original or showed linguistic talent. Any AO3 or Wattpad writer could do better than this. CoHo really tries to hammer the youthfulness of the characters home by constantly using the phrase "xy sucks ass", "this sucks ass", "he sucks ass" etc. To introduce direct speech she constantly uses "he/she says" so it gets repetitive easily. The comparisons she makes are also strange and could even be considered offensive (e.g." He looked at me like I just said I have a penis"). All in all, the writing was not the worst thing I ever read but just straight up boring - something you will have read a hundred times by now.

The characters: Again, just bland. I could not tell you anything about the main character Sky or Holder in regards to their personality. They all have one character trait only - Holder is "misunderstood", Sky likes to read and that's about it. I do not even understand why they liked each other in the first place

Spoiler

apart from knowing each other from childhood

. Her mum's only distinctive traits is that she's a vegan and that she does not like technology, nothing more.

The problematic aspects: Oh, there are so many.

This book depicts queer, especially gay people, so stereotypically. Colleen Hoover wants to tell us how much of an ally both Holder and Sky are yet to fail to see Sky's friend as anything more than his personality. We've all seen some rendition of "the extroverted quirky gay best friend" in a book or a film - again, nothing original about it. I'm really sick of seeing this stereotype being brought up over and over again.
Sky has so much internalised misogyny. Her only issue seems to constantly tell the read that she, in fact, is not a slut. The "slut" topic plays a big part in the beginning of the book and then weirdly is never brought up again later. But in any case, she tries to "not be like other girls" by calling other girls either a slut, stupid or manipulative.
Holder does not know about consent. There are some scenes where Sky is clearly uncomfortable with their physical intimacy (at one point she even tells him no "forcefully") but he keeps on pressuring her. He's emotionally manipulative and that's not romantic or cute in any way.
Just the plot in general. There is some serious trauma going on but it is "fixed" by a romantic relationship. That's just not what you should convey to a young audience. If you really want to read this book, please make sure to take a look at the trigger warnings.

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