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A review by mrsbooknerd
Hopeless by Colleen Hoover
3.0
I feel that a 3* rating may be a little harsh for this novel, but I also can't bring myself to award a full 4* rating. It was a good YA novel and it tackled some really ugly events very well, but there was something a little too... neat about it.
I liked Sky. I loved her brutal and horrific story and how she reacted to it. I loved seeing it knock her down and then watching as she built herself back up. It was genuinely a horrific story for Sky and it was really emotional to read.
Yeah, yeah, you guessed that there is a however.
However, everything was so neat and tidy. Every character was related, every storyline intersected. Every event had a ripple effect which caused or impacted other plots. I didn't feel that it needed this level of complexity. It made it feel too overplanned and not like a natural progression of the story.
I didn't take to Holder either. I felt that he was written to make me swoon. He said the right things and he acted the right way, but he felt like I was reading a character that I was supposed to fall in love with. He wasn't 'natural'. I know I kind of prefer the gruffer, manly men in my romance novels. The type who hate crying women and usually say 'Suck it up!' rather than give these long, poetic speeches about the only way being up. When I was 18 I didn't hear many boys talking like Holder, even now I still don't. I guess that made me feel like I was reading a romance novel, and not experiecing it.
I didn't fall into the story like I did with 'It Ends with Us' or 'Ugly Love'. I felt like I was reading a story.
I just wanted it to all be bit looser and more natural, then it would have had the 4* rating. But still a really good read.
I liked Sky. I loved her brutal and horrific story and how she reacted to it. I loved seeing it knock her down and then watching as she built herself back up. It was genuinely a horrific story for Sky and it was really emotional to read.
Yeah, yeah, you guessed that there is a however.
However, everything was so neat and tidy. Every character was related, every storyline intersected. Every event had a ripple effect which caused or impacted other plots. I didn't feel that it needed this level of complexity. It made it feel too overplanned and not like a natural progression of the story.
I didn't take to Holder either. I felt that he was written to make me swoon. He said the right things and he acted the right way, but he felt like I was reading a character that I was supposed to fall in love with. He wasn't 'natural'. I know I kind of prefer the gruffer, manly men in my romance novels. The type who hate crying women and usually say 'Suck it up!' rather than give these long, poetic speeches about the only way being up. When I was 18 I didn't hear many boys talking like Holder, even now I still don't. I guess that made me feel like I was reading a romance novel, and not experiecing it.
I didn't fall into the story like I did with 'It Ends with Us' or 'Ugly Love'. I felt like I was reading a story.
I just wanted it to all be bit looser and more natural, then it would have had the 4* rating. But still a really good read.