Losing Hope

Losing Hope by Colleen Hoover is the follow up to her book Hopeless. Where Hopeless was told from the point of view of the heroine, Sky, Losing Hope is told from the point of view of the hero, Dean Holder (aka Holder).

I read Hopeless several months ago and was blown away! I thought the book was very well written with excellent character development and a plot that pulls you in deep. The subject matter is dark at times but for me that just made me love the characters even more and made me feel like I really understood them better. There were several shocks delivered that I did not see coming and for me, that is what really makes a great story! I find predictability to be the epitome of boring.

I am not sure when the whole phenomenon of retelling the same story from the point of view of another character came to be vogue. I’m thinking the heat everyone put on Stephanie Meyer to retell Twilight from Edwards POV started it all. I totally get the appeal of getting to relive a story you love and “see” things in a different way.

I have been known to read and re-read books I love time and time again – and with those re-reads I often find details I missed on the first go around. But when you get a chance to revisit a story from another character’s POV it can shed a whole different light on circumstances, emotions and just about everything that happened. That was most definitely the case with Losing Hope.

This book is somewhere between Young Adult and New Adult as far as the genre is concerned. Having said that, I am myself neither a young adult nor a new adult and I find that I really enjoy books in those categories - sometimes. The main characters are still in high school but the subject matter and sexual situations are more mature than I would want to consider for the Young Adult category.

I would recommend reading Hopeless before you read Losing Hope but it is not strictly required. I just feel like the information you gather by reading the story from Sky’s POV sets the ground for the flip side of the coin when Holder is in charge.

It is difficult to give a synopsis of either the Hopeless or Losing Hope without laying down major spoilers.  So treading lightly here… Sky is a 17 year old high school student. Homeschooled all of her life by her over protective mother, she is given the opportunity to finish high school by attending the “real” high school in her hometown. As you might imagine, she does not fit in well to the established catty, chick clicks that are notorious in every high school. Though she is quite attractive and catches the eye of many of the boys in her school, she just cannot seem to find it in her to “feel” anything for any of them. That is until she bumps into the school outcast, Dean Holder, at the grocery store. Dean (known to everyone simply as Holder) is back in town after being “sent away” - as popular public opinion would have you believe. When he sees Sky for the first time it is quite a shock to him. He simply has to get to know more about this mysterious girl who has lived only 2 miles away from hi m for years but yet he does not know her – but she seems so familiar to him. Holder’s patience and understanding is what makes me love him so much in these books. Certainly not typical of any 18 year old young man I have ever met or known. His maturity would put 30 year old men to shame. Does that make this book unrealistic? Probably. But who cares, Holder is awesome! And smokin’ hot. Again a little too smooth for his age but again ladies, it is fiction after all. And honestly, who really wants to read about how gangly, awkward, self-centered typical teenagers truly behave – that is not awesome.

Holder gets to delve more and more into Sky as she slowly open up to him. Holder wants to take it slow and make sure she “feels” something with him where she has not felt anything before.  It is this point of the story when reading it from either of the sides that is swoon-worthy! Sky feels a comfort and ease in confiding and trusting Holder that she has not before experienced. It is the slow walk they are on together that leads them down the path of acknowledging things in both of their pasts that they had long since buried in their subconscious. It is as those “revelations” start to unfold that the story really takes off. And by the end, they have come full circle. The story does not leave you wanting or feeling like there is unfinished business. Colleen does a great job of tying everything up so you are left satisfied that Sky and Holder’s story has been told and their future has possibilities. Whether Colleen feels moved to write of their future or leave it to the reader to imagine – well I am good either way. And I have a great imagination!

I definitely recommend Losing Hope and give it 5 stars!

-- This book is available now by ebook version but will not be available until mid October 2013 in print.