Reviews with content warning for Sexual content - Hopeless

A quick read - tragic in parts, very cringey in others. Dark themes and not exactly a literary masterpiece, but it kept me hooked enough to continue reading the series.

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cemsreadingcorner's review against another edition

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emotional funny lighthearted sad tense slow-paced

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

5.0

This book deserved 5 ⭐️’s because the characters were lovable, except of course Sky’s father. Holder was so respectful of Sky. I loved that. He loved and respected her. Some guys are not like that in the real world (at least in my experiences 😉). So, that refreshing to see. Great book overall, even though I kept getting distracted due to my short attention span. 😅 That’s why it took me five days to finish the book. Hehe. Must be more focused.

Saturday, April 27, 2024 at 10:49 PM

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rachaelbail's review against another edition

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emotional funny hopeful sad fast-paced

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

5.0

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xgabrielle_hx's review against another edition

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challenging dark emotional sad medium-paced

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

4.0

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jamiejanae_6's review against another edition

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dark emotional funny hopeful mysterious sad tense fast-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

3.0

Content Warnings

sakusha's review against another edition

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dark emotional mysterious sad tense fast-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? It's complicated
Loveable characters? It's complicated
Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

3.0

This was another typical romance where the girl falls in love with a perfect guy, and has a gay friend (22). (Is it like a liberal publishing requirement to have some LGBT character in the book if there’s no POC?) It was also another example of how alcohol ruins people’s lives (339).

The description of the book made it sound like the protagonist was a slut, but actually she’s a virgin who just makes out with guys and then says no to the sex (11).

Matt is one of those guys. He said “I love you” after only three weeks of dating exclusively (10). The perfect guy must wait longer, apparently.

Grayson is another one of those guys. “He’s got an undeniably great body, perfectly sloppy hair, piercing dark eyes” (6). But still not good enough for Sky. I guess his only flaw is that he’s too anxious to have sex with her. She wants to be the one frustrated that he’s not interested. Holder fulfills that. He demands her name but doesn’t ask her out (32). How frustrating to not be wanted! That makes her want him.

More of Holder’s perfection:

Hot, of course (26, 119) - in the middle between a pretty boy and a tough guy (27).
Perfect kisses (174), lips, tongue, hands (178).

Hair long enough to get in his eyes (27, 97).

Strong enough to lift her effortlessly (227).

Ignores Shayna the tall, voluptuous, sun-kissed blonde, but is physically attracted to Sky who is short and has flat brown hair (24).

Has a temper (32) and issues (70), but calm with her when she is upset (264, 277).

He’s confusing, complicated (64), intense (136), moody, scary (73), angry, charming (80), passionate (182)

Makes her feel desire and fear at the same time (69).
“Every fiber of my being knows he’s not a good person, yet my body doesn’t seem to give a shit at all” (44).

He reads her well but he is unreadable (64, 108) and unpredictable (82).
He likes her reading him romance novels (112).

Not insecure or self-doubting (70).

Confident and never in a hurry (99).

Knows the right things to say, always there for her, lets her do whatever she wants (283).

Only tells her what to do when it comes to protecting her from other men (78).

Her hero (308).

He’s sweet, funny (119), and texts her at least once a day (112).

But he doesn’t overcrowd her or demand to be with her more than she wants him to (152).

Watches her sleep (118).

Cares more about her pleasure than his own (144).

Blames himself (308).

Patient with sex (215, 228).

Gets her hints so she doesn’t have to verbally explain (233).

Willing to buy her anything (192).

Being with him feels natural (203).

He makes her feel necessary and needed (353).

He cooks dinner for her (116).

He cleans the kitchen and puts away the food without being asked! (112)

He’s not bad at anything, even chopping veggies! (121)

He says “You don’t deserve words. You deserve actions” (191). :-O Now that’s my kind of man!

A quiet thinker.

Based on the description above, this makes him sound like an INTP. Although he strikes me as more of an ENFP, because of how considerate, emotional, and supportive he is, and how he isn’t shy.

Spoilers below.

Sky said in narration “if he hurts me like he’s hurt me before, it’ll be the last time he ever hurts me” (200) when all Holder did was demand where she got her bracelet, and she refused to answer. If she’d seen a bracelet on him and asked him where he got it, and he refused to answer, she’d throw a fit, like how dare you not be honest with me when you said you’d always be honest!

Another instance of the sexist double standard: Sky says in narration that she wants Holder to hurt like she’s hurting, so she slaps, shoves, and punches him over and over (264). If he were doing this to her, it would be labeled abuse!

I wasn’t surprised by anything in this book except that Karen’s brother was the one who fathered Sky. It would have been more surprising if Holder had been Sky’s brother, and she only found this out after they had sex. I thought this might be a possibility early in the book (like on p. 129), but I figured that it wasnt the case since incest seems to be taboo in fiction. It’s only acceptable if it’s an adult abusing a kid, because then the readers/viewers can hate the perpetrator. But there’s unlikely to be an incest romance. I have only seen it done in anime.

I’m glad that there was a reason behind Holder’s tattoo, the title of the book, why Sky hated presents, and why Sky’s mom homeschooled her and kept her away from tech. Although I think it’s unrealistic and probably a mistake by the author that Sky would be homeschooled all her life and yet still be embarrassed about taking her mom’s tinctures (50) and know the joke “that’s what she said” (229). I wasnt homeschooled and I only heard of that joke late in adulthood.

A second mistake by the author: Sky thinks Karen is weird for being afraid to commit to a man, while Sky feels nothing for the boys she makes out with and doesn’t want to go all the way with them either (57, 95). Sky shouldn’t think it’s weird Karen does the exact same thing she is doing.

A third mistake: The rumor is that Holder beat up a kid for being gay (38). Later Sky’s gay friend asks her if Holder knows he’s Mormon. Sky replies, “It turns out Holder doesn’t have an issue with Mormons at all. He just has an issue with assholes” (154). Why would it matter if her friend is Mormon if the thing Holder supposedly beat a kid up over was being gay, not Mormon? I get the impression that the author originally had Holder beat up a Mormon kid, but the editor/lit agent/publishers/bloggers made her change it to gay instead. And she forgot to fix this scene to be consistent with the change.

A fourth mistake: The book leads you to believe that Sky loves her friend Six and that Sky is bored, so you’d think that Sky would love to get the text message that only comes once a day from her beloved friend to break up the monotony of her boring day. But out of the blue, Holder says Sky is annoyed by Six’s texts and doesn’t even read them, and Sky says he’s right! (101) That makes no sense! Why did Sky never complain in narration previously about being annoyed by Six’s texts?

A fifth mistake: The author includes Sky saying that happily-ever-afters should piss you off (87), but this book has a happy ending. Why even bother to include her saying that when you’re going to contradict it with your own book?

Holder jokes about the typical relationship on p. 138-139: First hug, first date, first fight, first kiss, first time sleeping together, first marriage, first kid. “We’re done after that. Our lives will become mundane and boring and I’ll have to divorce you and marry a wife who’s 20 years younger than me so I can have a lot more firsts and you’ll be stuck raising the kids” (139). Romance novels stop after the sex, don’t even get to the marriage or kid usually. Holder says, “The longer I wait to kiss you, the longer it’ll be before I’m forced to leave you high and dry” (139). Which is why a romance novel takes so long to get to kisses and sex; have to draw it out to make the excitement/anticipation last for all those pages. The romance novel usually takes place in the time span of less than a year, so there isn’t time for marriage, kids, or boredom to occur yet. This novel’s events all occurred within the timespan of two months.

Holder says his parents got married for the wrong reason: “They knew each other less than a month when my mother got pregnant. My dad married her, thinking it was the right thing to do, when maybe the right thing to do was to never knock her up in the first place” (376). This irritated me since Sky and Holder had sex only two months after meeting (237). Yes, Holder used a condom, but condoms don’t always work. Neither does birth control. So with every time they have sex, they are risking pregnancy, and Holder is being a hypocrite. If you want to prevent knocking someone up, then you’ll have to refrain from sex until you’re ready for kids. But of course this doesn’t make for a good romance novel to wait that long. And having kids isn’t romantic either.

I also found it annoying that Holder acts like he’s so serious about Sky, wanting to stay with her forever, yet he already says he won’t marry her until the far, far future, sometime after college (376). Why can’t they marry sooner if they’re so sure they’re going to be together forever? The truth is that nobody can predict the future. Couples often think they’ll stay together forever, but feelings and circumstances change. So it doesn’t matter if you get married in the first year of knowing each other, or wait 5 or 10 years. Any marriage can end, at any time. Which is why marriage is pointless, and also why it’s pointless to wait if marriage is your goal. Holder acts like if Sky gets pregnant, that will put an expiration date on their marriage (378). So he only wants to be with her if he gets to enjoy years of childless sex with her? And once she does get pregnant, he will divorce her for a younger woman as he said in his joke?

I appreciate the thought that the author put into the names Sky, Hope, and Lesslie, but I think she should’ve spelled Leslie correctly. Most of the other names in the book were annoying: Holder, Breckin, and Six. One unusual name in a story is okay, but three? And the explanation for Six’s name is that she rebelled against her parents naming her Seven (34)? But why did they name her a number in the first place? It’s never explained. Another name complaint I have is when Karen was letting Hope pick her new name, and she picked Sky, and Karen picked Linden, why Linden became the first name when the girl only got called Sky (362).

Favorite quote: “The things that knock you down in life are tests, forcing you to make a choice between giving in and standing up even taller than you did before you were knocked down. I’m choosing to stand up taller” (400).

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