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readingrainglow 's review for:
Hopeless
by Colleen Hoover
SPOILERS
Sensitive Content: Mention of book enabling homophobia, pedophilia
Hopeless by Colleen Hoover is difficult for me to review. While the author has 4-star writing talent as it pertains to flow and diction, there are insurmountable problems with a few of the books messages that I cannot get over.
First: I acknowledge that I have a bias against young adult romance novels with high school characters. I should've researched this genre more but bought this book based on so many recommendations first. I find it inappropriate and creepy to read sexually graphic content involving minors, so I found myself skipping over much of the content and just reading the conversations in quotations. This of course is a bone to pick with the entirety of a genre, and not just the author.
Second: The book begins with the main character (Sky) learning that the guy she's crushing on (Holder) has committed a hate crime against a gay guy. She was presented this information and believed it as fact, not rumor. The biggest travesty is that she continues to flirt and explore Holder until he makes her aware that what she heard was an untrue rumor. In what world is it Okay to nonchalantly accept that someone has committed a HATE CRIME just because they're cute? Unacceptable.
Third: At the end of the book, Sky discovers her dad raped several children, and expresses that because she loves him, she "doesn't want to ruin his career." Unreal. I understand presenting the complex feelings associated with someone you love doing bad things, and the compartmentalized shattering of someones persona. To not want to accept the badness because of the goodness it taints. But to not report a CHILD RAPIST to avoid ruining their career? What a terrible, inexcusable message.
Those last two points indicate that perhaps the author doesn't understand the gravity of these traumas and uses them to turn pages at the expense of those who truly suffer from them. The plot line could have remained the same, but the refinement of the characters message and resolve surrounding those problems could have been more appropriate and inline with Sky's entire persona. I understand an authors right to make an unlikable character, but that clearly wasn't the intent here. I leave this book so worried about the messages therein.
Sensitive Content: Mention of book enabling homophobia, pedophilia
Hopeless by Colleen Hoover is difficult for me to review. While the author has 4-star writing talent as it pertains to flow and diction, there are insurmountable problems with a few of the books messages that I cannot get over.
First: I acknowledge that I have a bias against young adult romance novels with high school characters. I should've researched this genre more but bought this book based on so many recommendations first. I find it inappropriate and creepy to read sexually graphic content involving minors, so I found myself skipping over much of the content and just reading the conversations in quotations. This of course is a bone to pick with the entirety of a genre, and not just the author.
Second: The book begins with the main character (Sky) learning that the guy she's crushing on (Holder) has committed a hate crime against a gay guy. She was presented this information and believed it as fact, not rumor. The biggest travesty is that she continues to flirt and explore Holder until he makes her aware that what she heard was an untrue rumor. In what world is it Okay to nonchalantly accept that someone has committed a HATE CRIME just because they're cute? Unacceptable.
Third: At the end of the book, Sky discovers her dad raped several children, and expresses that because she loves him, she "doesn't want to ruin his career." Unreal. I understand presenting the complex feelings associated with someone you love doing bad things, and the compartmentalized shattering of someones persona. To not want to accept the badness because of the goodness it taints. But to not report a CHILD RAPIST to avoid ruining their career? What a terrible, inexcusable message.
Those last two points indicate that perhaps the author doesn't understand the gravity of these traumas and uses them to turn pages at the expense of those who truly suffer from them. The plot line could have remained the same, but the refinement of the characters message and resolve surrounding those problems could have been more appropriate and inline with Sky's entire persona. I understand an authors right to make an unlikable character, but that clearly wasn't the intent here. I leave this book so worried about the messages therein.