Review - Hopeless by Colleen Hoover

Genre:  Mature YA, Romance, Drama
Overall Score:  4 / 5
Content Rating:  R
Technical Rating:  4.5 / 5
Series?: No
Would Recommend?:  Yes

" The events of your life are all crammed together one minute right after the other 

without any time lapses or blank pages or chapter breaks because no matter 

what happens life just keeps going and moving forward  and words keep flowing

and truths keep spewing whether you like it or not and life never lets you pause 

and just catch your fucking breath. " -Sky

Another great read from Colleen Hoover. The first chapter of Hopeless was fantastic and set the tone for the rest of the book. It pulled me in and I knew I'd been set up - I wasn't putting this one down until I was finished.

_Summary_

Sky has lead a sheltered life. Adopted as a toddler, she's survived until now with no television, telephones or internet. Now, it's her senior year and she's managed to convince her mother to attend public school. Being home schooled her entire life hasn't hindered Sky's extracurricular activities though, and with some help from her neighbor and best friend, Sky's already got a reputation. Making it worse, her friend is doing a semester abroad, leaving Sky to fend for herself.

Dean's been gone for last year. If you believe the rumors, that year was spent in juvie. Now he's back in town and on a collision course with Sky. The first time they meet is an intense experience, leaving Sky feeling shaken. Use to feeling numb, the emotions Dean makes Sky feel after only a few moments rattle her. Sky knows she should stay away from him, but he's not going to make it easier.

As Sky and Dean spend time together, she realizes that he might not be who he claims. He's hiding something, something big. When the truth is revealed, Sky will learn that there are worse things than feeling numb. Some things are just hopeless.

_Technical Review_

An author that knows what an editor/proofreader/beta reader is! This book was solid as far as grammar and spelling goes. Like her others, Hoover's books are polished. They've got that finished, worked over feel which is starting to be an uncommon thing among indie/self pub books.

Hoover gives us another emotional, intense read and a great cast of characters with Hopeless. I love her character building. She's able to create unique personalities, each with distinctive voices. She's also so good at developing characters through the challenges they face. The book also held a good pace through most of the story. It had the right mix of romance, drama and mystery. The flashback chapters were well placed, giving enough enough away to help the reader try to piece it together and think they've got it all figure out - which makes the true "holy shit" moment far more unexpected and shocking.

While I really liked this story, it wasn't without a few weaknesses.  The book starts to stall towards the end. There's this huge, intense moment that then causes the rest of the story to start to drag. (see below, I'll avoid spoilers here). Maybe if this part of the story occurred late, or if it was built upon more it would have worked better. Instead, it comes off feeling more like an unfinished thought. Sky's friend, Six, also comes off feeling incomplete. Six has been Sky's only real friend her entire life and she ends up shipped abroad for most of the book. Other than some texts and the occasional phone calls, Six is all but erased from the story. Through all the craziness, Sky's doesn't really say anything to her friend about any of it? Made the character of Six feel unneeded, pointless when she really shouldn't have been.

_Personal [Spoilered] Review_

I was so sure I had this one figure out. With the flashbacks, foreshadowing and other clues, I spent most of the books with this smug smile on my face, assuming I knew what was going to happen. Child abduction and a missing child for 13 years? Yea, didn't see that one coming at all. And that made it so. damn. good. I felt as blindsided as Sky did.

My issue with the pace of the book comes with the scene involving Sky's confrontation with her father. It was too short, too undeveloped and not that well placed within the story. It caused the rest of the book to really drag. They argue, a gun is drawn and he blows his damn head off. And then...that's it. Sky and Holder drive off to the hotel and that's the end of it. No consequences, nothing more is really said about the incident afterwards. To me, that should have been one of the the big moments of the book. Sky confronts the catalyst for her entire life, the reason for her broken memories and stolen life and the entire thing was so...lackluster and blah. The rest of the book was still good, but  it just felt like a lot of fluff and filler.

All in all, this is another solid addition to my bookshelf. Hoover has become an "I will read anything you write" author for me, and this book is no exception.

Review - Fallen Crest High by Tijan

Genre:  Mature YA, Romance, Drama
Overall Score:  2 / 5
Content Rating:  R
Technical Rating:  1 / 5
Series?: Yes
Would Recommend?:  No

" I don't wanna go to sleep

I wanna stay up all night

I wanna just screw around

I don't wanna think about

What's gonna be after this

I wanna just live right now "

C'Mon - Ke$sha

A vague book synopsis gives way to an even vaguer book. Far too confusing to  be enjoyable. Cut some subplots, clean up the errors and this could have been a decent read.

_Summary_

Mason and Logan Kade are two brothers who did their own thing. They were rich and expected to attend her school, Fallen Crest Academy. They chose public school and now Samantha has to live with them. The problem is that she doesn't care at all: about them, about her friends, about her cheating boyfriend, or even about her parent's divorce. But maybe that's a good thing. Maybe change is a good thing. - via goodreads.com

_Technical Review_

This story was absolutely murdered by horrendous spelling and grammar errors. Spelling mistakes, missing words, incomplete sentences, complete sentences that made absolutely no sense, lack of understanding of how to properly use pronouns that caused all sorts of confusion as to who was speaking or being spoken to/about. I read a lot of self pub/indie books, and errors are part of the deal. Usually, I can just ignore them as I read, but I just couldn't do it with this book. It was too hard to keep straight who said/did what because of the pronoun misuse and massive amounts of missing words. Can and Can't, Do and Don't and many other combos were often mixed up - drastically changing the meaning of a lot of phrases. There were many occasions where it felt like the author opened a dictionary to a random page, chose a random word and just stuck it in a sentence, regardless of if it made any sense. I got the feeling that English is not the authors's first language. I'd be shocked if it was.

_Personal [Spoilered] Review_

Angry, ranting review incoming... I'm a fan of music as much as books and often when I read, songs pop into my head that I feel fit the book or characters. This whole time, I just kept thinking "this book is a bigger train wreck than a Ke$ha song." The book managed 2 stars out of me because of Logan. He's the only reason I finished this one. His idgaf attitude and smartass mouth made him an enjoyable, funny personality to read. The rest of the lot was very hard to find enjoyable. The attraction and bond between Mason and Samantha was nearly nonexistent and poorly built. When they finally decided to suck face it was awkward and felt random. Mason comes off cold and uncaring towards Samantha, he wants her just to want her. He doesn't seem to actually give a shit about her - he just goes after her to piss off someone else and just to show he can have her if he wants her. Even as the story progressed, I just didn't feel the connection between the two of them. Logan was the same. The "surprise" revelation at the end that Logan loves her and wants her too was just so out of left field and random. He never acts in any way other than a welcoming, if not a bit mental, soon to be stepbrother. I just didn't buy it.

The premise of the story could have been good, had it not turned into a crazy soap opera. Way too many characters, way too much pointless drama and way too many plot twists in an already convoluted plot. These two are brothers, she's the soon to be step sister who's mother cheated with their father, who's real mother cheated on their father while he cheated on her and now she's sleeping with the soon to be step sister's biological father and while her fake father is sleeping with a pta mom, and they're all actually mermaids who come from atlantis but decided to grow legs and move to the shore to live in mansions. It was just too much. All it was missing was a trip to the Maury show, with Mr. Povich waving cards around screaming "You are NOT the father!"

Based on the ratings and reviews, this looks like one of those books that I'm in the minority of as far as liking it goes. And I'm completely okay with that. Logan, ilu, but I will not be reading the follow-up to this one.