Nose Graze — Young Adult book reviews
Losing Hope and I didn't quite start off on the best foot, but it quickly corrected itself and rocked hard from there!
I didn't like Holder at the beginning of Losting Hope. The first thing he does is threaten a guy because he's cheating on Holder's sister. Rightly so, Holder is outraged. Then like 15 pages later he's having sex with a girl who he KNOWS has a boyfriend. So he's helping her cheat on him. What the hell??? I don't care what your reason or excuse is, cheating is not okay. And the fact that Holder was so hypocritical about it pissed me off!
But other than that, Holder was everything I remembered from Hopeless. Sweet, thoughtful, funny, and intense. I'm actually kind of pissed that his awesomeness was tarnished by that cheating scene at the beginning of the book. It didn't feel necessary to me at all; it just made me get off on the wrong foot with Holder.
Overall, I really liked Losing Hope, but I didn't love it quite as much as Hopeless. I think the problems with these kinds of books is that you already know exactly what happens so some of the surprise is taken out, and when that happens it isn't quite as exciting. For me, one of the best parts about Hopeless was the whirlwind that was the ending. Twist after twist after twist, like BAM BAM BAM. And obviously that still happened in Losing Hope but it didn't feel as intense or as shocking since I already knew all the answers.
But I LOVE the emphasis on Les in Losing Hope. We learn so much about how Holder struggled with Les's suicide. Sometimes, that extra element made Losing Hope feel like a completely different book from Hopeless (in a good way). It felt like its own story rather than the same story from a different point of view. Holder writes letters to Les in a journal after her death, and just the way he dealt with it was so interesting to read, but also saddening. So many of those letters (and Holder's thoughts in general) broke my heart in half! Colleen completely jerked my tears around.
Just like Hopeless, Losing Hope was so quick and easy to get through. It was heavy and intense, but really captivating and that enabled me to breeze right through it! I loved being inside Holder's head. It was kind of hilarious the way he analyzed some things, and he was so in love with Sky that he acted like such a love-struck teenager. It was kind of cute!
"So how are you liking Sky?" my mom asks. [..]
"She's great," I say. "I like her a lot."
My mom puts down the paper and cocks her head. "She?" she says with an arched eyebrow. I don't understand her confusion. I just stare at her until she shakes her head and laughs. "Oh, Jesus," she says. "You've got it bad."
Still confused. "What do you mean? You asked how I liked Sky and I answered you."
She's laughing even harder now. "I said school, Holder. I asked how you were liking school."
Oh.
Or when he's remembering a conversation Les had with her friend. Les's friend says that if you just want to kiss a guy, you wear jeans. If you want something more to happen, you wear a skirt or a dress with easy access. Then when Sky wears a dress, Holder completely over-analyzes it.
What if Sky doesn't know the rules to "make-out" clothes? What if she's wearing this dress just for the hell of it? What if she's just wearing this dress because her washing machine broke and all her jeans were dirty? What if she's wearing this dress because she didn't have time to change into jeans before I showed up at her house? What if she's wearing this dress because she went to some sort of random church today that has service on Saturdays?
Ultimately, I loved this book and I definitely recommend it if you liked Hopeless! The only reason I didn't enjoy it quite as much was because the epic twists no longer felt like twists, which made it a little less exciting and thrilling. But otherwise, it had the same emotional whirlwind feel and was equally romantic!