Darkphoenix

I was really looking forward to reading Hopeless and I had such high hopes for it. I thought it would be really good judging by all the glowing reviews I had read. I read it and I hated it so much that it took all my willpower to finish it. I don’t think I’ve ever been so disappointed by something I’ve read! This was a disappointment of epic proportions!I usually don’t go through the trouble of trying to finish a book if I don’t like. I think it’s a waste of time and effort especially when I could be reading something really good as opposed to something that is an utter waste. But I thought maybe it would get better so I should give it a chance and I managed to finish it and it did not get any better. If there was anything positive in this otherwise dreary exercise, it was that it finally came to an end.There are quite a few things I have a problem with and I’m not gonna waste anymore of my time outlining all of them, but I will point out a few. As far as characters go, I had a problem with the main protagonists: Sky and Holder. The secondary characters aren’t all that bad. As it is, they are hardly present. I liked Six, sadly she didn’t stay long. Breckin wasn’t bad either, too bad we saw very little of him too. The secondary characters had no depth whatsoever, they simply served as fluff.There was hardly any characters building apart from Sky and Holder because as I mentioned earlier they were hardly present. We learn nothing about Karen, Jack, Six or even Breckin except the bare essentials (the kind that were covered in a sentence or two) I get that they’re secondary characters but more often than not these characters make the book more enjoyable. Even the writing was dull and boring. Hoover tried really to make the readers really root for the Sky and Holder and while it may have worked with a lot of other readers, it did not connect with me. Sorry I’ve read much better stuff and I have better stuff to read. On to Sky. I liked her in the beginning and then as the story went on, I couldn’t stand her. Holder was even more annoying. I usually don’t like stories where the boy and girl fall madly in love with each other within less than a week of meeting. This is precisely what happened here. They’re strangers for crying out loud! (and for those of you thinking that they were not in love with each other that early in the book then they were most certainly hopelessly obsessed with each other which is even more disturbing) And what’s a “realistic” love story without the guy acting like a total jerk, right? And he did not once but twice and got away with it both times. Don’t get me wrong, Hoover says the right things but they seem hollow. There’s no way any reader would be okay with Holder’s behaviour, so Hoover gives him really corny and crappy lines something like (and I’ paraphrasing here), ‘oh, I’m not apologizing to you because I don’t want you to forgive me” well bully for you! She makes him seem like god’s gift to women-kind so the reader and Sky forgive him (quickly) oh and there’s also this other thing where he asks if he can please kiss Sky after behaving like a huge Asswipe! And lo and behold, she lets him. I find this book especially disturbing because of Sky’s dependence on Holder. It’s not healthy! It’s exactly the same reason I had a major problem with Twilight as well (they were also one of the crappiest excuse for book ever written but that’s a rant for another post) Actually that unhealthy obsession goes both ways. I was looking forward to it so much that I even planned to read the sequel from Holder’s point of view. Obviously I’m now going to avoid that like the plague. But there is a lesson in this disaster, and that is to never add a sequel to your to-read list if you haven’t read the first book. The only exception to this lesson are authors you’ve already read and love. For now, I have to go and re-read something that I really loved to get over this sad excuse for a book!!Oh and those lame ass lines, “I live you” I tried SO hard not to roll my eyes but sadly I failed. Seriously, who talks like that!? Trust me, that little nugget was not cute and adorable, it was lame and stupid. Hopeless is the literary equivalent of the movie Precious. I don’t even bother writing reviews for books I don’t like but this one disappointed me on such an enormous scale I just had to get it out of my system.