Hopeless

Novel – author: Colleen Hoover

Book finished: 25th August

17-year-old Sky is the main character in Colleen Hoover’s novel ‘Hopeless’. Sky has been homeschooled by her adopted mum Karen ever since she was adopted at 4 years old, and aside from her real Mum having died when she was little, Sky does not remember much about her birth family. For her final year of school, Skye decides to go to public school, where evidently, she meets Holder and finds out things about her life she never thought possible.

At one of the first and main turning points in the book, the reader learns the truth about Skye’s adoption. After Skye finds a picture in Holder’s home that triggers some old memories, he reveals the truth about her past. He tells Skye that she was taken away from her home when she was 6 years of age when she lived with her father – next door to Holder and that her real name is Hope. However, this conflicts with the information given to her by Karen. After finding this out, Skye lashes out at Holder and leaves him, but after he turns up at her house, she begins to realise he was only helping and runs away from home and Karen with him to find out more about her past. This part of the text was extremely interesting for myself as the reader, as it starts the beginning of many turning points that I found were all very unexpected, and it leads us to learn why Holder was always so intrigued by Skye from the beginning of the book.

One of the main themes that was represented through this turning point was the theme of holding onto hope. Even after losing his best friend ‘Hope’ 12 years ago and his sister to suicide last year, part of Holder always knew that he would find her again one day.  As a young boy who thought it was his fault for Skye’s disappearance, it haunted him every single day that his closest friend would be out wandering the streets alone or in danger. So to get him out of his head, Holder reveals that he looked for her in every stranger their age. He looked for her in the happy children and the ones that looked settled with nice families and in a safe environment. He got to the point where he lost part of his hope in ever finding her again but he held onto the rest of it in hopes that she was happy and loved. But after seeing Skye at the grocery store, all of his hope in finding her again was reignited. “I wasn’t sure if you were Hope the first time I saw you. I was so used to seeing her in every stranger our age, and I had given up a few years ago. But when I saw you at the store I had a feeling you really were her.” 

I think that this theme of holding onto hope is quite significant for the reader. The author is not just using motivational quotes and ideas to show this theme, but the reader sees and learns with Holder in his environment, as tough as it is, to always move forward and believe the best. The theme shows that everyone has there own internal battles going on, but as dark as his days may have gotten, he always had a spark in him that held onto Hope and finding her again. 

Hopeless confronts many important issues that frequently relate to what is going on in the world at the moment. Bringing up sexual abuse on young children in this book was a shocking event for the reader to observe and came with many heart-wrenching feelings which helped to portray the themes like hope, tragedy, and moving forward and their importance throughout this book. 

I would highly recommend this book to students today. I believe that it confronts such important themes in a light that the reader will not forget. It comes with very dark and abusive scenes throughout the text so I would not recommend it to anyone younger.