Colleen Hoover is a true magician. I’m not sure what she puts into her stories that just make me not able to come up for air until the last sentence is read and this book was no different. Not many authors are able to pull off a retelling but Hoover does it seamlessly. I don’t feel like I was just rereading hopeless all over again. I didn’t think I could love dean more than I already did and was proven wrong. This book is a must read. If I could give it 10 stars I would.

The Losing Hope/Hopeless series is the first Colleen Hoover I have read and I have been meaning to read it for ages. I’m not going to lie-it took me a little while to get into the previous book, Hopeless, because I thought it was just another YA romance with a little too much silliness and not enough substance. Now I will say that it was a slow start to the book and I was ready to give up hope until the twist that I didn’t see coming happened. Now I might have been naive not to have seen this twist coming but I was in the car listening to the audio and I gasped and I had to the listen to the rest of the book in one big chunk after that just to try and find out what was going to happen.

I didn’t know, going into book 2 that it was going to be the same story but from the male point of view and when I started listening, I was so here for it. We get to go even deeper into the story and really see the other side of it and the pain that Holder (Dean) has to go through when he loses hope and when he loses others close to him too. It is here that we really get to bond with him and find out what makes him tick and we get to meet his best friend the same way we get to meet Skye's best friend in book one. I really appreciated seeing the other side of the first story and although we didn’t get to find out what happened next for these two, we did get to find out more and go deeper into their story.

I appreciated hearing this story from Dean’s point of view and really going behind the rumours that we hear about him in book one, especially those surrounding the kind of person that he is. One thing that I had heard that this author does well, but hadn’t seen first hand until now was the way she handles consent in relationships. We get to hear Dean thinking that he wants to take things further with Skye but knowing that it isn’t the right time, or getting carried away but reassuring us that he will stop if he feels it is too much for her or if she tells him too. I think this is so important to read about in any romantic fiction but especially YA romance and especially one that deals with young people who have been through so much! I really enjoyed this book and I can’t wait to read more of the novellas and finally read more Colleen Hoover!

Requested and downloaded this book back in 2013 with every intention of reading it but then it expired on my device before I had the chance. Have felt bad about that and as a result haven't wanted to leave a review but with more and more publishers relying on Feedback ratings I need to clear out some of these older titles in my queue.

After reading the authors previous books, I fell in love with her writing style. I absolutely loved this book. I can’t say enough about the characters. I loved Holder and this beautiful love story about surviving devastation.

My Thoughts:
Typically, I don't like books that re-tell a story that's already been told from another character's point of view. Ninety percent of the time it adds nothing to the story, and is boring to read about. That's why I was hesitant to read Losing Hope. I figured it was just going to be Hopeless from Holder's point of view. I want to read all of Colleen Hoover's books, so I recently decided to try it. I'm so glad I did. I was definitely wrong. It was so much more than just a retelling.

Losing Hope brought a fresh perspective to the events that happened in Hopeless. When reading from Holder's point of view, it was almost like reading another story entirely. There was a big bombshell that was dropped in Losing Hope that the reader didn't learn about in Hopeless at all. It was heartwrenching, and really added something to the story. It brought back all of the heartbreaking feelings that I remember feeling from Hopeless, if not more. Watching Holder come to the realizations that he did was devastating.

Colleen Hoover once again wrote a beautiful yet heartbreaking love story. I loved seeing the interactions between Skye and Holder from Holder's point of view. It made me fall in love with the characters all over again. I'm glad I decided to finally read Losing Hope. I have a feeling it's one of those stories that will stay with me for a long time.

I give Losing Hope: 5/5.

I loved hearing the story of Sky and Dean from his point of view. Hopeless was wonderful, and Losing Hope is just as good! Sky and Dean are great characters who have been through so much at such a young age! I think they are great together, and I really enjoyed this different perspective on them.

I requested this before I read Hopeless and while I loved Hopeless, it was an extremely depressing book. Trigger warnings for abuse and as a result I can't bring myself to go through all that pain again with Losing Hope (Hopeless from the male's perspective).