Hopeless by Colleen Hoover (Hopeless series #1)

My rating: 🌟🌟🌟🌟🌟

“The sky is always beautiful. Even when it's dark or rainy or cloudy, it's still beautiful to look at....it'll be there no matter what...and I know it'll always be beautiful.” ― Colleen Hoover, Hopeless

The story is about Sky, a teenage girl, who just starts public school. She was a private student until now. When she was 5 years old she was adopted by her non-biological mother, Karen. Her life seems quite normal until she meets Dean Holder. 

And who is Dean Holder? The boy whose sister just committed suicide and has a bad reputation. The so called bad boy at the school. But slowly we learn that Holder is one of the kindest souls who went through a lot in his life. First he lost his childhood friend, Hope, and then her twin-sister, Less.

As Sky and Holder falls in love the story also gets deeper. Holder can not ignore the facts, that Hope and Sky look so alike. He manages to put the pieces together and finds out that his lost childhood friend, Hope, is in fact Sky. But how should he tell this to Sky without ruining her life?

Sky recognizes Holder's childhood house on a picture and slowly starts to remember pieces from her childhood before the adoption. As she realizes that Karen actually abducted her from his dad she gets on the road with Holder to find her real home. 

When they arrive to Sky's childhood place the worst memories come forward too. Sky was abused by her father who started to drink after Sky's mom died. During the confrontation of her dad, he admits that he also abused his own sister (who we find out is Karen), and Less (yes, Holder's sister). As he can not bear the guilt anymore he shots himself and dies.

Karen admits that she only kidnapped Sky because she saw that he also abused her. She changed her name and did not let her use any electronical device (phone, TV, internet), so Sky never finds out the truth. She only did all this to protect Sky. In the end of the book Sky returns back to Karen and is deeply in love with Holder. 

📚📚📚📚📚📚📚📚📚📚📚📚📚📚📚📚📚📚📚📚📚📚📚📚📚

At the part when Holder got so excited/scared about finding Sky/Hope, and falling in love with her but also hiding something, at first I thought that they might be siblings. So that's why Holder started to avoid Sky and tried to fight his feelings for her. When I realized that Sky was only his childhood friend and neighbor I got relieved that their romance can continue 😅 

I truly loved the book (well, how can you not love CoHo anyways 😉). Again it describes stories and situations which are hard to talk about, but unfortunately they happen in real life. Abuse, child abuse, kidnapping, suicide, bullying - they are all real and they are all hiding in that dark corner of the room. It takes a true talent to bring these difficult topics into books which are also uplifting and romantic. 

"You can't get mad at a real ending. Some of them are ugly." - Colleen Hoover