Losing Hope (Hopeless #2) by Colleen Hoover
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

Title: Losing Hope
Author: Colleen Hoover
Length: 336 pages
Publisher: Atria Books
Published: July 8, 2013
Genres: Fiction; Women's Fiction

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My Rating: ✮✮✮✮✮

Synopsis:
Sometimes in life, in order to move forward you must face the past…

#1 New York Times bestselling author Colleen Hoover held readers spellbound with her novel Hopeless, the story of what happened when a troubled girl named Sky encountered a long-lost childhood friend, Dean Holder. With Holder’s help, Sky uncovered shocking family secrets and came to terms with memories and emotions that had left deep scars.

Hopeless was Sky’s story. Now, in Losing Hope, we finally learn the truth about Dean Holder.

Haunted by the little girl he couldn’t save from imminent danger, Holder’s life has been overshadowed by feelings of guilt and remorse. He has never stopped searching for her, believing that finding her would bring him the peace he needs to move on. However, Holder could not have anticipated that he would be faced with even greater pain the moment they reconnect.

In Losing Hope, Holder reveals the way in which the events of Sky’s youth affected him and his family, leading him to seek his own redemption in the act of saving her. But it is only in loving Sky that he can finally begin to heal himself.

My Review:
I have to start out with the fact that I loved Colleen Hoover's Hopeless, so I had extremely high hopes for Losing Hope and drove myself nuts with anticipation waiting anxiously for the day I could finally get my hands on a copy of this book! Hopeless was certainly a tough act to follow! I've never read a second book, from a different person's point of view, so I have to admit that I was quite skeptical about reading this book, and enjoying it as much as I did the first one, but boy was I wrong! It seemed to help me that much more that I already knew the background of the story, and seemed to be able to read more efficiently and thoroughly because of that fact! I was also able to enjoy what I was reading a little easier than a book you're reading for the first time!

Dean "Holder" was such an amazing character in Hopeless that simply left me feeling speechless and hopeless for days after finishing it, so I couldn't wait to get more of Holder! I found myself highlight favorite quotes from holder every few pages! He's just so wise and intricate and deep and intense and even though I loved Sky, I really wanted to delve into Holder's world and thoughts! He left me just as smitten if not more the second time around!

The story is so gut-wrenching but believable! Again, I must use the word intense, because that seems to be the only appropriate adjective to describe both Holder and the story. The story flowed so smoothly and was so well written that I easily lost myself within the story. I started the book when I went to bed, and here I found myself at 2 am, already 42% into the book, forcing myself to stop reading because I HAD to go to sleep!! It was so hard to put down the book once you started, and I LOVE that about Colleen Hoover's books! She has such an awesome ability to capture the true essence of what a reader wants and ensconce them in her writing!

After reading Hopeless, it left me reeling for days! Hopeless was all that consumed my thoughts and Losing Hope is no different! Both books left me feeling the roller coaster of emotions that the characters were feeling at the time: devastation (which Holder shares his personal thoughts of the meaning throughout!), grief, pain, sadness, chemisty, contentment, fulfillment, true love. I couldn't help but feeling breathless, my heart aching, leaving me gasping for breath while throughout the entire book. I have never in my life read another story from another author that has made me personally feel so emotional and invested as Colleen Hoover has been able to do in not one, but TWO books!!

There are not enough words or adjectives in the English vocabulary that can do this book and this author justice, but I will try with unbelievable phenomenal best two books that I have EVER read! It does leave me wanting more, more of the future for Sky and Holder! At the end of Hopeless, all I could feel was Hopeless. Now at the end of Losing Hope, I feel breathless, still speechless, but not so hopeless! It left me with my own little ray of Hope! I certainly hope this is not the end of Sky and Dean and can't wait to see more out of Colleen Hoover and hope that this series takes her to the top, because that is where she belongs!

Disclaimer: I was provided a copy of this book by the Publish, Atria Books (by Simon & Schuster) via NetGalley in return for an honest, unbiased review.

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