Crisped Summary of Hopeless:
The novel is the first book in the duology, Hopeless. The first book is about Sky Davis and Dean Holder and the romance which thrives and flourishes between them with every meeting. It appears to be a contemporary romance.
Sky meets Dean in high school. Dean cannot resist her due to a connection he thinks he might have had with her in the past. The novel however is not about the love affair but about the issues way greater than love. The more they involve with each other, the more they realize there is a side to their life they are unaware of. They need to deal with the issues long forgotten in order to get the closure both have been looking for their entire life. The author poses a question before the reader Would you rather know a truth that makes you feel hopeless, or keep believing the lies?
The story travels back to the childhood of Dean and Sky and reveals the dark past of these characters before the reader. By the end of the novel, Sky is able to deal with her past but Dean’s life still remains in shadows which is the focus of the second book of the series. The novel does not necessarily end on a cliffhanger and the reader can enjoy it as a stand-alone. However, the readers who associate with the character of Dean Holder will surely want to start the next book the moment they end this one.
Plot Analysis of Hopeless:
The plot of the story seems a little bit made-up if one only focuses on this book. There are many events that happen in the novel which make the reader feel as if Hoover is injecting a lot of coincidences in the plot. However, this is only due to the fact that Hopeless presents Sky’s perspective. Dean’s perspective is often neglected and discussed in the second book. Nothing is a coincidence except for the first meeting of Dean and Sky. The rest is majorly pre-planned.
Sky meets Dean in a grocery shop where Dean mistakes her for somebody he has known in the past. However, Sky convinces him that she is not somebody else. Dean has recently lost his sister Lesslie who repeatedly emerges in their conversation. By the middle of the novel, her deceased character plays a vital role in the development of the plot.
Sky knows that Karen has adopted her but she does not know the exact reason for this adoption. As the plot unfolds, she realizes that Dean Holder has been right all along. There are things from her past which she needs to deal with. She confronts her biological father, talks to Karen and listens to her side of the story, and finally gets the closure she badly needs for a normal life. The holder is much like a supporting figure who stands by her through thick and thin and helps her figure out everything. The end is not a happy but a convincing and realistic end. Even though Dean and Sky stay together but since the story is not about a love affair it does not stand out as a happy ending. The ending is rather an amalgam of sadness and happiness.
Characters in Hopeless:
The novel has all types of characters. It has strong characters, it has grey characters, and it has intensely evil villains as well. Hoover makes each of these characters psychologically accurate which enhances the appeal of the novel. The characters are affected by their past. There is a very strong impact of repressed emotions on the characters.
Sky is the girl who has repressed her childhood memories and cannot recall any of them as an adult. However, the emotions and memories which are buried deep inside her head always affect her character.
Dean Holder also has his own regrets and guilt from past life which shape his character throughout the novel. Even though he is not the focus of the book, but Hoover gives enough spotlight to him to justify his acts.
Lesslie is Holder’s sister who has committed suicide before the book actually starts. Hoover develops her character through the thought patterns of other characters like Holder, his mother, and even Sky.
Sky’s father John is another very important character. He appears by the end of the novel for a very short period of time. But he is the driving force for the entire plot. He is the villain in the story and one of the worst characters the reader will ever meet in the fictional world. He has molested and raped his sister Karen, his daughter Sky, and Holder’s sister Lesslie.
Karen is the woman who has adopted Sky. She is her biological aunt but Sky comes to know about it by the very end. There isn’t much about her in the story but she is still a very loveable character.
There are minor characters like Dean’s parents, Sky’s best friend Six, Sky’s family members, her boyfriend Grayson. These characters appear randomly as the plot moves forward.
Title Significance:
The title is quite paradoxical. It hints at the hopelessness of the characters but the characters are actually pretty hopeful. Hopeless is the tattoo that Holder has on his arm. But his character proves him to be a pretty hopeful boy even though Sky repeatedly calls him hopeless.
The title is actually the nickname that Holder gives to his sister Lesslie and their best friend Hope. As a child, he teases them by combining their initials and calling them Hope Les. Hope lives in their neighborhood with her father and is soon kidnapped. When she is taken away by a woman, Holder is standing and witnessing all of it. He blames himself for the incident for his entire life. When Les commits suicide he is convinced that he has let down the only two girls he has known in his life and as a reminder gets himself the tattoo Hopeless.
Themes in Hopeless:
Child Abuse and Rape:
The most apparent and disturbing theme of the novel is child abuse and rape. There is one sick man, John who rapes Karen, Hope/Sky, and Lesslie. Each one of them suffers due to his sickness. He rapes all of them in their childhood. Karen is his sister whom he rapes in her teenage. Lesslie is the girl who lives in his neighborhood and he rapes her when she is 10. She later commits suicide. Hope is John’s daughter and when her mother dies, he consistently rapes her for almost a year when she is only 5 years old. Karen who sees Hope with his brother in a store goes after her and kidnaps her. She makes this little girl forget all the bad things and renames her Sky Davis. The novel however reveals the impact of this sexual abuse on all of these characters.
Memory and Repressed Emotions:
Hoover very cleverly draws the theme of memories and repressed emotions. Sky is capable of repressing her emotions and memories but Lesslie, Karen, and Dean have to deal with these painful memories because they are too young to repress their emotions like Hope. Hope represses her emotion when she is almost 6 years old. The other characters are too young to do it. The novel shows that the memories whether repressed or not, impact the lives of humans. They make us who we are and none of us can get rid of these unless we find a proper closure.
Parenthood:
Hoover often attacks parents for their lack of concern towards their kids. She does not think that parents are the epitome of love and care. She rather believes that sometimes the worst people in our life can be our parents.
Other themes:
There are themes of love, friendship, and suicide in the novel but Hoover does not explore these themes much. These themes only exist to support the major themes of the novel.
Concluding Remarks:
Hopeless is a good pick if you are trying to probe into the dark literature. This type of literature deals with the taboos and therefore cannot be enjoyed by all. However, it is a very good pick for someone who is looking for a rather complex picture of life. Hoover repeatedly remarks on the complexities of life, she says,
‘One of the things I love about books is being able to define and condense certain portions of a character’s life into chapters. It’s intriguing, because you can’t do this with real life. You can’t just end a chapter, then skip the things you don’t want to live through, only to open it up to a chapter that better suits your mood. Life can’t be divided into chapters… only minutes. The events of your life are all crammed together one minute right after the other without any time lapses or blank pages or chapter breaks because no matter what happens life just keeps going and moving forward and words keep flowing and truths keep spewing whether you like it or not and life never lets you pause and just catch your fucking breath’
The book is full of such comments which make it a very profound read.
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If you want to read a pure romance, check out my review on Heart Bones by the same author.