Helpless (What I.F.? Book 4)

Learn to be present in your own way—meditation, exercise, walks in the woods, whatever works for you. Hope and hopelessness are both about the future. When you are present, neither has any hold on you. Talk with other hopeless people. Right now, yeah, leave a message if you have to, and persevere.

When you do converse, forget about catching up on old news or talking about future plans. Including the feelings of hopelessness. You are the way you are for a reason. Dreams are alternate realities, and they are realities we can create and control. When you give vent to your imagination, it can manifest, real -ize, wonderful inventions—works of art with amazing healing, communicating, inspirational, and transformative power. Your dreams are clues to your gift to the world.

I have no advice at all on how to do this. All I know is that it works. But nature has given us this wonderful state of foolish, invincible, chemical-induced grace, and it makes us immune to both hope and hopelessness. I trust you are not feeling better. After all, it is hopeless. This article first appeared in the January-February issue of Utne Reader. But it's a good idea. The message of this article is a sound one. But the writing is pretty horrible. Utne Reader should be more selective as to what it runs.

I am sorry, but this is poorly written. Very unfortunate that Utne Reader chose to run this piece. I am not disagreeing with its message, but the writing is clumsy. I so feel for you. We worry about our kids because we want them to succeed in life and not struggle. I wish moms and dads knew how their kids feel. I feel your pain. He needs his own book! I loved all things him. I also loved the scene with him, Holder, and Breckin. Daniel brought the more, and I couldn't get enough. But when it comes to Colleen Hoover, will I ever? The reason I didn't rate this as high as Hopeless is actually more about my emotions and less about the writing.

I couldn't pretend not to know what I already knew, and though having those experiences from another perspective was amazing, they weren't as strong as they were the first time around. Not because of anything Colleen did. Only because I'd already had those experiences and emotions once, and it didn't hit me as hard the second time around.

However, she did find away to create new emotions and allowed me to experience things in a new way. There were also moments where I wished I was feeling more of what Holder was feeling instead of just seeing what he was seeing. So yes, there will be repetition. Yes, you will know what's going to happen. This is a way to relive a beloved story from a different angle, a different perspective. We get extra story, extra characters, and things we didn't know before. If you don't want that, then don't read it For every fan that wanted more Holder, for every fan that wanted to experience the story from his point of view.

A story through his eyes. It isn't about capitalizing or making money; it's about giving something back to her readers. This book is a gift, and I just want to say thank you!! View all 11 comments. Apr 04, Nikita rated it it was ok. Have to add it I give up! Feb 10, Monisha marked it as to-read Shelves: Colleen Hoover just posted a teaser from Losing Hope We on for tonight? The last thing I feel like doing tonight is going out. Not to Breckin, not to Daniel, not even to Sky. My back is against the locker and Daniel is laughing. How you led her on for days and then just walked away like she was a waste of your time?

He drops his eyes down to my arm. Down to the tattoo. He inhales a calming breath and slowly looks back up at me. She deserves someone who realizes that. Someone who appreciates her. Before I even have the chance to tell Daniel to refrain, he begins to lunge forward toward Breckin. I quickly step in between them and shove Daniel against the locker with my arm, keeping it pressed against his chest.

You proved to her on Monday what a badass you are. The last thing I want to do is hit him. Why would I hit him when everything he just said to me was the absolute truth? I turn around and open my locker, then grab my backpack and car keys. I pull my backpack onto my shoulder and walk away.

• Losing Hope.
• .
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And an even closer close-up. Stare for a while. I know so , because I did so. I stalked errm followed him at Griffin Peterson Now, off you go ladies. View all 12 comments. Thinking she is someone he used to know, he chases after her only to find out it's not her.

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They keep "running" into each other This is basically the same story as Hopeless just from the male character's POV. Because of that, I'm linking my review here: It was interesting getting Holder's POV. I don't why I was taken back by how intense he is especia 4. I don't why I was taken back by how intense he is especially since I thought that in the first book.

I guess just getting all his thoughts and reasonings made it even more so. There were some extra scenes that weren't in the first book, mainly at the beginning and mostly having to do with Les. It is hard to read and pretty depressing. My heart went out to Holder even more Holder is right, "the word devastated should be reserved for brothers, too.

I also got a kick out of the chapters - the half and three-fourths I always felt like they were going to be really emotional. And it was great rereading my favorite lines and the things I loved Her baking and his cooking, their reading books and "chapter breaks", holding pinkies and looking at the sky when you're sad It was nice getting to see more of Holder's relationship with Daniel and Breckin and it made me laugh when they were playing Modern Warfare.

I liked that Holder knew right away how special Breckin was to Sky.

There are a few new insights to things that happened that added to the story. I'm not sure how I feel about Holder not being told. The last letter made me laugh and it was left open for Way too long overdue. I squeeze my eyes shut and attempt to deny my conscience the satisfaction of being right.

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You stole the biggest piece of my heart that night. Eagerly waiting for this book!! Cover is so 'I want to hug Holder's pain away' types! P ; We even get a blurb!! Am I seeing this right???? D Tell me its not a dream!! Jun 08, Angela Richardson rated it it was amazing Shelves: Just stunning Ms Hoover! This is how you do an alt POV. This is a perfect compliment book to Hopeless. Holder has managed to crack my top ten list for favorite book boyfriends.

Welcome to the club Mr Holder. If you've read Hopeless, you'll already know this heart breaking, yet bravely emotional and beautiful story, so I won't go into the details of what it's Firstly If you've read Hopeless, you'll already know this heart breaking, yet bravely emotional and beautiful story, so I won't go into the details of what it's about.

Feb 07, Lindsay rated it it was amazing. Mar 29, Jenny - TotallybookedBlog rated it it was amazing. There are not enough accolades to express how wonderfully moving this book was. God, why does every single thing about her throw me off like this? The complete opposite in fact. Because of the way Losing Hope is crafted, the story feels new, fresh and very different and for that reason I urge you to please read Hopeless before embarking on your experience of Losing Hope. Whilst these two books do intertwine, they both have a completely different feel, and as such both books are a must read in order for you to fully grasp the experience that is Sky and Holder.

All she did was hug me back, but little does she know she just knocked a whole lot of life back into me. Getting inside Holders head was a revelation. If you thought you knew Holder in Hopeless then think again because you are in for a whole world of new experiences as we live and breathe the pain, conflict and the utter despair this man has felt over his past. You are definitely in for an emotional ride in this one. Being with her had me thinking about tomorrow and the day after that and the day after that and next year and forever.

We are there with him every painful step of the way and afforded a truly different version through Holders voice. And what a beautiful, tragic, heartbreaking, yet at times very witty and fabulous story this is. Hold onto your hearts in this one folks because it will be shattered. Hearing Holder express the depth of sorrow that has consumed him broke my heart. When I touch her…I want her to feel it.

I want every single thing I say to her and every single thing I do to her to have significance.

Understanding Learned Helplessness - Carl O'Reilly

I cried through it and after it. But I also laughed. Out loud, at times as that trademark Ms Hoover wit is brought to the forefront once again. I loved the banter between Sky and Holder in Hopeless and in LH we have more of that and the addition of Daniel who cracked me up. Daniel is hilarious and the interaction between him and Holder is priceless.

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I really did giggle out loud and he gave me some fantastic crude new sayings! His humour and the wonderful interaction between all the characters perfectly offsets the sadness you feel throughout the book.

Wiz Khalifa - Hopeless Romantic Ft. Swae Lee (Lyrics Video)

This author sure knows how to lighten your heart one minute and crush it the next with a simple turn of the page. As soon as I see the first words written on top of the page, my heart comes to a screeching halt. The depth of this character is immense. Your heart will ache for him in ways you never imagined.

Holders voice is staggering. The way this story is presented is sheer brilliance. I am very conscious not to say much about this book as to give anything away, and not afford other readers the same experience I garnered from Losing Hope would sadden me indeed. The expected becomes the unexpected and I unashamedly snotty cried. I pace the sidewalk for a while, trying to figure out what to do. How the hell did I allow it to get to this point. In Losing Hope she once again achieved the impossible. She managed to turn an existing story, told from an alternative POV into something incomparable.

If any reader out there is questioning whether or not to read Losing Hope all I can say is please do not give it a second thought. You HAVE to pick this one up because to not do so would be depriving yourself of a rare and beautiful reading experience that should not be missed. Note to Ms Hoover: That guy HAS to have his own book! What a fun, refreshing character he was. Not to mention I need me some more of his hilarious crude sayings!

ARC provided by Author in exchange for an honest review View all 18 comments. Feb 23, Angela marked it as to-read Shelves: May 14, Rose rated it it was ok Shelves: Honestly, I'm feeling rather gutted and not in a constructive way with "Losing Hope". Holder's account, noted against Sky's, does retread a lot of ground in the story to the point of where in places it feels repetitive much like Jamie McGuire's "Walking Disaster" did with Travis being in the primary seat versus Abby.

I realize it's a challenge to write a companion story that "flips the script" or tells a variant version of a same story, but usually the strength in being able Initial reaction: I realize it's a challenge to write a companion story that "flips the script" or tells a variant version of a same story, but usually the strength in being able to tell an alternate story is to offer new grounds of intrigue and insight specific to the character you're writing the perspective point in.

I'll admit there was some potential with that considering Holder reflects on his sister's death and has to deal with the rumors about his person and his own family issues, but I'll admit in the whole time that I followed Holder in this, it was like reading someone's account at arms length and the major measures that shaped him were only with respect to Les's death and Hope's disappearance. Not to mention that I don't think there was anything that new added to the cast at large in this account - the characters had very little dimensions and connectivity, and the mystery was not so much compelling as the first account because you already know what happens in so many measures.

Plus, there were some revelations given here that I had a very hard time believing, much like in the first book. I don't know whether to give this 1 star or 1. I definitely do not think it was as strong as the first book in what it provided, but I need to think about what the experience gave me as to how I'll rate it in the end. Suffice to say, I'm disappointed. I'm going to start this review with some words on singular stories told from multiple vantage points.

In a given scheme of events, despite similarities, no two people have the same interpretation or stakes in a given environment. It takes a level of complexity to be able to tell a similar story from multiple perspectives, plus give weight to the surrounding players who have stakes in that respective story, without repetition. One of the movies I've seen in the past several years that I thought did it well was, aptly titled Vantage Point.

And to make a reference of an anime series I also thought did the multi-perspective juggling well, one I've rewatched in recent weeks, was Durarara!! Now you might tell me "Rose, those are completely different stories and scenarios versus the story that Colleen Hoover's telling here," and you would be correct, but there's a reason why I point it out.

Both of the examples I cited above tell a single story from multiple viewpoints in one expansion, or a collection of intersecting stories set in one environment but with shared experiences. This is very hard to pull off. You would think if you gave one perspective character a story of their own and then attempt to tell the same story from a different character's perspective in that same environment that it would be easier, because you have more wiggle room to develop them in a separate account, but it presents a similar problem in that you have to challenge yourself not to repeat information there, and carry the story based on that person's account and their respective stakes and experiences.

Not to mention, if you have shared characters between both stories, you have to develop them as well. I'm going to tell you straight off the bat that you cannot read this novel without reading the first one. It does not stand alone and quite frankly, it does not stand alone well.

I said the same thing with another New Adult author this past year - Jamie McGuire, who wrote a companion novel to her book "Beautiful Disaster" called "Walking Disaster. But the thing needed to carry such stories is that you need a strong characters to carry the weight of the full narrative and you need to have variance in the story enough to where you're not blindly rehashing events without good reason.

To give Hoover credit compared to McGuire's narrative, at least there was an attempt to develop Holder's character in this work, particularly with respect to the loss of his sister, the loss of his childhood best friend Hope , and trying to fit himself back to sorts after his behavior lends to rumors that run every which way but loose. I didn't think Holder's account was enough to carry this entire novel maybe if it was a novella, but it would depend on the focal points , and you could tell where Hoover retraced details from the previous novel to the point where it was tediously trying to evoke the same emotions that were so potent from Sky's perspective in the previous novel.

Sadly, that wasn't to be. Holder starts the novel in a rough place just after losing his twin sister, and he lashes out in his grief. Some of it rubbed me the wrong way i. He keeps a journal in the book that belonged to his sister, and some of that was fine for summarizing details that were in the previous story alongside new details that fleshed out his childhood experiences, but at the same time, I didn't understand why that couldn't have been applied more to avoid some of the repetition that was in the narrative.

I had problems with how Holder preoccupied himself over both Hope and Les to the point that's all his character really encompassed. When Sky comes into the picture, apart from the bargaining he does over her identity, it doesn't provide much that's new. Some of the conversations are verbatim except for supplementing his thoughts during those scenes, but not given enough weight or dimension to see significance there.

It's nothing that those who have already read the first novel don't know apart from a few exceptions. The narrative isn't as intimate character-wise as Sky's account and oddly, Holder still feels like he's telling his grief in many points here instead of coming to terms with it gradually. He sounds a little more like he's 18 here, but it's still hard to find focus with.

It's the same way with him telling of his love for Sky - I don't feel it, I'm informed of it, many times. Mostly telling, not showing. The larger cast of "Losing Hope" is underdeveloped and not given much scene time. I thought Sky's presentation here was threadbare at best. And Breckin makes a brief appearance in the novel to serve as a bridge between Holder and Sky when they're apart, but apart from his puppeteering as a "Gay Mormon" - he's not really a functional character here.

Worse, there's one scene where it seems like he's okay with a character making a homophobic statement to him - I didn't understand that at all. Towards the end of the novel, a revelation's made where Holder finds out his mother knew who kidnapped Hope and withheld the information from him after she along with Les came across Hope and her aunt in a diner. That was a MAJOR hole in the story for events, because how would Hope not remember her aunt begging the other family not to tell anyone?

It didn't make sense and was hard to buy when Hope had no recollection of anything from her past and she would've been old enough to remember that encounter, even if she was ushered in the vehicle at the time. I don't know, I had a hard time buying that among other details in the work. The melodrama was as problematic in this novel as the former, but with notably weaker character resonance and little offering in the way of substantated story.

In the end, I was disappointed with it. View all 5 comments. This is one of those magical books that only come around so often. I'm not going to rehash the whole story because chances are if you're reading this, then you've already read Hopeless and know Holder's and Sky's story. All that I will say is that this book is perfect. I often get emotional in books but this book wrecked me in the best way. It was funny, it was sad, and it was inspiring.

I don't want to write anymore than this- because I want whoever reads this review to experience Holder's poin This is one of those magical books that only come around so often. I don't want to write anymore than this- because I want whoever reads this review to experience Holder's point of view for the first time.

There are not enough stars in the sky to rate this book. There are not enough ways to express how much I loved it.



View all 29 comments. Apr 23, Autumn Review rated it it was amazing Shelves: I honestly didn't think it was possible to love Dean Holder more. This book isn't Hopeless retold. This book is Holder's story. Yes, there are some recapped moments, but there was so much more that I learned about Holder in this book. The following is an excerpt from my book, Defeating Depression.

This brings me back to the Nirvana lyric of missing the comfort of feeling sad. It is as if depression has infiltrated your comfort zone and brainwashed you into being comfortable with feeling bad. Happiness becomes a foreigner in this case. These experiments now seem quite extreme but they were important. They began to notice that in certain situations these dogs would accept suffering without taking any action to escape it.

From this they termed the condition known as Learned Helplessness. I think this describes depression pretty aptly. Group 2 — At random times the dogs are given an electric shock. These shocks stop once the dog presses a button in front of them. Group 3 — Each dog paired with a dog in group 2. These dogs receive an electric shock at the same time as its group 2 dog.

However group 3 dogs have no button, the shock only stops when the group 2 dog presses their button. To the group 3 dog the shock seems to stop at random, it has no control over when it stops. In this part the dogs from the 3 groups are put into a shuttle box. This box is divided by a low partition into 2 areas. One side of the box will received electric shocks at random times.

All dogs can escape this by jumping over to the other side of the partition. Group 1 — Dogs take action and quickly realise that by jumping the partition they can escape the shock. Group 3 — Most dogs lie down, and only whine when they receive the shock. They do not take action and try to escape, even though it is possible.