Mini-reviews: This Girl and Finding Cinderella by Colleen Hoover

Title: This Girl (Slammed #3)
Author: Colleen Hoover
Published: April 30th 2013
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Purchase: Amazon | Barnes & Noble | The Book Depository

There are two sides to every love story. Now hear Will’s.
Layken and Will’s love has managed to withstand the toughest of circumstances and the young lovers, now married, are beginning to feel safe and secure in their union. As much as Layken relishes their new life together, she finds herself wanting to know everything there is to know about her husband, even though Will makes it clear he prefers to keep the painful memories of the past where they belong. Still, he can’t resist his wife’s pleas and so he begins to untangle his side of the story, revealing for the first time his most intimate feelings and thoughts, retelling both the good and bad moments, and sharing a few shocking confessions of his own from the time when they first met.
In This Girl, Will tells the story of their complicated relationship from hispoint of view. Their future rests on how well they deal with the past in this final installment of the beloved Slammed series.

My journey with Colleen Hoover and NA lit started in May 2012. Slammed is one of my favorite character growth and family-related stories, Point of Retreat is one of my favorite guy POV’s and sob-my-heart-out books. I love Colleen’s writing and Will, Lake, Caulder, Kel, Eddie, Gavin and everyone else so much. While I was happy to be back in the Slammed world and felt like this was such a neat way to give the other POV of the same story, I was slightly underwhelmed.

We get some new scenes and the whole thing with Vaughn, lots of insight into Will’s behavior in Slammed. Some fights go down, some really swoony scenes and our couple finally gets their HEA. The ending was just the best as it always is with Colleen’s stories. I enjoyed it a lot as a whole, but I didn’t necessarily love this one. Really happy that I read it, but nothing in this series can surpass the amazingness that was Point of Retreat.

Overall rating: 3.4 out of 5
Stars: ★★★


Title: Finding Cinderella (Hopeless #2.5)
Author: Colleen Hoover
Published: October 14th 2013
Add It: Goodreads
Purchase: Amazon | Barnes & Noble | The Book Depository

A chance encounter in the dark leads eighteen-year-old Daniel and the girl who stumbles across him to profess their love for each other. But this love comes with conditions: they agree it will only last one hour and it will only be make-believe.
When their hour is up and the girl rushes off like Cinderella, Daniel tries to convince himself that what happened between them only seemed perfect because they were pretending it was perfect. Moments like that with girls like her don’t happen outside of fairytales.
One year and one bad relationship later, his disbelief in insta-love is stripped away the day he meets Six: a girl with a strange name and an even stranger personality. Daniel soon realizes the way he pretended to feel about Cinderella and the way he really feels about Six may not be so different after all. Especially when the two loves of his life end up being one in the same.
Unfortunately for Daniel, finding Cinderella doesn’t guarantee their happily ever after…it only further threatens it.

This book.. This. Book. I have never been a particular fan of novellas. I read them when they’re a part of a series I absolutely adore (and still most likely end up forgetting to actually read them) or when they’re about some of my favorite characters from a series. It must be hard to connect with new characters in a novella and I think it may just be something that people aren’t that interested in. Finding Cinderella proved to me that novellas can be everything you wish for and even more.

I did NOT see the main twist coming (ofc the Cinderella aspect is predictable, but the baggage that comes with Six? Holy smoke!) and it leaves the door open for so many possibilities and rumor is that there may be something more from Six and Daniel. About these two, Six is a girl I’d love to be best friends with. She is loyal, hilarious, fun, snarky and she is a good friend. Those of you who have already read Hopeless know that she is very protective of Sky and honestly? I may or may not have a girl crush on her. As for Daniel, dude. Dude!!! Swoon, big time. Their banter is natural and fun. Moreover, I adored Daniel’s family. I hope that if you haven’t tried Colleen’s work yet, you’ll give her books a try. She is one of my favorite authors! Her humor & unique perspective on life in general shine through every scene she has painted for us.

Overall rating: 4.0 out of 5.0
Stars: ★★★★

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