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Hopeless

by Colleen Hoover

"Hopeless" is a New Adult contemporary romance by Colleen Hoover, first published in 2012. Seventeen-year-old Sky, who has been homeschooled her entire life, decides to attend public school for her senior year, where she… more

First published 2012 · 408 pages · English

29 quotes ★ 4.22 (697,340) Contemporary

Quotes from the Book

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.
F#%k all the firsts, Sky. The only thing that matters to me with you are the forevers.
I want you to keep them open...because I need you to watch me give you the very last piece of my heart.
It's real, Six. You can't get mad at a real ending. Some of them are ugly. It's the fake happily ever afters that should piss you off.
I live you, Sky," he says against my lips. "I live you so much.
The moment my lips touch yours, it will be your first kiss. Because if you've never felt anything when someone's kissed you, then no one's ever really kissed you. Not the way I plan on kissing you.
You don't deserve words, Sky. You deserve actions.
My lack of access to the real world has been replaced completely by books, and it can’t be healthy to live in a land of happily ever afters.
Not everyone gets a happily every after. Life is real and sometimes it's ugly and you just have to learn how to cope.
Sometimes you have to choose between a bunch of wrong choices and no right ones. You just have to choose which wrong choices feels the least wrong.
Sky, I'm not kissing you tonight but believe me when I tell you, I've never wanted to kiss a girl more. So stop thinking I'm not attracted to you because you have no idea just how much I am. You can hold my hand, you can run your fingers through my hair, you can straddle me while I feed you spaghetti, but you are not getting kissed tonight. And probably not tomorrow, either. I need this. I need to know for sure that you're feeling every single thing that I'm feeling the moment my lips touch yours. Because I want your first kiss to be the best first kiss in the history of first kisses.
You wanted to lick my face the first time you saw me? Is that usually what you do when you’re attracted to guys?” I shake my head. “Not your face, your dimple. And no. You’re the only guy I’ve ever had the urge to lick.” He smiles at me confidently. “Good. Because you’re the only girl I’ve ever had the urge to love.
I’ve been looking for you my whole damn life.
I'm not a sucker for happily ever afters, but if these two characters don't get theirs I might climb inside this e-reader and lock them both inside that damn garage forever.
And while I could sit here and feel sorry for myself, wondering why all of this happened to me..I'm not going to do it. I'm not going to wish for a perfect life. The things that knock you down in life are tests, forcing you to make a choice between giving in and remaining on the ground or wiping the dirt off and standing up even taller than you did before you were knocked down. I'm choosing to stand taller. I'll probably get kicked down a few more times before this life is through with me, but I can guarantee you I'll never stay on the ground.
Holder: "I thought Mormon's weren't allowed to have caffeine?" Breckin: "I decided to break that rule the morning I woke up gay.
I swear I will spend every last breath thanking you for allowing yourself to love me.
Breckin, this is Holder. Holder is not my boyfriend, but if I catch him trying to break the record for best first kiss with another girl, then he'll soon be my not breathing non-boyfriend.
Sky, if you’re wondering if I have commitment issues, the answer is no. Someday in the far, far, far away future…like post-college future…when I propose to you…which I will be doing one day because you aren’t getting rid of me…I won’t be marrying you with the hope that our marriage will work out. When you become mine, it’ll be a forever thing. I’ve told you before that the only thing that matters to me with you are the forevers, and I mean that.
Just because you blocked the memory of me out of your mind doesn't mean you blocked the memory of me out of your heart
It’s what happens when two people become one: they no longer only share love. They also share all of the pain, heartache, sorrow, and grief.
All marriages have a time limit if you enter them for the wrong reasons. Marriage doesn't get easier...it only gets harder. If you marry someone hoping it will improve things, you might as well set your timer the second you say, 'I do.
When I touch you, I’m touching you because I want to make you happy. When I kiss you, I’m kissing you because you have the most incredible mouth I’ve ever seen and you know I can’t not kiss it. And when I make love to you—I’m doing exactly that. I’m making love to you because I’m in love with you.
I’m the only one that can be held accountable for the way my life turns out.
I can already tell he isn't the kind of guy a girl gets a simple crush on. He's the kind of guy you fall hard for, and the thought of that terrifies me.
You probably faked passing out the other day, just so you could be carried in my hot, sweaty, manly arms.
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. I need one of those chapter breaks. I just want to catch my breath, but I have no idea how.
You just have to choose which wrong choice feels the least wrong.
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.

Did you know?

  • Hopeless was Colleen Hoover's first novel to reach number one on the New York Times bestseller list.
  • The book began as a self-published title in 2012 before being picked up for wider distribution.
  • A companion novel, Losing Hope, retells the story's events from Dean Holder's point of view.
  • The novel is the first entry in Hoover's connected Hopeless series.
  • The narrator and central protagonist is a homeschooled teenager named Sky who enrolls in public school for her senior year.

About Colleen Hoover

Colleen Hoover is an American author known for romance and young adult fiction. She began self-publishing in 2012 and became one of the best-selling novelists of her era, with titles such as It Ends with Us and Verity.

More about the author →

About the book

"Hopeless" is a New Adult contemporary romance by Colleen Hoover, first published in 2012. Seventeen-year-old Sky, who has been homeschooled her entire life, decides to attend public school for her senior year, where she meets Dean Holder, a boy with a troubled reputation. Their intense and immediate connection unsettles Sky, stirring buried memories from her past, and as Holder pursues her she gradually discovers that he is not who he claims to be and that his secrets are bound up with her own.

The novel weaves its love story around darker material, using the growing relationship between Sky and Holder to gradually uncover a hidden shared history. Its central themes include the lasting impact of childhood trauma, the corrosive weight of secrets, and the disorienting intensity of first love. Hoover frames the romance as a vehicle for confronting painful truths rather than escaping them, so that discovering the truth can, as the book's tagline suggests, leave a person feeling more hopeless than believing comforting lies.

"Hopeless" was a breakthrough for Hoover, becoming her first novel to reach number one on the New York Times bestseller list after beginning as a self-published title. It launched a connected series that continued with Losing Hope, told from Holder's perspective, and helped establish Hoover as one of the most commercially successful voices in contemporary romance.

Key characters

  • Sky DavisSeventeen-year-old narrator, homeschooled until her senior year of public school
  • Dean HolderTroubled boy with a bad reputation who pursues Sky
  • KarenSky's adoptive mother, who homeschooled her
  • SixSky's best friend and neighbor
  • BreckinA friend Sky makes at her new school

Book details

First published
2012
Length
408 pages
Reading time
6 hours
Goodreads rating
4.22 (697k ratings)

Series & reading order

  1. 1 Hopeless
  2. 2 Losing Hope
  3. 3 Finding Cinderella
  4. 4 All Your Perfects
  5. 5 Finding Perfect

If you liked this, read…

  1. 1
    SlammedAnother emotionally charged early Colleen Hoover romance about young love and hidden pain
  2. 2
    It Ends with UsHoover romance dealing with trauma and difficult relationships

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