TITLE: Point Of Retreat
SERIES: Slammed #2
AUTHOR: Colleen Hoover
PUBLICATION DATE: February 25, 2012
PUBLISHER: Atria Books, a division of Simon & Schuster Inc
PAGES: 215 pages
FORMAT: E-ARC
SOURCE: NetGalley
RATING: 4 stars
Point Of Retreat picks up right after the epilogue of Slammed leaves off. Will and Lake have been dealing with Lake’s mom’s death and raising their brothers relatively well. But life isn’t quite finished running the two of them through the ringer and it has a few more problems to throw their way before they can have their happily ever after.
With this new installment, we finally get to see things through Will’s perspective. I love that instead of following that trend right now of just rewriting the same series of events from the first novel via Will’s POV, Colleen Hoover just continues the story, throwing us a bone here and there with a flashback or two. Will’s thoughts were a joy to read and I found myself falling for him even more….until he does something incredibly stupid and then expects Lake to just get over it after a weekend of deep thinking. She doesn’t. A good bit of this book with Will trying to make up for his mistakes and I found myself falling for him again and wondering how Lake could keep her guard up so well. Don’t worry, there is no love triangle, and Will doesn’t cheat on her. In fact, he makes it pretty clear to all involved that he loves Lake and wants to be with her and no one else. He just isn’t completely honest with Lake.
Lake is just as strong and stubborn in this as she was in Slammed. And all the side characters are back, plus Kiersten, a new kid who moves in down the street and strikes up a friendship with Caulder and Kel. This eleven year old quickly won over the entire crew’s heart as well as mine. She is so much like Eddie, it’s unbelievable and I would love to get more time to understand this kid. She’s intelligent and spunky and damn I hope if I ever half kids they are half as cool as this chick.
The writing is just as addictive as last time, driving to me to keep going and see Will & Lake’s story through to the end. I think my only issue was really that it was a bit predictable. Not that I started this book knowing exactly where it was going to go, but more event A would happen and I knew exactly where it would lead. I felt so bad for this small family towards the end because they have already been put through so much and I knew there was more to come. I almost wish the story had ended with Slammed so these poor characters wouldn’t have to deal with this drama…..but I really mean the “almost” because I always enjoy reading more about characters I love.
If you enjoyed Slammed (and really, who didn’t?), definitely pick this one up. If you haven’t read Slammed, but enjoy New Adult/Contemporary Young Adult, then go read Slammed and then this. It’s really a great story and I can’t wait until I can get my hands on the next one.
****Thank you to Atria Books, a division of Simon & Schuster Inc, for providing me with an eARC via Netgalley in exchange for an honest review****
Bows & Bullets Reviews 