TITLE: This Girl
SERIES: Slammed #3
AUTHOR: Colleen Hoover
PUBLICATION DATE: April 30, 2013
PUBLISHER: Atria Books, an division of Simon & Schuster Inc
PAGES: 304 pages
FORMAT: E-ARC
SOURCE: NetGalley
RATING: 5 stars
Will and Lake are finally happily married. But now Lake wants to know everything about Will, including past details that he’d rather keep to himself. So, reluctantly, he begins to finally reveal his thoughts and feelings since having met Lake. No thought is concealed and no stone is left unturned in this story where we finally get to hear Will’s side.
This is a hard review to write for me. I really enjoyed this story, as I imagine everyone who has read Slammed & Point Of Retreat will because hearing about everything from the beginning from Will’s perspective is something we all dreamed about from the first page of the first book. What is difficult for me to understand is that in book one I found myself getting irritated at Lake for not cutting Will more slack because it was obvious that he was trying his hardest to make things right and even though he managed to fail spectacularly, he still always tried to do the right thing. I felt like Lake was being immature for being less than completely understanding. Will has a kid brother to provide for which means he needs to keep a steady job and have money coming in at all times to ensure Caulder has what he needs. Now, in this novel, it felt like I jumped sides. Yes, Will is incredibly sympathetic towards Lake’s dilemma, but I still felt the need to defend her at certain points and scream at him that he was being so hypocritical. The best example of this is that in this book we learn that Will went on a date with someone else after his first date with Lake, something Gavin pushed him into, trying to help him get over Lake. When Will finally fesses up and tells Lake, he doesn’t seem to understand why this makes Lake so upset. But we all know that in Slammed, when he sees Lake kissing Javi, he goes nuts and beats the kid to a bloody pulp. Um, hi? You do see a problem here? I certainly do. How the fuck do you expect Lake to feel when she learns you willing kissed someone else while she was sitting at her house pining over you? In fact, the whole date thing really bugged me. I hated how the girl fawned over him and was all “keep my number in case it doesn’t work out.” I get that Will is a great catch, but it just rubbed me the wrong way.
Beyond that weird moment of side jumping, this book was amazing. It was nice that for once we don’t get just a straight retelling of what happened in book 1, but rather a nice mix of current events with the older story flawlessly weaved in. Yes, a big chunk of this book is seeing Slammed through Will’s eyes, but it never feels like we are just rehashing what already happened. In addition to adding present day scenes, Hoover also adds scenes from Slammed that we never see because it was solely in Lake’s perspective. Also, rather than going through the day to day of Slammed, we just tackle the big events, like the first date, the day we find out that Will is actually Lake’s teacher, and so on.
The characters are the same as before, though you get a bit more of Gavin than you have before. That’s both good and bad because you see him trying to help Will so much but yet it isn’t really that helpful. On the same note, you get a lot less of Eddie, which is a shame because she is definitely one of my favorite characters. In fact, I definitely wouldn’t mind a spinoff focused on her…(hint hint hint).
What this boils down to is simple. If you enjoyed Slammed and/or Point Of Retreat, than this is a no brainer. Colleen Hoover’s storyline and writing is exactly what you have been lead to expect and though this isn’t quite as good as Hopeless, it’s definitely up to her normal standards. If you haven’t read Slammed, but like contemporary YA or NA, what are you waiting for?
****Thank you to Atria Books, an division of Simon & Schuster Inc for providing me with an eARC via Netgalley in exchange for an honest review****
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