Review: Hopeless For You by Hayden Hill

(Blurb): "If I am more alive because love burns and chars me, as a fire, given wood or wind, feels new elation, it's that he who lays me low is my salvation, and invigorates the more, the more he scars me."
― Michelangelo

Ash Jensen, a squeaky-clean sophomore at the University of Tennessee, has a trail of baggage a mile long―she buried her fiancé only a year and a half ago. She swore she'd never love again but when she finds herself interned to a yummy Canadian conservation officer that promise is tested big-time. Kade Gyllenhahl sports wild tattoos, a rebellious attitude and a fohawk to die for. He's definitely the wrong man for her and she knows it.

Kade doesn't have time for a girl like her. She's a pretentious, unreadable princess who lives her life by her parents' rules. Kade knows nothing about her past and he'd prefer to keep it that way. Besides, he'll lose his job if he sleeps with Ash. Now if only he could get his mind off her.

When the two of them end up alone and isolated on a routine field trip in the woods, things get a little complicated...

One man afraid of commitment.
One woman afraid to love again.
Two lives.
Two hearts.
One life-changing journey.
Book Information:

Published: September 23rd, 2013
Genre: Contemporary Romance
Length:215 pages
Version: eBook
Warning: Some sexual depictions
 Review:

What I liked:
I liked the development of all of the characters during the first 70% or so of the book. You start out in Kade's POV and waking up from another one of his one night stands. His devil may care attitude and cynical outlook on life really sets the tone for the book.

A majority of the book takes place out in the wilderness. I find rugged men of the land extremely sexy, and Kade was no different. His expertise and obvious love of his job made Hopeless For You enjoyable to read simply because he had found something happy in his life that was otherwise in the gutter - and it's not always that you find a person's job to be what makes them most happy.

There was also a very nice adventure theme. Kade, Ash and their two friends take off on a work related adventure to go tag and monitor falcons. This requires them to camp out in the extreme wilds of Canada where everything from bears to wolves to extreme weather conditions has the potential to be thrown at them. This exciting excursion was a fresh breath of air in the romance genre - especially in the New Adult group.

What I didn't like:
Some of the events were very exaggerated and inaccurate. There's an event where the river flow ends up taking Kade and Ash an estimated "20 miles" downstream in a matter of minutes. That's closer to a Boeing's pre-cruising speed, and if a river is moving at about 300+ miles an hour...damn.

Secondly, Kade's and Ash's experiences with the wildlife had me feeling like I was watching The Grey: Part 2 and I was left shaking my head in annoyance. Don't get me wrong, I'm all for creative freedom. I don't think that everything in a fiction book should read like real life. I get that there is a difference (and I'll save the topic of how using "unrealistic" to describe fiction books irks me for another time). But when the main characters are in a very real and dangerous situation - and I find myself laughing at the way the story is written, well, that's probably not a good thing. The saving grace of these events where that they were not drawn out and as a reader I could move on from those ridiculous situations pretty quickly.

Plot progression in relation to character development was another issue I had. While the first half or so of the book I thought was great, it gradually went down hill for me. I loved Kade and Ash's relationship development at first. Then it was suddenly like their relationship on this freight train headed straight to the alter and the harder I tried to throw the breaks down the faster they moved. Given Kade and Ash's respective grievances, the speed in which they seemed to get over their past and move on to each other seemed out of place. There was little insight on the inner conflict resolution - especially on Kade's part - and thus I was left pretty emotionless throughout their relationship.

Overall, this Hopeless For You was a good romance full of adventure and excitement and I enjoyed the different outdoorsy setting of the book. However, I wish more research had been done when developing some of the events and I could have used a little more emotional insight to Kade in particular.

Rating:








GoodReads: 3.8
Amazon: 4.2
Reviewed by: Jessi