Review: SLAMMED by Colleen Hoover

TITLE: Slammed

AUTHOR: Colleen Hoover
AUTHOR WEBSITE: colleenhoover.com

GENRE: Young Adult, Realistic Fiction
PUBLISHED: January 4th 2012 – Simon & Schuster

MY RATING: 5
FIND ON: Amazon

SYNOPSIS: (Courtesy of Goodreads)

Following the unexpected death of her father, 18-year-old Layken is forced to be the rock for both her mother and younger brother. Outwardly, she appears resilient and tenacious, but inwardly, she's losing hope.

Enter Will Cooper: The attractive, 21-year-old new neighbor with an intriguing passion for slam poetry and a unique sense of humor. Within days of their introduction, Will and Layken form an intense emotional connection, leaving Layken with a renewed sense of hope.

Not long after an intense, heart-stopping first date, they are slammed to the core when a shocking revelation forces their new relationship to a sudden halt. Daily interactions become impossibly painful as they struggle to find a balance between the feelings that pull them together, and the secret that keeps them apart.

REVIEW:

What a great novel! Slammed was a wonderful emotional experience. There were so many elements that made this a good read but I do NOT want to spoil at all. So I will say there was delightful new love, sweet poetry, difficult decisions, hard lessons, and an emotional rollercoaster. Life is crazy sometimes that you need read a book that makes you think about how good you have it.

Layken was a bit moody and self absorbed in the beginning, under the circumstances, it was understandable. She is quirky and actually a fun and connected big sister to little brother Kel. What a sweet relationship she has with him.

Will had such a great start that I worried he wouldn’t be able to hold up throughout the difficult middle, but at the end, we find out how valiant he’s been the whole time. He’s exactly what Layken needed.

RATED:

I give this book a 5. Excellent Read. I might read it again and I’m not really a re-reader. But it was so good. The characters are fabulous from Layken, Kel and their mother, to Will, his little bro and the weirdo best friend. Love the strange town they moved to. (I had to Google how to say, Ypsilanti, Michigan.) My absolute favorite little sliver of SLAMMED was the poetry. I’ve loved poetry and it really conveys ideas and feeling where pros falls short. It propelled this novel to fabulous with each poem that revealed Will’s soul or Layken’s depth.

RECOMMENDATIONS:

I think this book was rather appropriate for young adults. There is a hard decision that Layken and Will make and I think they did it morally and ethically correct. Good Job, Colleen at facing that difficult situation between Layken and Will, without making it totally and utterly repulsively inappropriate. I would let my teen read it.