Finding Cinderella (Hopeless, #2.5)

by Colleen Hoover

Cinderella’s hot when she’s all poor and sweaty and slaving over the stove. She also looks good in her ball gown.

These are the reasons you nicknamed this girl Cinderella? Idk what this is supposed to say about the narrator but it’s not good…

“Let me guess. Dark hair, brown eyes, great abs, white teeth, Abercrombie & Fitch.” “Close,” I say. “Light brown hair, correct on the eyes, abs, and teeth, but American Eagle Outfitters all the way.”

Oh no. I worked at BOTH of these clothing stores and it gives me the ick to picture these teenagers being sexual in the closet of a high school

She exhales a delicate breath. “I wanted to thank you.” “For what? Kissing you? That’s all I did.” “Yeah,” she says, matter-of-fact. “Exactly. For kissing me. For just kissing me. Do you know how long it’s been since a guy has actually just kissed me? After I left last week I tried to remember, but I couldn’t. Every time a guy has ever kissed me, he’s always been in such a hurry to move on to what comes after the kisses that I don’t think anyone has ever taken the time to give me an honest to God, genuine kiss before.”

Delicate breath, delicate thoughts from our main Manic Pixie Dream Girly over here.

Virginity is actually a turn-on, so you have nothing to worry about.”

#purityculture #modest

“I am so not a virgin,” she says. “That’s why it’s sad. I’m pretty skilled in the sex department, but looking back… I’ve never loved any of them. None of them have ever loved me, either.

I get the edgy teenage vibe but this is too MPDG. Who talks like that? Also correlating not being a virgin with being “sad” or not in love is kinda strange… I can imagine a teenager (who barely knows/understands sex and love) might happen to internalize this exchange and start feeling guilty, inadequate, and ashamed of themselves. Gross.

“What if I leave here in forty-five minutes and never hold another guy’s hand again? What if I go through life like I am right now? What if guys continue to take me for granted and I do nothing to change it and I’ll have lots of sex, but never know what it’s like to make love?”

#weliveinasociety

I’m pretty sure I could make love to you in forty-five minutes. We can see what it’s like and if it’s even worth going through relationships in the future. That way when you leave here, you won’t worry about never knowing what it’s like.” She laughs nervously, then leans toward me again. “How do you make love to someone you aren’t in love with?” I lean forward until my mouth is next to her ear. “We pretend.”

Never trust someone you stumbled upon in a dark, smelly closet. As a 17-year-old, maybe don’t have spontaneous sex at school with someone you just met and don’t know anything about… Much less when he proposes to have sex with you and tries to convince you that it could be “pretend” love-making, especially considering that you just told him you feel “sad” about having “lots of sex” but “not knowing what making love feels like.” Kinda insensitive of him, no? Colleen writes about everything except educational, sex-positive narratives. Young girls: this is not romantic or sexy or cute.

I might actually be making love to this chick in a matter of minutes

Take a shot every time he calls a girl "chick"

Then we both shut the hell up and spend the rest of the hour proving exactly how much we love each other.

You literally just met, talked for less than 10 minutes, know nothing about each other. Insta-love cringe.

In reality, people are who they are and they’ll never really change.

Poetic. Lyrical. Groundbreaking.

you’ve heard of what a raging whore I am.”

Love me some self-depricating slut-shaming /s

“I could have herpes, you know,” she says. I grin at her and wink. “You somehow just made herpes sound appealing.”

Stop

“I can’t take you tonight,” I say. “I had my heart completely broken about an hour ago by a psychotic bitch and I need a little more time to recover from that relationship. How about tomorrow night?”

Oh honey, if he literally calls his ex a “psychotic bitch” in the same sentence in which he is asking you out on a date, what makes you think he won’t call you those names too?

I know Val is a bitch,

Lovely

I eye her up and down. “Did you forget your purse?” She shakes her head. “Nope. I hate purses.” She pats her back pocket. “All I need is my house key. I didn’t bother bringing money since this date was your idea. You’re paying, right?” Whoa. Back up. Let’s assess the last thirty seconds, shall we? She hates purses. That means she didn’t bring makeup. Which means she won’t constantly be reapplying that shit like Val does. It also means she’s not hiding a gallon of perfume anywhere on her person. And it also means she had no plans at all to offer to pay for her half of dinner, which seems a little old-fashioned, but for some reason I like it. “I love that you don’t carry a purse,” I say.

She is NOT like other girls, get it? Other girls carry stupid girly purses and apply annoying stupid girly perfume and makeup 💅🏼💄👠👜🤢 But SHE? She is NOT like them. She is unique. Special.

“Holder doesn’t kid around when he forbids me to date people.” She arches a curious eyebrow. “Does Holder usually dictate who you can and can’t date?” “No. You’re actually the first.” “Then how do you know he’ll actually get mad over it?” I shrug. “I don’t, really. But the thought of hiding it from him just seems sort of fun. Is it not a little bit exciting for you, hiding this date from Sky?” “Yeah,” she says with a shrug. “I guess it is.”

Oh such fun! Secret dating, forbidden love! *eye roll* I am not the target audience for this…

And a brilliant plan it would be if it didn’t involve a girl getting dirty. I’ve learned in my six months of on-again off-again with Val that girls like to stay clean. “You’ll get dirt on your hands,” I warn her. “I don’t think you can walk into a fancy sushi restaurant with dirty hands and jeans.” She looks down at her jeans, then back up to me. “I know this great Bar-B-Q restaurant we could go to, instead. The floor is covered in discarded peanut shells. One time I saw this really fat guy eating at a booth and he wasn’t even wearing a shirt.” I smile at the same time I fall a little harder for her.

Again, she is NOT like other girls. She gets DIRTY, eats BBQ and hates purses/makeup! And this makes the boy fall for her! All of you young girls reading this: are you taking notes?✍️

Six wipes the dirt from her hands onto the legs of her jeans and it completely turns me on.

Kill me

“The wind will mess up your hair if I roll down the windows. You didn’t bring a purse, which means you didn’t bring a brush, which means you won’t be able to fix your hair when we get to the restaurant.” She reaches to her door and presses the button to roll down her window. “I’m already dirty and I’d rather have messy hair than smell like a harem,” she says.

AGAIN, DO YOU GET IT? SHE IS #NLOG. She is BETTER. She is DIFFERENT. UNDERSTAND?! Even her name is unique (and dumb) 6️⃣6️⃣6️⃣👹

My mother was forty-two when she had me, but they were excited when I came out a girl.” “I’m glad you came out a girl.” She laughs. “Me, too.”

Huh?

I’m waiting for that moment. The one that always comes with girls, where the pedestal you place them on in the beginning gets kicked out from under them. It’s usually the moment they start talking about ex-boyfriends or mention how many kids they want or they do something really annoying, like apply lipstick in the middle of dinner.

Ugh girly girls suck, amirite?

My hand is still on the back of her head and I’m silently counting down from ten when I hear the waitress pause at our table. “Y’all ready for your ticket?” I hold up a finger, asking the waitress to give me a second. Well, five seconds to be exact. Six never moves a muscle, even after hearing the waitress speak. I count down silently until my ten seconds are up, then Six slowly opens her eyes and looks up at me.

Cringeeee POOR WAITRESS standing there watching them have this weird kissing/staring moment in public!! “Sir, this is a Wendy’s”🧍🏻‍♀️

dumbfounded over the fact that she just fist bumped me. The girl just fist bumped me and it was probably the hottest thing I’ve ever seen.

Because she's COOL😎 she's a BRO🤙 we all know those other girly girls don't fistbump.

I’m only eighteen and I lost my virginity when I was sixteen. Plus, I haven’t had sex in about a year, so if you add it up, that’s six people in just a little over fifteen months. That’s like a whole new person every two and a half months. Only sluts do that.”

18? They act and talk like they're 13 welp. Also LOVE the rampant slut-shaming in a book targeted for teenagers. Thanks Colleen. Instead of, you know, maybe making a subtle remark about safe sex or an educational point about consensual relationships… Nah! SLUTS this, SLUTS that, SEX bad, WHORE reputation - way better :)

“Look, I know my reputation precedes me

Reputation as a "slut/whore"? Did I forget what being 18 was like? Who says/cares about this by senior year - when mostly everyone is already working, driving, applying to college, moving out, and outgrowing HS drama?

And yes, maybe I brought all those other girls here to have a little privacy while we made out, but that’s only because I more than likely just wanted them to shut up and kiss me because they were getting on my everlasting nerves. But I only brought you here because I wasn’t ready to take you home yet. I don’t even really want to make out with you because I like talking to you too much.”

"Oh you are so special, you're not like those other annoying blabbering slutty girls I've been with before!”

I can’t believe you had sex with Tessa Maynard.” “I can’t believe you had sex with pretty much everyone else,” I reply teasingly. She grins. “You’re a jerk.” “You’re a slut.”

This isn't cute?? Like at all??

“She fist bumped me,” I say, pointing at Six. “It’s not my fault. She hates purses and she fist bumped me, then she made me push her on the damn merry-go-round. After that, she demanded to see where I had sex in the park, then she forced me to sneak into my own bedroom. She’s weird and half the time I can’t keep up with her, but she thinks I’m funny as hell. And Chunk asked me this morning if I wanted to love her someday, and I realized I’ve never hoped I could love someone more than I want to love her. So every single one of you who has an issue with us dating is going to have to get over it because…” I pause and turn toward Six. “Because you fist bumped me and I could care less who knows we’re together. I’m not going anywhere and I don’t want to go anywhere so stop thinking I’m into you because I’m not supposed to be into you.” I lift my hands and tilt her face toward mine. “I’m into you because you’re awesome. And because you let me accidentally touch your boob.”

CRINGE O’CLOCK🚨 This is his “confession” to the dinner party when he reveals he is dating her. IN PUBLIC. “And then everyone clapped” vibes 👏

her laugh is cut short when I press my thumb to the center of her lips. “Before your breaths pick up pace and our bodies are aching because everything we’re feeling is just making us want more and more and more of each other. Until I’m afraid I’ll beg you not to ask me to slow down. So instead, I regrettably tear my mouth from yours and force myself away from your bed and you lift up unto your elbows and look at me, disappointed, because you kind of wished I would have kept going, but at the same time you’re relieved I didn’t, because you know you would have given in. So instead of giving in, we just stare. We watch each other silently as my heart rate begins to slow down and your breaths are easier to catch and the insatiable need is still there, but our minds are clearer now that I’m not pressed against you anymore. I turn around and walk to your window and leave without even saying good-bye, because we both know if either of us speaks… it’ll be the collective demise of our willpower and we’ll cave. We’ll cave so hard.”

Wtf is this, my dude. If a guy spilled this monologue to me I would run away.

My hand covers my cheek a second after she slaps me.

Ok HOLD ON TIGHT we’re entering abusive territory 🚔

The pain in her eyes can’t even come close to matching the pain in my heart, so I don’t feel bad for saying what I said.

Bro I HATE HIM! Physically and mentally she went through SO much worse than you - you’re only mad at finding out about it; yeah she should've told you ASAP (although there’s no way she could’ve) but you get disproportionately mad when you learn what she went through, without any compassion about how all of it affected her

“You better not fucking tell him I cried.”

#boysdontcry 💪🏼 #toxicmasculinity

I haven’t seen her since she left the park last night and I’m not sure I really want to see her.

YAY we readers love an unhealthy lack of communication between the couple we’re supposed to be rooting for! YAY!

I want to scream at her and hug her and kiss her and blame her for every single jumbled-up emotion I’ve spent the last day trying to process.

Normal reaction, so loving, very healthy emotional regulation /s

I probably would have called him Salty Balls or some shit like that.

*dials 911*

Salty Balls will be the perfect nickname for one of our kids.

Who the fuck thinks of this nickname for their INFANT CHILD

I’ve been kind of bummed because if I had sex with you, it would have made you the seventh person I’ve ever had sex with and that’s a lot.

Again with the slut-shaming.

“That was twenty-four hours after we went out for the first time. You applied to my college after knowing me for one day?” I nod. “Yeah,

Obsession ≠ Love

“I’ve loved you since the moment you fell on top of me and said you hated everybody.” She stops smiling. “I’ve loved you since the moment you said you hated everybody, too.” “I used to hate everybody,” I say. “Until I met you.”

Oh my god fjdjfbsjdc this is so bad but I can’t look away🫣

“I get it. I have two sisters. Granted, one of them is older than me but I still give the douchebags she brings home a hard time. And don’t even get me started on Chunk. The first guy she brings home doesn’t stand a chance. I already hate him, and the kid probably doesn’t even know she exists yet.”

I hate this weird thing about “brothers being sexually protective about their sisters” and this book was obsessed with it. I have 3 brothers and this is NOT normal, Colleen. Like why are you thinking about your sister like that? GROSS. Leave your sisters alone, they can make their own choices.

“Not Sky and Six. They aren’t like all the other girls,

I can’t believe he LITERALLY, UNIRONICALLY said it!!!!!!!!! #NLOG! This sounds like satire but I know it isn’t. This whole book took itself too seriously.