51 pages • 1 hour read
Colleen HooverLosing Hope
Fiction | Novel | Adult | Published in 2013A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more.
Themes
The Relationship Between Trauma and Violence
Content Warning: This section of the guide discusses suicide, incest, and sexual abuse of children and minors.
From the very first scene in the novel, Holder struggles with controlling his urge toward violence. As his story progresses, his violent tendencies—compounded by his grief once Les is dead—serve as a cornerstone of his character development. At first, his trauma ties directly into his violent responses to stress and anger. Chapter 1 begins in medias res as Holder confronts Les’s cheating boyfriend, Grayson, admitting that he “slides[s] his hands into the back pockets of [his] jeans” (1), hoping that he can stop himself from hitting Grayson. He holds off until Grayson makes a comment as Holder prepares to leave, and then he just can’t help himself. From the beginning, it’s clear that Holder is a character who feels the need to protect the people he loves and part of that “protection” comes in the form of physical aggression when Holder feels that someone he loves is threatened. The gendered dynamics of the male presentation of “protection” in the form of aggression go largely unquestioned in the novel, but the figure of Sky’s father does present an example of violence that destroys the lives of several women.
Les’s death by suicide heightens Holder’s proclivity to fight his way out of arguments because anger and grief consume him. Anger festers in him toward Les for causing him and his parents pain. He is, on the other hand, furious at the gossiping students at his high school for judging Les. Holder carries the most anger toward himself, however, for not finding a way to stop Les from dying. It is in this state, two weeks after her death, that he overhears a student call Les “pathetic,” and Holder loses all control. It is this aspect of Holder that grows the most in this novel.
Holder uses several strategies to keep himself from fighting throughout the book. Several are physical, including releasing energy through running and taking deep breaths and clenching his fists at his sides. As he begins to work through his sister’s death, sharing his feelings in the form of letters to her, Holder continues to develop self-control in stressful situations. It isn’t until Chapter 36 that he accepts all responsibility for causing fights earlier in the novel, breaking down sobbing in the car with Sky there to support him. Increasingly, words take the place of physicality in terms of significance in the novel; Holder is able to explain himself through conversations and letters instead of fight.
The Holder narrating the last chapter of the book sounds lighter and happier than the intense, brooding Holder from the early chapters. The novel begins in the thick of violence but ends with hope, suggesting that violence compounds rather than helps with trauma.
Healing from Childhood Trauma
The three main characters in this novel, Holder, Sky, and Les, all experienced childhood trauma and have dealt with it in their individual ways. Holder keeps it in and feels like he must protect everyone, and he is devastated when he can’t. Sky has blocked hers out, disassociating when triggered by moments of intimacy. Les, before dying by suicide, wore a false cheerfulness, trying to keep others from knowing her inner anguish. Holder’s process of healing relies on self-expression and his connection to Sky. In helping her to heal, he gets past his own pain and finally moves on from his sister’s death.
In the throes of beating a fellow student at the beginning of the book, Holder realizes that he is “breaking down” and “losing it.” These verbs imply a severance and suggest that Holder is escaping rather than healing from trauma after Les’s death has compounded the pain he already felt about Hope’s disappearance. The time that Holder spends in Austin following this breakdown does not appear in the book; when he returns, he is able to walk away from fighting Grayson when goaded on by him at a party. However, Holder still feels hopeless. This temporal jump, which allows Hoover to trace Holder’s development through time without breaking the flow of the action, implies that time has done something, but not enough, to heal Holder from trauma.
Sky enters the picture here with her own traumas. Holder’s instinct to protect—as well as the belief that she may be his long lost Hope—makes him gravitate toward her. Because Sky calls Holder out when he seems distrusting or guarded, she helps Holder to open up about his feelings toward her and later his sister’s death. Sky is the first person whom he talks to about Les, and once Sky finds out that she is Hope, Holder discusses his childhood pain in the aftermath of Hope’s disappearance as well. Through their relationship, Hoover suggests that love and connection initiates healing.
Holder’s other mode of self-expression comes in the form of letters to Les in her old therapy notebook. He uses it to work out what he knew and didn’t know about his sister: “I knew the girl who cried at night. I knew the girl who smiled in pictures. But I didn’t know the girl that linked that smile with those tears” (15). In addition to adding suspense, piquing readers to wonder what happened to Les, the letters give Holder an outlet. In each letter, he questions Les, interrogates his feelings about her death, and works through his feelings for Hope and Sky. By the end of the book, once Hope has returned in the form of Sky, and once he has forgiven Les and himself for her death, he no longer needs the notebook. Since Holder writes in a notebook that Les used for therapy, the notebook both becomes a proxy for therapeutic treatment and highlights the fact that he does not seek therapy.
Throughout the novel, Hoover uses physicality to explore Sky’s healing journey, too. Their decision to take things slow sexually allows her the space and time to understand that Holder’s touch is full of love whereas her father’s was abusive. Because in one another, they have someone who has also experienced childhood trauma, they find healing in the support that they give to one another. This becomes especially clear at the end of the novel during an act of physical intimacy. After memories of Sky’s sexual abuse came flooding back to her, Holder comforts her in their hotel room and she begins to cry, “but she’s also smiling,” as she says, “I don’t think you could have picked a better time to tell me you loved me than tonight. I’m happy you waited” (277). After her father has shot himself in the head in front of them, they are back in that same hotel room, making love for the first time. Hoover uses Holder and Sky’s physical connection to move the novel from the violent drama to intimate drama, reflecting Sky’s healing narrative. Her sexual gratification shows Holder that she has moved past her dissociations and is able to experience sex without reliving her abuse.
Les on the other hand, never heals, succumbing to her childhood trauma. However, from a narrative perspective, her death serves as the means of bringing Holder and Hope back together. After finally reading her suicide note, Holder realizes that “sometimes even all the love in the world from brothers and mothers isn’t enough to help pull someone out of their nightmare” (314). But once Holder and Hope find each other again, they are able to move past their own “nightmare[s],” the childhood bond they share grounding their love in a place of safety, giving them space to grow and heal. Hoover hence ends the novel by suggesting that romantic love is what solidifies the healing process.
Fated Love in Uncertain Times
The fated love or soulmate trope can be found often in romance literature, from novels such as Emily Brontë’s Wuthering Heights (1847) to more recent romances such as William Goldman’s The Princess Bride (1973). Hoover also presents Holder and Sky as “meant-to-be.” Grounded in their childhood history, they feel something akin to love at first sight when they meet again 13 years later. Upon first laying eyes on Sky at the grocery store, Holder feels his heart stop, then, “Time stops. The whole world stops” (61). Though we do not get Sky’s perspective here, it is implied later when they are physically intimate that she felt immediate sexual attraction to Holder in place of the “numbness” that she usually feels with men.
Later that day, coincidence brings them together again, as Holder sees Sky running near his house as he starts off on a run. This chance encounter gives the sense that it is more than their attraction to one another bringing them together. Hoover illustrates a sense of sheer fate in these encounters to heighten the romantic tension in the novel. Once each acknowledges their attraction, there is no stopping their union, despite the challenges in their way.
Their shared trauma is another significant element of their love story that portrays them as “soulmates”. It becomes more than that, however, when Sky realizes that she is Hope. In Holder, she has found the one and only person who can give her the answers that she needs surrounding her disappearance. The more he tells her about her past, the more she is able to remember. Without him, she might never have regained these memories, coming to a fuller understanding of her identity. Hoover hence constructs two characters who are not only in love but complementary.
The final detail that cements this is the revelation at the end of the book that Les was molested by John Davis after Hope’s disappearance. Holder sees Hope’s disappearance now as her saving grace and only wishes that Karen “could have taken [Les], too” (302). With this knowledge, Holder can now support Sky in ways that he couldn’t with his sister. In Holder, Sky has a partner who understands the pain that childhood sexual abuse can cause. Because he lost his sister from this same trauma, the novel sets him up as the only person to help Sky heal from hers. Hoover hence uses this theme to drive the romantic tension in the novel and reinforce the sense of hope at the end.
Related Titles
By Colleen Hoover
