Review: Finding Cinderella (Hopeless #2.5) by Colleen Hoover

Title: Finding Cinderella (Hopeless #2.5)

Author: Colleen Hoover
Date of publication: 14 October 2013
Genre: Young Adult / New Adult / Romance

Author's links: Website / Facebook / Goodreads

My rating: 2.5 stars

Goodreads Blurb

A chance encounter in the dark leads eighteen-year-old Daniel and the girl who stumbles across him to profess their love for each other. But this love comes with conditions: they agree it will only last one hour and it will only be make-believe.

When their hour is up and the girl rushes off like Cinderella, Daniel tries to convince himself that what happened between them only seemed perfect because they were pretending it was perfect. Moments like that with girls like her don’t happen outside of fairytales.

One year and one bad relationship later, his disbelief in insta-love is stripped away the day he meets Six: a girl with a strange name and an even stranger personality. Daniel soon realizes the way he pretended to feel about Cinderella and the way he really feels about Six may not be so different after all. Especially when the two loves of his life end up being one in the same.

Unfortunately for Daniel, finding Cinderella doesn’t guarantee their happily ever after…it only further threatens it.

My Review

This is a spin-off novel of the Hopeless series and it is available for free on the major bookseller sites. It tells the story of Holder's friend Daniel and Sky's friend Six.

I think the presence of Daniel was one of the good things in Losing Hope which I found overall disappointing (my review). We met Six in the first book of the series, Hopeless, and I can't say I was much of a fan of hers.

Daniel provided a very much needed comic relief from all the tragedy and drama in Losing Hope. I liked his quirky sense of humor and his loyalty to Holder at his worst moments. I was naturally curious to read more about him, even though it was pretty obvious who his Cinderella was back when he first told this story. 

I liked the easy flirting between Daniel and Six, it was fun and felt natural. Their relationship happened way too fast and it had the feel of some cosmic I-can't-breathe-without-you kind of love, still I enjoyed it a lot. It was over the top but cute and heart-warming in a way. 

Daniel was still the same funny, care-free guy from Losing Hope and I still liked him a lot. Six was completely different, though. Something happened to her in Italy that took her from the girl who didn't do relationships and boyfriends to someone who was ashamed of her previous frivolous behaviour and was trying to hard to make amends for it. 

I was enjoying the story up until a plot twist was thrown in about 80%. I didn't see it coming and it totally ruined the book for me. It is a big spoiler so I am not divulging it here but you don't mind spoilers, you can read my review on Goodreads where I will include it in spoiler tags. 

It is a very serious issue and it didn't fit with the light, casual tone of the story. It changed the whole situation for the main characters and I felt its importance was played down. On a personal level I am not comfortable at all with the way the whole issue was resolved. 

What was a sweet, albeit a bit sappy story of high-school love turned into a mess of mixed messages. An important issue was introduced in the story but it was poorly treated and just swept under the rug en route the the Happily Ever After for the Daniel and Six.