Synopsis: 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: Colleen Hoover is one of those authors people either love or despise. I’ve read 4 of Colleen’s books now. 2 of them, I hated. 1 of them, I really enjoyed. Slammed was somewhere in the middle. We follow Lake who has moved to a new state after her father died. As her family adjusts to their new surroundings, Lake gets close to her neighbor, Will. I didn’t mind Lake as a character, but she also didn’t stand out. Same with Will. He felt like your generic YA/NA contemporary love interest. He wasn’t as toxic as some of the love interests in Colleen’s other books can be, so that’s a plus. I did really enjoy seeing Lake and Will interact with their brothers. Family plays a huge role in Slammed, for Will and for Lake, so I loved getting to see scenes that focused on the family instead of Will and Lake’s budding romance.
I don’t read a ton of poetry, but the poems presented in Slammed were well-done. I will say that I listened to the audiobook of Slammed and, while I enjoyed the content of the poetry, the narrator made them all sound virtually the same. There were times when I would forget who actually wrote some of the poems, and I’m assuming they were supposed to have more of a punch to them. I think the narration just made me lose some of the meaning. My biggest complaint is that everything felt surface level in Slammed. There’s a romance, there are friends, there’s family, there’s finding yourself, but it all seemed to just be skimmed over. I did look up this series and there are 2 other books after Slammed. I haven’t read the other 2 books, but I probably would have enjoyed Slammed more if it was only one book, or a duology, to help give us a little bit more focus on the situations Lake finds herself in.
Cute story, but I found myself wanting more depth.
3 howls
If you enjoyed Slammed, consider checking out the following books:
The Poet X by Elizabeth Acevdeo (YA contemporary written in verse about a teen girl who finds a love of poetry. Elizabeth Acevedo is also a slam poet and she narrated this book herself. Written by an Afro-Latinx author)
Long Way Down by Jason Reynolds (YA contemporary about gun violence and a boy who wants to take revenge on the people who killed his brother. Also written in verse and by a Black author)
Another Black Girl Miracle by Tonya Ingram (Non-fiction poetry collection written about what it means to be a Black woman with mental health and physical health issues)
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