51 pages • 1 hour read
Losing Hope
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Chapters 1-7Chapter Summaries & Analyses
Chapter 1 Summary
Content Warning: The source material contains depictions of suicide, incest, sexual abuse of children and minors, anti-gay violence, and alcohol abuse.
Dean Holder—whom everyone calls Holder—is a 17-year-old high school student in Texas. He arrives at a party late one night to find his sister’s boyfriend making out with a girl. Though Holder yearns to physically confront Grayson, the cheating boyfriend who isn’t good enough for Holder’s sister, Les, he fights his violent urges. He then ponders taking a photo for proof of Grayson’s infidelity, but refrains because he knows that seeing the betrayal would be too painful for Les. When he interrupts the couple, Grayson begins making excuses, but Holder refuses to listen and asks for his phone. Holder dials Les’s number and gives the phone back to Grayson, asking him to call her, admit what he’s done, and break up with her to avoid hurting her any longer. Grayson refuses until Holder threatens him physically, then calls Les and breaks up with her. When he hangs up, he tells Holder that Les’s heart is broken and that it’s Holder’s fault. In response, unable to control himself any longer, Holder punches Grayson. After a run the next evening, Holder finds his sister on her bed, dead from an intentional overdose of sleeping pills.
Chapter 2 Summary
Before the funeral a few days later, Holder finds a leatherbound notebook on the floor of his sister’s bedroom. The notebook was a gift from their father after a therapist suggested that Les write about her issues. Holder thinks about his guilt and sorrow over his sister’s death.
This chapter is the first that features subchapters in the form of a letter to Les from Holder in the notebook found in her room. He relates in this first letter that their mother is devastated. He also tells Les that he is both mad at her and misses her terribly.
In another letter to Les, Holder tells her about how many people showed up to her funeral and discusses a photo of the two of them that was projected in a slideshow. The photo was taken six months after their best friend and neighbor, Hope, disappeared from her driveway. Holder tells his sister that she never seemed the same after this, and that something in her face—even during happy times—always seemed like a mask that covered some hidden pain. Since twins are supposed to have an innate connection, he feels guilty that he did not intuit how much pain she must have been in to die by suicide.
Chapter 3 Summary
Holder is at home with his mom, his dad, and stepmother. His father tries to convince him to come home to Austin with him, but Holder wants to stay with his mom. Amy, Les’s best friend, shows up at the house and asks if she can go up to Les’s bedroom and take some photos as a keepsake. She heads upstairs.
Holder writes to Les to ponder over how much Amy knew about Les’s pain. He wonders if she knew more than him. He apologizes to Les for not protecting her from herself. The narrative then shifts to the present scene; Amy knocks on Holder’s bedroom door after perusing Les’s room for photos. She breaks down crying and Holder leads her to the bed, comforting her with an embrace. They then begin to kiss even though she has a boyfriend. The kissing leads to sex after she assures Holder that she knows what she’s doing and is willing to cheat on her boyfriend. Afterward, they decide to blame Les for their indiscretion and promise to keep their tryst a secret.
In a one sentence letter to Les from Holder, he tells her that it is her fault that he had sex with Amy.
Chapter 4 Summary
In a letter to Les two weeks after her death, Holder tells her that there are rumors about her death, namely, that he is responsible because he forced Grayson to break up with her. There are also rumors that, in response to her death, Holder is now contemplating death by suicide. Holder is not looking forward to returning to school with all of these rumors swirling around.
In the present narrative, Holder arrives at school and pretends to be occupied by his phone to avoid the stares of other students. He wonders if he will obsess over losing Les like he did losing Hope as a young child. Waiting in Mr. Mulligan’s classroom, Holder overhears girls whispering about him. His best friend, Daniel, arrives and puts the girls in their place. During class, the teacher calls out Holder for not having turned in his research paper. After class, Holder talks back to the teacher, cursing and sarcastically apologizing for not prioritizing the paper over his twin sister’s death.
Later in the lunchroom, Daniel stands on a table and gets the attention of all the students, calling them out for the rumors about Holder and Les. Holder is in the hallway after lunch and watches as a group of students discuss Daniel’s outburst. One of the students plays a video of the incident, calling Les “pathetic” for killing herself. No longer able to control the tumultuous emotions that he has held in check all day, Holder attacks the student, punching him repeatedly.
Chapter 5 Summary
In a letter to Les five weeks after her death, Holder tells her that he is moving back to Austin with their dad for a while, giving him time to deal with his grief. He describes leaving their hometown as children after Hope went missing. He remembers how happy Les was to be moving and wonders why, because he had not wanted to move away. He realizes that the only two girls in his life whom he has ever loved, Les and Hope, he has lost. He wonders what is wrong with him.
In a letter written a year later, Holder tells Les that he has rediscovered the notebook of his letters after being in Austin for the year. He is now back at their mom’s house after having a huge fight with their dad.
Chapter 6 Summary
Daniel talks Holder into going to a house party to reacquaint himself with their high school friends before school starts. Holder is not sure if he wants to finish senior year but agrees to go to the party. They encounter Grayson at the party, and Holder attempts to ignore him. He overhears Grayson and a friend talking about a new girl named Sky who refuses to have sex with Grayson. Daniel interrupts and says that he had sex with Sky, though this is a lie just to mess with Grayson. A fight ensues between Grayson, Grayson’s friend, and Daniel. Not wanting to get involved in another fight, Holder leads Daniel out of the house.
In a letter to Les, Holder describes being caught having sex with a girl by his step-mom, which caused a fight between him and their father. This event led to his return to his mom’s house to finish high school. He then goes on to tell Les that he missed the first day of school because he can’t bear to be there without her.
Chapter 7 Summary
Holder is at the grocery store for ingredients to make his mom cookies because he has decided to tell her that night that he is not finishing high school and will, instead, take an exit exam for his diploma. In the checkout line, he encounters a woman who looks like an 18-year-old version of Hope. Upon noticing Holder, the woman hurriedly exits the store. Holder follows her to the parking lot and asks her name. He is disappointed when she tells him that her name is Sky. He realizes that this is the girl to whom Grayson was referring at the party who would not have sex with him. When Holder questions her again about her name, she shows him her driver’s license, which gives her name as Sky Linden Davis. He is crushed that he deluded himself into thinking that he found Hope. At home, he googles Sky’s name and finds no results.
Chapters 1-7 Analysis
The opening scene of the novel shows Holder fighting the urge to punch Les’s boyfriend when he catches him making out with another girl at a party. From the very beginning, the novel shows Holder trying to control his powerful emotions, exploring The Relationship Between Trauma and Violence. Though Losing Hope is a love story, the opening chapters add complexity to Holder’s characterization as a “bad boy” by introducing the trauma of discovering his twin sister, Les, dead in her bed from suicide. While the bad boy with a heart of gold is a common trope of romance novels, found in novels such as Julia Quinn’s Bridgerton series (2000-06), Holder immediately explores the psychology of Holder’s persona. Angry at his sister for what he thinks is a selfish decision—and angry at the world for judging her—and grief-stricken, Holder struggles with the rumors about him and his sister going around school, exposing his pain all the more. The Holder in the beginning of the novel, who loses all control and beats a student two weeks after Les’s death, putting his “rage on repeat” and watching “as [his] fist grows redder and redder from the blood…” (41), is a very different being than the Holder at the end of the novel once he finds his true love in Sky. Hoover starts the story as Holder hits rock bottom; this establishes the novel’s central conflicts which will resolve as his love with Sky builds him back up.
When Holder begins writing letters to his sister in her old notebook, Hoover pauses the present scene to allow Holder’s thoughts, feelings and memories to be laid bare. This act of expression gives Holder an outlet when he needs to express anger at his sister, the angst of missing her, confusion when he and Sky are at odds, and even joy when they experience their myriad of firsts: first kiss, first “I love you,” first text messages to each other. The epistolary interludes are lyrical, whereas the narrative scenes are more action-driven; Hoover hence gives the reader insight into Holder’s perspective in order to frame the dramatic action scenes. His ability to use the notebook to work through his emotions also becomes part of his Healing from Childhood Trauma as he deals with losing both Hope and Les, the people he cares about most in the world.
The letters from Holder to Les are also an important element in the structure of the story as they give insight into Holder and Les’s past with Hope and her kidnapping when they were young children, an event from which Holder has never recovered because he blames himself for failing to stop it. Through the letters, he can ask Les questions like, “All those nights you cried yourself to sleep? All those nights you needed me to hold you while you cried, but you refused to tell me what was wrong? No one with a genuine smile would cry to themselves like that” (15). Through Holder, Hoover prompts the reader to ask the same questions, the answers to which are revealed at the end of the book. This foreshadowing serves as a vehicle for suspense as the question of what really happened to Les and how it relates to Hope’s disappearance becomes clear.
With these elements of character and plot in place, Sky is introduced into the narrative. When Holden sees her full name, “Linden Sky Davis,” Holder asks himself, “why is my gut instinct telling me to stop her?” (65). Again, Hoover uses Holder’s rhetorical questions to prompt the reader to ask the same questions and build suspense as the novel slowly reveals the answers. However, Holder’s question revolves around his own “gut instinct” rather than Sky’s identity. Since Losing Hope retells Hopeless from Holder’s perspective, the suspense of Losing Hope is not only centered upon revealing information already revealed in Hopeless but also on Holder’s characterization and the development and resolution of his own “gut instinct[s].” As the novel develops, Holder will continue to ask himself this question as he learns more about himself and heals from trauma.
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