Slammed

Slammed is a novel by the American writer Colleen Hoover, published in 2012. It was her first book, issued independently rather than through a publisher, and it became the first of several novels about the same group of characters. Its subject is what happens to a young woman who has to grow up quickly after a death in the family, and the way an unexpected relationship changes the shape of her year.

Layken is eighteen when her father dies unexpectedly. She has to be the steady one for her mother and her younger brother, and although she appears resilient and tenacious to the people around her, she is privately losing hope. She is also being asked to be the rock of a household at an age when she should be thinking about school and about herself.

The family moves across the country, and Layken meets a twenty-one-year-old neighbour with an enthusiasm for poetry slams. The shared interest gives the two of them something to perform together, and the relationship that begins is complicated by a discovery that changes what either of them is allowed to feel about it.