36 pages • 1 hour read
Slammed
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Themes
Love and Attraction
As Slammed is a romance novel, love and attraction are thoroughly explored through Lake and Will’s relationship. Their immediate attraction is clear through exposition, as Lake’s analysis of Will’s physical appearance indicates physical attraction: “[H]is sleeves are snug around the muscles in his arms” (18). Furthermore, their first handshake lingers, the first of many touches signifying their mutual attraction. When Will takes a meandering route to the supermarket, Lake concludes that “the flirtation on his end is blatantly obvious” (29). Despite having just met, Will clearly wants to spend as much time as possible with Lake, leading him to prolong their outings as much as possible.
Lake’s nervous excitement for her and Will’s first date is characterized by her careful preparation: “I brush my teeth, touch up my makeup, brush my teeth again, and let down my ponytail” (33). Her attraction to Will leads her to pay extra attention to her cleanliness in the hopes that he, too, will be attracted to her. She brushes her teeth twice, alluding to her desire to kiss Will. The intensity of Lake and Will’s attraction is further emphasized at the site of their first date—a poetry slam event. Lake is acutely aware of his every move, with her thrill at these small moments indicating physical attraction: “The slightest touch and simplest gestures have such an intense effect on my senses” (27). When the pair share their first kiss, “a chill runs down [Lake’s] body as his breath warms [her] neck” (56). Overall, Lake and Will’s first meeting and date frame their love as a case of love at first sight, reinforced by both physical attraction and easy chemistry.
However, tension builds when Lake and Will’s relationship is revealed to be a case of forbidden love. The pair cannot be together without endangering Will’s teaching career, which he desperately needs to provide for his younger brother Caulder: “This life I’m trying to build for this little boy? I take it very seriously. It is a big deal” (224). While both characters are adults, Lake is Will’s student, making their relationship forbidden by legal and societal standards. As their attraction must remain hidden, it is instead expressed through angry outbursts, sexually charged stares, and occasional stolen kisses: “There’s a different hunger behind him now. He slides his hands under my shirt and grasps at my waist. I return his kisses with the same feverish passion” (120). The passion in their fleeting interactions illustrates the intensity of their feelings, which cannot be expressed through a public romantic relationship.
In the end, Lake and Will’s relationship reaches a satisfying conclusion, which celebrates romantic love between two like-minded adults. The building tension of their on-and-off romance comes to a climax when Lake professes her love for Will at Club N9NE once he is no longer her teacher. They declare their love for each other through poetry, which is a fitting nod to their first date at Club N9NE, as well as the recurring motif of poetry. Lake and Will’s families become one in the wake of Lake’s mother’s death, free to love and support each other as partners.
Art as Self-Expression
Art, specifically poetry, is celebrated in Slammed, which is named after slam poetry—the expressive, vocal delivery of original pieces of poetry. In their poems, characters convey emotions and topics they find difficult to express in spoken conversation. Poems provide catharsis, especially at Club N9NE, an accepting space where poets are embraced and celebrated for their vulnerability. This is the case for Will, who reveals to Lake the tragedy of his parents’ passing through a poem: “Instead they were met head-on by death, / disguised as an 18-wheeler / behind a cloud of fog” (52). He uses this medium to convey his pain, whereas he was reluctant to do so in conversation on the way to Club N9NE.
Later, in a similar fashion, Eddie uses poetry to express painful truths about her birth mother, who was abusive: “I covered my ears as she screamed at me, wiping the evidence off her nose. She slapped me across the face and reminded me of how bad I was!” (165). Eddie’s audience is not shocked by her graphic imagery; rather, they applaud her vulnerability. She uses her poem to come to terms with her mother’s mistreatment, and the experience is both cathartic—as illustrated by her briefly forgetting her poem’s dark content—and thrilling—as illustrated by her clapping along with the crowd.
Hoover suggests that poetry can enable human connection. Poetry can communicate the nuances of emotional experiences, which are often difficult to articulate, and relate to others who experienced similar emotions. Lake is assisted in processing and accepting her mother’s impending death through Will’s poem, “Death.” He voices to his class, “So what if the heartache you wrote last year isn’t what you’re feeling today. It may be exactly what the person in the front row is feeling” (241). While he’s had time to process his own parents’ deaths, he recites an older poem because he knows Lake will connect to it due to Julia’s diagnosis. Lake identifies with the shock and finality of death in Will’s poem and recognizes the overall message that death should make one appreciate life; she then vows to repair her relationship with her mother and enjoy their last months together. She goes home to her mother, “and [they] interlock fingers as [they] talk without saying a single word” (244). Through this anecdote, Hoover suggests poetry is a way to connect to and help each other as fellow humans, by rendering our emotional experiences in ways that are both personal and universal.
Grief and Loss
Characters suffer immense grief and loss in Slammed. Hoover explores this theme through the deaths of Lake and Kel’s parents, as well as the deaths of Will and Caulder’s parents. The grief after the loss of loved ones is characterized as all-consuming and devastating. In his poem “Death,” Will describes his grief upon learning of his parents’ car accident: He was “[u]nprepared / and overwhelmed” (53). Lake cries as she listens to the poem, as it reminds her of her father’s death by a sudden heart attack. She recalls receiving concert tickets from him for her 18th birthday: “I knew he would have wanted me to use them. but I couldn’t. The concert was just weeks after his death, and I knew I wouldn’t be able to enjoy it. Not like I would have if he were with me” (26). Both Lake and Will’s lives are colored by unexpected absence, with which they continue to struggle.
Hoover not only depicts characters’ devastation at the loss of parents but also depicts the ways in which they are burdened with additional responsibilities. Will is forced to give up his football scholarship, girlfriend, and life as a carefree young adult by the debts of his parents and newfound responsibilities to Caulder. He decided to take custody of Caulder because his younger brother needs him. Similarly, in the Epilogue, Lake acts as a parent to Kel during their first Christmas without their mother: “I walk around the living room, taking long leaps over mounds of toys as I gather wrapping paper and stuff it into the sack” (313). Though Lake and Will make peace with their parental roles, there is a sense of lost childhood to them.
Through her characters’ journeys, Hoover also suggests that joy can coexist with pain. In particular, she suggests that human connection can ease the pain of loss. Lake’s Christmas is made joyful by her relationship with Will, in spite of her grief over her mother. Will’s comforting presence, his similar frame of reference, and their love as a whole make her grief more tolerable, in addition to her mother’s posthumous letter—which advises Lake to continue to seek her own happiness. The Cohens and Coopers’ Christmas together illustrates the coexistence of joy and pain, as Lake grows accustomed to and even enjoys her new life with Kel, Will, and Caulder while also mourning the loss of a second parent.
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By Colleen Hoover
