This Girl

Both. It retells Slammed from Will's perspective and adds new scenes, new poems Will wrote privately for Layken, and backstory that gives his earlier decisions new meaning. The honeymoon framing also provides brief new scenes set after Point of Retreat.

The novel is structured as Will reading the story of their relationship to Layken during their honeymoon. The retelling happens in flashbacks nested within that honeymoon present-tense frame, with short new scenes bookending each section.

Yes — This Girl assumes complete knowledge of Slammed and is meaningless without it. Reading Point of Retreat first is strongly recommended as well, since the honeymoon framing takes place after that novel's events.

Yes — Hoover wrote original slam poems from Will's perspective specifically for this novel. Several appear in scenes that parallel moments from Slammed, recontextualizing what readers previously experienced only through Layken's reactions.

Hoover has said the choice was deliberate — she wanted Will's perspective to be its own complete emotional experience. A straight plot continuation would have required inventing new conflict rather than deepening what was already present.

The honeymoon scenes (set after Point of Retreat) appear only in This Girl and provide the closure for the couple's future that neither earlier novel explicitly shows. They are brief but significant for readers invested in the characters.