I Don’t Like Colleen Hoover: Here’s Why
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Picture this: It’s summer 2021, and everyone on the Internet can’t shut up about the trending romance novel “It Ends With Us” by Colleen Hoover. Reading was still somewhat niche and definitely not coined as a trendy aesthetic yet. Your post-Covid hysteria is urging you to pick up a new hobby, and you read the literary sensation in defeat of BookTok’s influence.
I was a laggard in the “reading is cool again” phenomenon and didn’t get my hands on “It Ends With Us” until October of 2021. It was the first book I had read in ages, and to my surprise, I finished it in a matter of days. Once again, my weak disposition was manipulated by online book nerds several months later when I devoured both “November 9th” and “Ugly Love” in less than two weeks.
Now I’m here -- over a year later. And I have so many questions…
I had concerns about Colleen Hoover’s writing style since the beginning of my relationship with her books. I appreciate that her writing reintroduced me to the wonders of reading; context aside, her books are very easy to follow. However, her storylines are morally challenged.
“It Ends With Us” tells a vulnerable, realistic tale of a woman who fell in love with an abusive man, reincarnating the generational trauma experienced by her mother. The narration jumps between the past and the present as Lily, the protagonist, navigates her way out of this relationship. As deeply upsetting and personal these themes are to many readers, this novel is somehow classified as a romance when the principle of domestic abuse is anything but that.
“It Ends With Us” perpetuates the very elements of toxic masculinity it aims to challenge. It belittles red flags and idealizes charming yet violent men, ultimately conveying an unmistakably anti-feminist sentiment. Maybe CoHo wanted readers to see the complexity behind these relationships and the self-doubt that coerces victims to forgive their abuser. Maybe this is something she did too well by giving Ryle, the villain, a redemption arc. Also, who in the absolute hell is named Ryle in real life? Seriously, I’d like to meet them.
The epilogue of this novel glosses over the sinister sadism Ryle projected onto Lily, which depicts them living in peace and co-parenting their child, Emerson, named after the very brother that Ryle shot and killed in his childhood. Personally, it makes very little sense to name your daughter, your permanent reminder of hope, after the loved one of a man who is your permanent reminder of terror. Through all these facts, I can’t bring myself to believe that it truly “ends with us.”
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Moving on, “November 9th” has to be one of the most disturbing and unrealistic books I have ever read. Fallon and Ben, the protagonists, have extremely traumatic histories. Ben lost his mother to suicide when he was young, and Fallon survived a near-fatal house fire, which Ben started to avenge his late mother. Their love story moves fast when Ben overhears a conversation between Fallon and her emotionally abusive father over dinner, where he steps in to pretend to be Fallon’s boyfriend at her rescue. This chance encounter was Fallon’s last day in LA before her cross-country move to NYC, so they agreed to meet each year on Nov. 9 to keep in touch.
My issues start exactly here: As somebody who’s been in a long-distance relationship, that sh*t ain’t fun and sure as hell never works. What’s worse is that the parameters of Fallon and Ben’s relationship are like that of a situationship. Both people expect loyalty from one another, but they’re only allowed to see and speak to each other one day a year. This could not be any worse of a testament to human behavior, especially in romance. The novel's love-at-first-sight motif is bizarre, intense, and heavily idealized. While passionate, the haste with which their partnership progresses lacks the gradual, organic development that lends depth and authenticity to more believable love stories.
On the topic of romance, I would never in a million years date a Ben Kessler. He constantly barrages readers with perverted comments about Fallon’s beautiful burn marks, the marks he put there. It’s not sympathy, it’s sadism. Even more sadistic? Ben was going to move in with Fallon at one point in the story until Kyle, his brother, suddenly died in a car accident. His brother’s pregnant wife, Jordyn, became a widow, and Ben seized a crime of opportunity. Except it’s not arson this time. Ben supported his family through the loss, growing a bit too close to his sister-in-law and becoming her boyfriend, who is pregnant with his nephew.
After the deluded romance fizzled out, Fallon somehow found a way to forgive Ben and quit the one-day-a-year contract. The relationship was just peachy until Ben confessed that he literally set Fallon’s house on fire (with her in it) to try to kill her dad for breaking up with his mom, which was the believed reason for her suicide. I would’ve opted for a restraining order at that point. Still, CoHo opted for a hasty, half-effort conclusion where Ben and Fallon live happily ever after in their insanity.
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Last and most certainly the worst, we have “Ugly Love.” My legitimate internal dialogue during this book was, “What the f*ck.” Tate, a hardworking nursing student, and her brother’s roommate Myles, a successful pilot, kindle a romance when Tate moves a few doors down from her brother Corbin. Myles hasn’t been in a relationship in seven years since the incident.
What’s the incident, you ask? Well, Myles had an innocent high school crush on his classmate Rachel, who soon became his step-sister. Regardless of their circumstances, they ultimately decided to start a relationship and, soon enough, start a family; that’s right! Myles got Rachel, his step-sister, pregnant. On the drive home after the baby’s birth, their car drove over a bridge into a lake. In a panic, Rachel begged Myles to save the baby, not her. She thankfully survived the crash but lost her beloved child.
The overwhelming trauma and grief ended their relationship and Myles never moved on. Rachel haunted him and his budding relationship with Tate even after seven years. Tate had an intense and toxic infatuation with Myles, who was often nonchalant and dismissive of his feelings towards her. At one point, Myles even called Tate “Rachel” in bed. This is when he finally decides to confront his unresolved past by meeting up with Rachel (who is flourishing with her new husband and family), so he can finally pursue Tate full-heartedly.
This is what makes my blood boil: Myles is not enough of a man to allow himself the space, time, energy, and resources to recover from the horrors of his past. He basically needed permission from Rachel to get on with his life after seven years. Dude, just go to therapy. Many of Hoover’s characters, like Myles, could’ve been absolved from so much stress and pain if they just went to therapy. Yet again, our female lead somehow found a way to forgive her male counterpart for his brokenness and end up with him forever.
Colleen Hoover is the epitome of uncreative copy-paste storylines. In almost all of her best-sellers, she fabricates an insecure, hard-working woman who wants the bare minimum from a man and pairs her with the most traumatized, malignant, mentally ill man to destroy her life before sweeping her off her feet. Make it make sense. The constant cat-and-mouse game and questioning of affection between the characters is just repetitive fluff before Hoover formulates rushed and unsatisfactory conclusions, handing happy endings on a silver platter to her undeveloped characters.
Her unimpressive, unoriginal, and predictable writing ideas contribute to the widely belittling narrative about women in relationships and seldom uphold toxic masculinity. Her fame is built on the collective misunderstanding of the anti-women undertones in her writing, and I will never spend another $17.99 on one of her pitiful romance books again.
Strike Out,
Madeline Jankowski
Editor: Kennedy Moran
Athens