by Tainá Queiroz Fonseca
Colleen Hoover is a forty-three-year-old American author, born in Sulphur Springs, TX who specializes in young adult romance books.
Hoover published her first book Slammed in 2012 while she was a social worker. She lived in a mobile home and started writing for fun when bored. She self-published Slammed on Amazon, as she did with most of her books until a publisher picked them up.
Much of Hoover’s success was because of her book It Ends with Us published in 2016. Simply put, the book is about a girl named Lily overcoming domestic abuse. Lily meets Ryle after leaving college and starting her life. As her feelings develop for Ryle, her ex-boyfriend and first love, Atlas, comes back into her life and challenges Lily and Ryle’s relationship.
The question is —Is Hoover’s writing as good as her reputation?” It Ends with Us sold 768,700 copies and had it’s spot on the #1 New York Times Bestseller list. Yet, her book only became popular in 2021, five years after its publication of the book. How did that happen?
A community of readers on the social media platform Tik Tok, who have named themselves “BookTok”, recommended her book and helped create widespread praise for her books. Physical, emotional, and mental abuse of teenage girls are popular topics surrounding the literature picks of BookTok, so it’s no secret that Hoover’s books have become popular.
“I would describe Colleen Hoover’s writing style as meant for teenagers who want a false sense of love. I like her books, but they are not my favorites,” senior Rylan Aspeland said.
Criticisms of her novels say that her writing romanticizes male characters and abusive relationships. Given that her audience is mostly teen girls, this phenomenon is concerning. Hoover depicts her female characters as pushing away help from friends and family and remaining in these abusive relationships, which may give her audience the wrong ideas and promote toxicity in relationships.
“The books are primarily sourced around trauma within relationships,” Aspeland said. “They all differ from one another but they still have a significant amount of pain in them. Toxic relationships are not normal, but they are common,”
Hoover has yet to take accountability for the effects of her plots on her audience. She is known for deleting Instagram comments that contain criticism of her book, yet her fans continue to defend her.
Besides the plot, Hoover’s writing lacks depth and overuses cliches. The plots of her books follow the same formula: a girl meets a guy and forms a relationship, and the guy turns out to be a bad boyfriend yet they still end up together in the end.
Avid readers should stray away from Hoover’s poorly written abusive fantasies, and choose novels that will better enrich them and portray more realistic relationships. Only time will tell if Hoover’s books will continue to be celebrated by TikTok, or if fans will finally come to their senses.
