CASEY AONSO: Colleen Hoover, while definitely one of the most popular authors right now, also has to be one of the most controversial.
NIKKI CARREON: Colleen Hoover is one of the most popular authors in America.
CALEB JOSEPH: I’m not sure if you guys know this, but I’m not a very big fan of Colleen Hoover.
While walking through bookstores or scrolling through TikTok, it’s hard to ignore Colleen Hoover’s presence in literary spaces. You can often spot her eye-catching covers on Target shelves or her name popping up on year-end lists across BookTube, a subcommunity of YouTube dedicated to literature.
In 2022, her books outsold the Bible, according to Today, and at one point, six of her novels simultaneously occupied the New York Times top-10 paperback bestseller list. Named one of Time magazine’s 100 most influential people last year, Hoover’s popularity has only been on the rise.
With a movie based on her most popular novel “It Ends with Us” set to come out this year, we decided to investigate all the commotion surrounding her books—both good and bad.
MELISSA DAI: I’ve heard of quite a few, I think, but I’ve read three, and they are “Verity,” “It Ends with Us,” and “It Starts with Us,” which is the sequel to “It Ends with Us” that recently came out.
That’s Medill sophomore Melissa Dai. Like many readers of Hoover’s novels, Dai was initially influenced by social media to pick up the books.
DAI: To see so many people raving about books and reviewing books and giving book recommendations—that made me want to read much more—that’s what initially got me into it, and Colleen Hoover’s a huge, huge presence on TikTok.
Speaking specifically on “It Ends with Us,” one of Hoover’s most popular books, Dai said the novel provided her the entertainment necessary to get her out of a reading slump.
DAI: It was a good book, in my opinion, in terms of how dynamic the plot was, character building, and all of that. I feel like the plot was somewhat predictable, but also I think—I personally think it was well done.
Others were more critical about Hoover’s literary stylings. For Weinberg sophomore Yong-Yu Huang, poetry editor of Northwestern’s Helicon Literary & Arts Magazine, Hoover’s treatment of character and plot in “It Ends with Us” particularly bothered her.
YONG-YU HUANG: I think something that really irked me about her writing was just—all her descriptions felt very predictable. And also, they were often reused. So you would be reading kind of the same description of the same character over and over again, throughout the novel, which didn’t really add to your understanding of the character or further the plot in any way that I could really see.
Knox College junior Maisie Quinlan similarly had her own qualms about Hoover’s writing and character choices in reviewing her bestselling title “Ugly Love”:
MAISIE QUINLAN: I’ve told people that I’ve never regretted reading a book until this one. I really wish that I just, like, out of sight out of mind. It upset me, the characters upset me, the writing upset me. It was not my thing.
One major criticism Hoover’s books have received is their potential romanticization of abuse and toxic relationship dynamics, something Quinlan cited as a reason for her personal wariness of them.
QUINLAN: A lot of the relationships are like, very unintentionally, just forms of abuse. I think she never really portrays healthy relationship dynamics, and so I don’t even feel comfortable labeling most of her books as romance, just because they’re not—this is misleading at best.
College of DuPage Junior Ethan Burdin found himself irritated by the plot of Hoover’s “It Ends with Us” from the very beginning, prompting him to put down the book soon after starting it:
ETHAN BURDIN: I started reading it about a month ago, and I read the first chapter and I absolutely cannot read anymore. I don’t know, everything that you don’t want a book to be—or at least I don’t want a book to be—got thrown at me in the first chapter.
Despite her popularity, Hoover’s writing has become a divisive topic across social media platforms and online book communities alike, contributing to the general air of confusion and intrigue surrounding her novels:
HUANG: The whole internet was talking about her and her books and reviews were very polarizing. And I just wanted to see for myself.
QUINLAN: I kept seeing like a bunch of hate videos for this book specifically, but then also TikTokers that I follow were reading it and they liked it, and I was like really confused.
BURDIN: I have a friend who I was talking to yesterday, and she was like, “Oh, I love Colleen Hoover books,” and I was like, “really?” I think people deserve better, but I don’t know, I don’t know why people like them. I really don’t.
Because of her widespread presence throughout the internet, Hoover’s novels tend to skew towards a younger audience. As to why much of Generation Z has picked up a book or two, Huang said that Hoover’s writing widely appeals to those who merely want to be entertained.
HUANG: Sometimes I just want a light read—something that I don’t really have to think about. I can just enjoy the plot, enjoy characters, and have something fun to do after a long day of work. And I think that the reason that so many people are drawn to Colleen Hoover is because she provides—she doesn’t make the reader have to think.
With the movie adaptation of “It Ends with Us” set to release in June of this year, fans of Hoover’s are already eager to buy their tickets. For Dai, however, the Justin Baldoni and Blake Lively-starring film has yet to really cross her mind.
DAI: I haven’t been following it. But it does sound interesting. And also, I like Blake Lively. So let’s see.
For WNUR News, I’m Izzy Pareja, and I’m Bazil Frueh.
