Many of us were vicious readers as kids that frequented Barnes & Nobles and made our parents invest in bookshelves or Kindles to accommodate our needs. Back then, the books we all clamored for were young adult dystopian novels with epic battles like The Hunger Games or ill-fated romances like The Fault In Our Stars.
Eventually, though, these novels about corrupt governments and sad stories about loved ones ripped from us due to illness became too real as collective social consciousness began to rise. The tales became more of a bleak reminder of the sad state of reality than entertainment. Due to the outbreak of COVID-19, the year 2020 was one of lazing around in athletic wear and consuming as much media as possible to fulfill the need for escapism. Rather than the anticipated revival of the exciting 1920’s glamour, society was forced to get acquainted with having fun from the safety of indoors.
During this time, the popular social media app TikTok saw a lot of growth, and many subcommunities developed on the app, including #BookTok. #BookTok is a community where book lovers discuss and review books and series. This trendy part of TikTok is incredibly influential and is almost guaranteed to make the bestsellers list.
**Trigger warning: this article contains discussion of sexual assault and abuse in relationships.
This time though, people weren’t going for heroines on the literal battlefield. Instead, people wanted heroines on the battlefield of love. It makes sense that in these modern times, people would turn to the quickly growing romance genre to find escapism. This renaissance might have been long awaited for long-time enjoyers of the romance genre. Enjoyers of romances and bodice rippers were often shamed. The shaming of women for finding pleasure in things is a common theme in society. But in the year 2022, bodice rippers and romance are in! Being a girl and being deserving of love is in. Women are becoming aware of their worth and demanding treatment that befits them.
With the sage advisors of #BookTok spreading the gospel of these cute books that promise comforting tropes, book sales have significantly increased. According to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, since 2020 recreational reading sales have increased by over 20%, and the young adult demographic is responsible for 65.2% of those sales. In 2020 Publishing Perspectives revealed romance fiction has been one of the best-selling genres for ebooks and printed copies. If you were also affected by this surging interest in reading, you might have walked into a Barnes & Noble, and chances are you found a display table advertising all the viral books on #BookTok. You probably also saw a table solely dedicated to the #BookTok queen and New York Times bestselling author Colleen Hoover.
Colleen Hoover has sold over 20 million books as of October 2022 and is one of the many authors to benefit from this romance renaissance in the literary world. Her latest novel, It Starts With Us, is Simon & Schuster’s most preordered book of all time and broke a company record for fiction sales. Hoover began her career as an author in 2012 when she published her debut novel Slammed. Slammed was about a student-teacher relationship, and oddly enough, also slam poetry. Slammed and its sequels became so popular that Hoover was able to quit her job as a social worker.
In 2015, Colleen Hoover published November 9, a book about a girl with extensive burn scars from a house fire falling in love with the boy responsible for the fire. November 9 was the subject of controversy due to problematic themes and scenes throughout the book. Some described the romantic relationship between the main characters, Fallon and Ben, as controlling and abusive. One scene, in particular, was debated and received backlash as it is seen as normalizing sexual assault. To her credit, Hoover listened to the backlash, and the triggering scene was removed from future editions of the book.
On October 18, 2022, It Starts With Us was published as a follow-up to the 2016 novel It Ends With Us, which focused on the cycles of abuse. It Ends With US was based on the relationship between Hoover’s parents, and the book was dedicated to her mother. The novel saw a resurgence in popularity in 2021 due to #BookTok and secured the top spot on the New York Times bestseller list years after it was released. The book follows the main character Lily Bloom and her fraught relationship with Ryle Kincaid while reflecting on her past as well.
It Starts With Us is supposed to be the tale of Lily Bloom finding the light at the end of the tunnel with her high school love, Atlas. While Atlas is clearly the better love interest compared to Ryle, his character is also an example of Colleen Hoover portraying problematic situations and behaviors in relationships. When Lily and Atlas’s relationship began, Atlas, then 18, was dating Lily despite being aware she was a minor. The book makes a point to establish their age difference, with Lily even being embarrassed to admit her age.
With the vast following that Colleen Hoover has, and considering that her audience is mainly young women, it is concerning that this is how she depicts relationships. Her male characters exhibit controlling behavior and borderline abusive actions, but how Hoover writes them is romanticizing. There is little consequence for the male characters that steamroll the desires of our heroines like Lily and Fallon. This pattern in her writing is a common complaint among those who read her books, from fans and critics alike. When speaking with Daily News, Hoover admitted to playing the devil’s advocate and purposefully taking a “difficult subject and present[ing] it in a different light.”
The representation we see in media sends a message about what is normal and acceptable. For all the young readers of Colleen Hoover who are developing their views on what the perfect romance should look like, this is very harmful. This kind of romanticization of toxic behavior is a common element in the romance genre. According to NPR one of the reasons for Generation Z’s search for romance in between the pages of a Hoover book is to find a “happy ever after” when one can’t be found in real life. If young girls are following the examples set in these books though, it isn’t likely that they’ll find that happy ever after in real life. With the increasing popularity the romance genre is receiving, influential authors like Hoover should be cautious and aware of the message they are sending to their young audience.
Resources
- If you or someone you know is experiencing domestic abuse, call 911 or the National Domestic Violence Hotline at 1(800) 799-SAFE (7233) or visit thehotline.org.
- If you or someone you know has been sexually assaulted, you can call the National Sexual Assault Telephone Hotline at 800-656-HOPE (4673) or visit hotline.rainn.org.