Almost every time I step into a bookstore, the first display I see is enshrined with Colleen Hoover novels. TikTok is littered with raving recommendations of her bestsellers, It Ends With Us, Verity, and Reminders of Him, to name a few. Boasting a tremendous following, Hoover is the third most followed author on GoodReads, and has spent nearly 200 weeks on the New York Times Bestseller list.
Despite being beckoned by friends, family and social media posts to read her work, I’ve been historically resistant to the Colleen Hoover trend. For one, I’m not a fan of the romance genre and its tired tropes. From the quotes I had seen online, Hoover’s work, to me, did not seem to be worth the time, or all the hype. Of all the notable BookTok recommendations, Ottesssa Moshfegh’s My Year of Rest and Relaxation has been more my speed.
But after the prequel to It Ends With Us broke records when it sold more than 800,000 copies in its first day of publication, I became more curious as to what the cult of Colleen can reveal about our culture. I’ll admit, Hoover undoubtedly has been a catalyst in getting folks to curl up with a book. Reading is one of the most reflective and immersive experiences one can have; it can’t possibly be a bad thing for one to want to do it. But what do Hoover’s steamily sordid tales — and our insatiable desire for more — say about our culture?
I chose the aptly titled Ugly Love as the lucky novel to take my Co-Ho virginity, after being lent a copy from my roommate.
“Doesn’t the title imply that love should be ugly?” I asked her as I examined the cover.
“I mean, I don’t think so,” she said.
I took her word for it and tried to release my inhibitions as I opened to page one. An English student, I scribbled in my journal throughout the 12 hours it took me to read the book — and what a wild ride those 12 hours were. Immediately, I took note of how casually heteronormative, misogynistic and commodified the dialogue and action were. In this scene on page 18,
Me: New girl enrolled today. Senior.
Ian: Is she hot?
Me: Haven’t seen her yet. About to walk her to class.
Ian: Take a picture if she’s hot.
Before the plot and characters of the story are even defined, the notions of romance are: the potentiality of both connection and desirability are defined by one’s appearance. This immediately put a sour taste in my mouth, but I chose to lazily persevere rather than change the topic of this review.
My first positive experience while reading Ugly Love was noting its quirky narrative structure: each chapter alternates perspectives, plays with form, and alters the timeline of the story. One of the main characters, Miles, utilizes prose-poetry in his chapters, telling the story of his first love with a girl named Rachel. The other main character, Tate, uses traditional narration in the present day. Navigating the “ugly,” Tate falls in love with — shocker — an emotionally unavailable 25-year-old Miles, who is evidently navigating some past trauma. Simultaneously unraveling this tension through his past point of view, Miles creates terms and conditions for his relationship with Tate. In the following scene,
“You worry too much,” I say with a forced smile. “Would it help if we had rules?”
He studies me quietly before taking a step back. “It might,” he says. “I can only think of two right now.”
“What are they?”
His eyes focus on mine for several seconds. “Don’t ask about my past,” he says firmly. “And never expect a future.”
Apart from reading like a Wattpad fan-fiction, this scene perpetuates the avoidant ambiguity associated with hookup culture. Rendering women objects to be manipulated for male desire, the dynamic between Tate and Miles is often equated to a game, war or natural disaster — their sex a militarization of the body. In the first sex scene, Tate describes Miles’s penetration as “invading [her],” saying the sensation “hurt, but in the best possible way.” In a later sex scene, Tate and Miles engage in unprotected sex. Tate describes it as “animalistic,” saying, “I let him fuck me.”
I was once recommended Ugly Love by a 17-year-old coworker of mine. She called Miles her “dream guy.” To know that countless other impressionable young women are reading, and enjoying, material that equates sex to violence and pain, that they are swooning over submissiveness, makes me question literatures ability to describe and define reality. Does the exposure of this material make a reader more susceptible to believing that pleasure and pain, for women, are inextricably linked?
The arguable climax of the novel occurs when Miles finally reveals his past. We learn that he previously impregnated his ex-girlfriend Rachel (who, side note, is the daughter of Miles’s father’s partner) and was in the driver’s seat when their two day old baby was killed in a car accident. Albeit tragic, Miles’s past is the only crutch to his redemption arc: his virtue depends on Tate’s ability to withstand his “ugly.”
You’d think the ending of the story, an epilogue where Tate and Miles happily wed and have a daughter together, would be gratifying after the dumpster fire of a romance Hoover subjected us to. If anything, though, it felt cheap. A happily-ever-after-style assimilation into a nuclear family felt like a betrayal to Tate. Despite being the leading lady, she only functions as a nurturer, compensating her own needs for someone else’s.
At this point, I’m too tired to accept another tragic male trope that results in a woman having to compensate herself for a man who has retreated from his past and into his ego. I’m especially tired of having the philosophical dilemma of whether or not the wide readership of Hoover is a good thing. On one hand, people should be reading. On the other hand, I can say with confidence that people probably shouldn’t read Ugly Love.