Whether you enjoy reading or not, there’s a good chance you’ve heard of her. Especially since her most popular book, “It Ends With Us,” became a movie.
Colleen Hoover wrote her first book “Slammed” in Jan 2012 at the age of 31, and now, at the age of 44, she has 26 books published.
Hoover is New York Times #1 best seller and currently holds the #1 and #2 spot on the best selling fiction paperbacks with “It Ends With Us” at #1, and the sequel “It Starts With Us” at #2.
She gets all this popularity from her writing and books, but does she deserve it?
I say no. Of course, there’s a reason she is so popular, but why are we supporting her? Her writing is subpar and she capitalizes on any insecurity that a woman could have.
Every book she writes, the female main character is helpless and insecure. It’s like their lives don’t even matter until some guy comes in and tells them it does.
She doesn’t use trigger warnings, because she thinks they’re spoilers that can take the thrill away from the reader, but she writes about heavy trauma and issues that she doesn’t know how to deal with correctly.
Although, in my opinion, while Hoover doesn’t deserve the support and popularity that she is given, there is a reason that she has it.
While “It Ends With Us,” along with several other of her books, may not be a literary masterpiece, it did help a lot of people.
If you were to search this book on social media, there would be a lot of controversy, but the majority of people will be talking about how inspiring it was.
“It Ends With Us” is a very emotional book about a girl named Lily Bloom who falls in love with a man named Ryle. After growing up with an abusive father, Lily swears she would never put up with what her mother did when she stayed with her father, until it happens to her.
To a lot of people, “It Ends With Us” is an inspirational story about handling abuse and breaking the cycle, and there are people out there who connect to “It Ends With Us” because of the way it talks about handling abuse and breaking the cycle. That is so important and a great message to spread.
So, why are Hoover and Blake Lively, who plays Lily Bloom in the movie, ignoring the message by focusing on the romantic elements?
I have nothing against Lively. I think she has lived a very sheltered and safe life, which is not a bad thing at all, but she doesn’t know how to deal with things like this.
Hoover, however, should be promoting it for the heartbreaking, inspiring story that many people see it as.
Instead of shying away from talking about the abuse and Lily’s struggles of trying to break that cycle, she should be embracing it for the inspiring story it should be.
As someone who was inspired by her mother’s story dealing with abuse, it’s sad to see her ignoring the whole point of the story.
After seeing how well “It Ends With Us” did and how many people loved it, she wanted to add to it and expand it, seeing as how it would help expand her career in return.
What isn’t reasonable is putting out a coloring book that’s connected to a book about domestic abuse.
Released Apr. 4, 2023, the “It Ends With Us” adult coloring book included pages of flowers, Lily’s flower shop and diaries and pages referencing Dory and Ellen DeGeneres.
Why are we supporting someone who capitalizes on books about an abusive story that was said to be inspired by her mother’s? She has repeatedly shown that she doesn’t really care about the hard hitting topics that she’s writing about.
Especially when her son, Levi Hoover, had been accused of sexually assaulting a 16 year old when he was 21.
With the handle @theonottlovebot on twitter, she spoke up in 2022 with screenshots and proof. Their relationship started on snapchat and their conversations became less than innocent.
According to the girl, whose name was never mentioned, she had DM-ed Hoover on instagram with screenshots showing he knew full well what her age was. In response, Hoover had blocked her.
The girl then tweeted about how she had tried to do something about it and Hoover shut her down.
“Her son also sexually harassed me and she blocked me when I spoke up about it to her,” the girl had tweeted.
Over nine months later, Hoover finally addressed the rumors in a private Facebook group with a statement that said the girl had lied about what had happened between her and the son.
Hoover said the girl lied about the fact that Hoover blocked her, there was miscommunication, and “we discussed what happened, I apologized to her and thanked her for bringing this to my attention.”
While many fans would think that she would have handled a situation like this in a way that any person that writes about how these disgusting circumstances can get better, she didn’t.
Instead, she let down her fans, and the 16 year old victim, by accepting this fact, moving on, and acting like nothing happened.
Her entire career is built off of these hard situations. However, in reality she never shows compassion to people that actually went through the hardships she writes about.
People truly connected with Lily and issues of this book, and not just the flowers or so called romance.