The Problem with Colleen Hoover
I know I'm a little late with this one but let's pretend I'm not.
10 Million copies sold,Millions of fans who support your problematic aspects and a movie based on your “heartbreaking book” about domestic abuse which you promoted with a colouring book.
Colleen Hoover also called by some “this generations Jane Austen” has been on the Internet for a good while,with her “Tik Tok sensation” It Ends With Us Hoover generated a lot of recognition.But are her books as “sad” and “gut wrenching” as everyone says? Does she deserve the hype?? And is she a good role model?In this post I will talk about Colleen Hoover and the danger that she is to young girls.
Let´s begin with who is Collen Hoover?
Margaret Collen Hoover was born on December 11 1979 in Sulphur,Texas and grew up in Saltillo,Texas,she graduated from Texas A&M-Commerce with a degree in social work and initially pursued writing as a hobby while she worked in various teaching and social jobs.She began writing her first novel “Slammed” in November 2011 with having no intentions of publishing it later in January 2012 she eventually decided to self publish “Slammed” following to her debut she published in February 2012 a sequel to Slammed called “Point of Retreat”, after a few months both “Slammed” and “Point of Retreat” received 5 stars ratings by Maryse Black an american bookbloger. Afterwards the sales of Slammed and Point Of Retreat grew higher besides both books making it on #8 and #18 on The New York Times bestseller list. Subsequent to the success of her books Hoover quit her job to become a full-time author.Fast forward to 2016 the year in which she published “It Ends With Us” the book that gained popularity trough tik tok 5 years after its actual release.
At first the booktook community enjoyed It Ends With Us and the book was overthrown with 5 star reviews along with millennials posting pics of them crying over the book.While It Ends With Us broke selling records and people started referring to her as the “Jane Austen of Gen Z” Hoover published a sequel to It Ends With Us called “It Starts With Us” as people again loved the book some people started criticising Hoover for her books and comparing her writing to “a 14 year old Wattpad author” in addition to that the news came out that Hoovers son Levi sexually harassed a 16 year old who then reached out to the her for help to which she blocked her.After the internet found out about Hoovers behaviour towards the girl people started cancelling her and some even threw her books away.
Hoover's writing appears to many as repetitive and unchanging. In my opinion, her female main protagonists have literally no self-respect and settle for the bare minimum. Her writing also contains the romanticization of abuse, homophobia, and sexism. For example, in her book November 9, which is one of her most hated books, one of the characters says, “No gay man I know would have left the house looking like you do right now,” after the protagonist dressed a certain way. Plenty of these stereotypical lines come into sight when reading Hoover’s books.
Furthermore, November 9 is, in my perspective, her worst book, and I can’t believe that a publisher decided to print such a piece of garbage. (In addition to November 9, I’m planning on doing a full review of that book, so stay tuned.)
An additional reason why many hate Hoover’s writing is that she literally writes like a 12-year-old Wattpad author. The line that demonstrates this claim is the famous, “we both laugh at our son’s big balls” from her 2014 novel Ugly Love, told from the male protagonist's view. This line started blowing up on TikTok, and even more people began making fun of Hoover’s writing.
But of course, you can say, “What is the problem? These are books, not reality. She can write about what she wants, and if you don’t want to read it, don’t read it. Problem solved.” The thing is, Hoover is everywhere on social media. She has a huge audience (2M on Instagram), and with her movie that recently came out (more on that later), even people who don’t read her books have heard of her, resulting in more people knowing her.
As said, she has a big audience, which gives her a role model purpose. As I mentioned in my essay about trad wives, every public person has that purpose. Because she blew up on TikTok, which is a platform that has a young audience, she will eventually appear on the feed of many young girls who will read her books. This results in them growing up thinking that the relationships portrayed in her books are normal and healthy—that it’s good to have no self-respect and low standards (Ugly Love), that it’s okay to date an 18-year-old although you are 15 and a minor (It Ends With Us), and that it’s okay for your boyfriend to choose what dress you will wear on your date because he pays for the food (November 9). I could go on with these scenes from her books. And these weren’t even the worst ones.
I am glad that some people realized what an actual problem Colleen Hoover is and have started spreading awareness about it. My favorite so far is this one:
Including that the It Ends With Us movie came out this year, I would like to talk about the movie being as bad as the book—in my opinion, even worse in the category of costume and character design. For example, Lily (portrayed by Blake Lively), a 23-year-old woman, is dressed like me when I have to wear old clothes to paint. Also, the fact that they used an Ethel Cain song in such a shitty movie??? I was shocked
Aside from the design of this movie, let’s fast forward to the way this movie about domestic abuse got promoted. Yes, Blake Lively, I’m talking about you.
The way this woman talked about that movie—“grab your friends, wear your florals, and go to the movie theatre”—makes it sound like it’s the next Barbie film. But also, the way she acts and talks about the movie is so annoying. If I talked about American Psycho that way, you wouldn’t see the difference. Like, “grab your videotapes and your raincoat and head to the theatre to see handsome Christian Bale murder women while having sex with them.”
Again, we have the problem of a movie about a serious and important topic being marketed towards young girls as a rom-com. Again, they will think that this behavior is normal.
So to summarize: Colleen Hoover is a danger to young girls by writing unhealthy and toxic relationships and promoting them as romantic and normal, which can lead to young girls believing this and being later on easier to manipulate by their partners.