Warning: the following contains spoilers for It Ends With Us and November 9 by Colleen Hoover. Please proceed with caution if you haven’t read these novels.

In the spirit of Valentine’s Day (which is when I’m writing this but not when you will be reading it), I’ve decided to delve into the world of a very on-theme genre of literature. Yes, I’m talking about romance, and yes, I just wanted to write a fancy introduction. But I digress. In the hunt for the most popular current romance novels, book lovers will naturally be led to one of the most popular authors of our generation: Colleen Hoover.

I’m sure most of you have heard of her most popular titles, including the Booktok sensation It Ends With Us. When I first picked up the book, I was apprehensive. I’d heard mixed opinions about the book, but I figured that if so many people were absolutely mesmerized by it, there had to be something worthwhile in those 300+ pages. In the end, I came away with one mediocre paragraph that had a semi-decent message. And that was on top of tons of bad writing, egregious romanticization, and plotlines that were frankly unnecessary. It Ends With Us, however, is not a romance despite what the marketing implies, so I decided to give Hoover another chance with one of her actual romance novels. I just finished November 9, and when I say it is worse, I mean it is SO MUCH WORSE. The romanticization of toxic relationships and poorly developed characters have been a persistent issue in modern romance novels for a while now, but the popularity of Colleen Hoover books brings these problems center stage. So here are the top reasons why you should not read Colleen Hoover books (and why “but it’s fiction” does not excuse toxicity in books).

The Romanticization of Abuse

Let’s jump right into the most persistent issue I’ve seen in Hoover’s writing. Both It Ends With Us and November 9 romanticize abusive relationships. I’ve seen people on the internet try to excuse their love of CoHo books by saying “well, I didn’t read it as romanticization,” which is an excuse I have to laugh at. Whether a book romanticizes a topic or not is not up to viewer discretion, it’s a simple yes or no based on clear criteria. It is not romanticization if the toxic or abusive behavior isn’t rewarded. That’s the rule of thumb that writers should follow (and Colleen Hoover most definitely doesn’t).

Take Ryle from IEWU for instance. On the surface level it appears that his behavior was condemned (as the entire book is supposed to be about escaping abusive relationships). His wife leaves him and his family displays clear disapproval for his actions. No rewards there, right? Wrong! Ryle may not end up with the main character, Lily, but he is allowed at the end of the book to co-parent the child that resulted from his abusive relationship. Lily even mentions some level of concern over his anger issues and whether that might impact their child, but ultimately decides that he’s somehow entitled to fatherhood despite the horrific abuse he committed. This would be one thing if it was painted as a tragedy. If Lily fought to keep her child away from her abuser and failed or even if her decision was meant to show how a victim may still be unable to condemn their abuser, even after they’ve left the relationship. Unfortunately, that was not the case. Both Lily and Hoover paint the decision to let Ryle co-parent as the “right” decision. They speak like it’s a good thing to put past abuse aside and let a child be partially raised by an abuser. Ryle is given the chance to start over with his actions erased, which sounds to be like a reward for his behavior. She states in the acknowledgments “I have the utmost respect for parents who don’t involve their children in the dissolution of their relationships.” She’s right, in a way. Children should not be involved, and that means they shouldn’t be put in the path of potential abuse either. The title implies the book would be about ending the cycle of abuse, but it felt more like they just set it up to continue, and all the characters (and the author) didn’t see a problem with that. I simply cannot understand those who would support a book that pushes these harmful views. I’m not even going to get into how the guy Lily actually ends up with is described as looking “disappointed” when she tells him her age upon their first meeting (when she was fifteen and he was eighteen).

Now, It Ends With Us is bad, but remember how I said November 9 is much worse? Yeah, not only is the male love interest the epitome of abusive, but the main character, Fallon, actually ends up with him. If you check the genre tags on Goodreads, the first one listed is romance. Ben, the love interest, spends the first half of the book consistently inserting himself into Fallon’s personal business, making incredibly sexist comments, and harassing her. Every other thought of his in the first section is pretty much a creepy comment on her body. A few of the most notable ones:

“My mother raised me with more tact than this, but what my mother failed to teach me

is that there would be girls like this one who would test those manners merely by

existing.”

“I’m paying for dinner, so I get to choose what to stare at while we eat.”

And of course:

“But if we’re just going to sit here and stare at each other, it’d be nice if she were

showing a little cleavage, instead of wearing this long-sleeved shirt that leaves

everything to the imagination. It’s pushing eighty degrees outside. She should be in

something a lot less . . . convent-inspired.”

How anyone looked past these awful lines, I have no idea. To make matters worse, he openly admits to manipulating Fallon. For context, Fallon was in a fire and has scars from it that she is immensely insecure about. Ben says to her “‘I was so relieved,” I tell her. “Because I could tell with that one simple movement that you were really insecure. And I realized—since you obviously had no idea how [redacted] beautiful you were—that I just might actually have a chance with you.’” Does that sound a bit, I don’t know, manipulative? He says to her face that he flirted with her in the first place because he knew she was insecure and thus more likely to throw herself at any guy who showed her attention. Not only is that creepy, but misogynistic.

And it gets, you guessed it, EVEN WORSE. At one point Fallon gets a restraining order against him (which was already a sign that the relationship wasn’t meant to be) and he decides it’s okay to show up at her house. He manages to commit an act even worse than that (which I won’t disclose for spoiler purposes) and all his attempts at justifying his actions make him sound even more misogynistic and too emotionally unstable for a relationship. But of course, Fallon forgives him even though his sad attempt at an apology only further reveals his true nature. He needed to help with her insecurity to make himself feel less guilty. He needed to see that she was happy to make himself feel better. I could go on, but the real takeaway is that Colleen Hoover’s idea of a good book boyfriend is apparently a criminal and borderline sex offender. How romantic.

So many CoHo fans have tried to defend her work, and other toxic romance novels, by saying it’s only fiction. However, they fail to grasp that fiction most definitely has an impact on our real-world views, as much as we like to think we aren’t so easily influenced. Colleen Hoover’s books are especially dangerous as they are marketed towards impressionable teens and young adults who are being given toxic expectations of what relationships are like. Abusive relationships definitely exist in real life, and there is nothing wrong with portraying them accurately in books. What is important, however, is that writers don’t portray these relationships as healthy or normal, like Hoover does by labeling November 9 as romance and commending Lily’s decision to let Ryle co-parent.

Her Characters are Underdeveloped

Hoover’s writing is filled with lazy plot devices that make no sense, like overused tropes and the dreaded mirror scene to introduce character appearances. In general, the writing is mediocre at best and very Wattpad-esque. But her greatest failure as a writer lies in her characters, the literal driving forces behind her plots.

In both the CoHo books I’ve read, the characters have been run-of-the-mill romance stereotypes: the quirky “I’m not like other girls” girl, the bubbly best friend, the mysterious hot guy, the fluffy-haired hot guy, really just a bunch of variations of boring hot guy. Instead of giving these characters actual personalities, she essentially tells us what they are or aren’t. We get told that Lily is kind, but not shown her kindness. We get told that Fallon is insecure, but don’t see many examples of how that impacts her day-to-day life. Colleen Hoover consistently breaks the biggest rule of writing: show, don’t tell.

Additionally, the relationships between characters are severely lacking. Important information and vulnerabilities are shared through info dumps and awkward dialogue. Lily and Ryle have a system of “naked truths”, which was essentially a convenient way for Hoover to drop information through dialogue without any hint of subtlety. It’s painful to read. I might be able to understand people overlooking the bad writing to enjoy the book if the content wasn’t so harmful, but Colleen Hoover checked both boxes.

She Perpetuates Stereotypes

On top of the use of tropes, Colleen Hoover uses stereotypes in her writing. At one point in IEWU, Lily shows up to a party with Devin, her stereotypical “gay best friend”. He is present for exactly one chapter to make some weird comments and pretend to be her boyfriend only to disappear and hardly be mentioned for the rest of the book. It was uncomfortable, to say the least.

Hoover also thought it would be nice to include some racist generalizations in November 9. Exhibit A:

“‘What’s your favorite food?” “Pad Thai,” he says. “Yours?” “Sushi. They’re almost the

same thing.” “Not even close,” he says. “They’re both Asian food. What’s your favorite

movie?’”

As a (half) Asian person, I can tell you those aren’t even close to the same thing. They aren’t even from the same country. Yet, Colleen Hoover seems content to push the idea that all Asians are the same. Did I mention that all of her characters are caucasian-coded?

Colleen Hoover Herself is Problematic

She’s from Texas. Need I say more?

Jokes about Texas aside, Hoover has done her fair share of awful things. She tried to turn It Ends With Us, a book about domestic abuse, into a coloring book. Heck, she wrote It Ends With Us, which is pretty bad in my opinion. But the worst thing she did makes a lot of sense considering the sexism and victim blaming in her novels (and the literal SA scene she cut out of November 9 when it received backlash). Her adult son was accused of sexually abusing a minor, and instead of condemning the actions, she supported him. She also proceeded to block the victim on social media. I don’t think I need to explain why this is wrong.

Now, I believe in separating the art from the artist in some cases. But when their problematic views carry over into their work, that’s an automatic “no” from me. I can’t comprehend how people continue to support her considering her actions.

So, Master Writer or Master Manipulator?

Despite the glaring issues with Colleen Hoover’s books, they are wildly popular. Why? I think it lies in the fact that she is exceptionally talented at tricking people into thinking her writing is good. There are a variety of reasons. She relies heavily on shock value to build sympathy, especially because many equate emotion with good writing. She throws in heavy topics like suicide and infertility that, while underdeveloped as plot points, make the readers feel for the characters. She throws in scenes of gratuitous smut to appeal to the romance readers and make them overlook the shallowness of the characters' relationships. She relies heavily on romance tropes that are familiar, and thus comfortable, to readers. She markets It Ends With Us as a romance, so I wouldn’t be surprised if people found out it wasn’t what they thought after buying it and forced themselves to like it because of sunk cost fallacy.

I could go on and on, but the point is that Colleen Hoover is as toxic and manipulative as her characters. That is how she built the popularity of her books, not her skill as a writer.