With the recent rise of online book recommendations through BookTok (a branch of the social media platform TikTok), some authors have become very popular very fast. While some authors deserve this popularity for their fascinating world-building or charismatic characters, one author does not deserve it: Colleen Hoover.
Hoover has a considerable portfolio of books centered around a big strong man and a feeble woman. While there is some variation in her books, the overarching theme remains the same: women need big strong men to save them. Colleen Hoover’s books have a consistent pattern of poor writing and misogynistic themes that perpetuate sexist stereotypes and cliche characters and plot lines.
Colleen Hoover is most known for another New York Times Best Seller, It Ends With Us—an immensely popular YA novel. She is also known for her books Ugly Love and Verity. Here is a quote from her book Ugly Love which shows her idea of an ideal interaction:
I laugh. “You’re responsible for the beautiful part, Rachel. The only thing he got from me is his balls.”
She laughs. She laughs hard. “Oh, my God, I know,” she says. “They’re so big.”
We both laugh at our son’s big balls.
For context, this is two step-siblings looking at their newborn baby. This quote exemplifies Hoover’s unseemliness and leaves the reader wondering why a New York Times bestselling author would write this.
While authors have made strides to create more inclusive romance novels that portray main characters as not just white, straight, cisgender, heterosexual people, there are some authors like Colleen Hoover who hold us back. Every author has a style or a genre they stick to; Hoover remains in the past.
In this respect, Hoover’s writing is cliche. For example, in her popular novel Maybe Someday, a woman finds her long-term boyfriend cheating on her and moves out of her apartment. Luckily for her, the sexy neighbor takes her in after seeing what happened. To make a long story short, the neighbor leaves his happy, supportive girlfriend for the skinny blonde who moved in. He also plays the guitar, and he’s deaf.
It was cliche throughout; when the woman goes back to confront her cheating ex, of course, her new roommate sweeps in and ends the confrontation. The subtext here is that the woman needs protecting and saving—a misogynistic trope we all need to move beyond. Moreover, while there was some representation in Maybe Someday (i.e., the deaf community), it felt forced, as if it was only for the plot. Overall, the book was a step back for womankind.
Another way in which Hoover reaffirms these harmful norms is by diminishing the struggles of queer people in her books. For example, in Hopeless, the love interest is known for having committed a hate crime against a gay person. The main character ignores this and “looks past his bad reputation.” The main character struggles with her feelings for this man because she knows the things he did.
Different people like to read different things, but the point is that confirming traditional rigid gender roles further cements sexism, implicit biases, and outdated societal expectations. There are so many novels that surpass her best book in many ways. Books like hers are unfairly taking the place of those that reflect the diversity and changes of our time.
Written by Margaret McLaughlin of Richard Montgomery High School
Graphic courtesy of Chelsea Ewli-Kwakutse of Watkins Mill High School