The famous author, Colleen Hoover, has skyrocketed in both popularity and her career. Her books consistently held spots in the top 5 of the New York Times Bestselling Books throughout 2022. Hoover is an American author whose books often fall under the young adult or romance genre, making them popular among teens and college students.

Hoover’s debut book, Slammed, was self-published in 2012. Since then, over 20 of her works have been published. Her most recent release is the sequel to It Ends With Us, It Starts With Us. Fans of Hoover devoured It Ends With Us, and the romance novel quickly became her most well-known book after going viral on TikTok. It is no surprise that readers around the world wasted no time preordering the sequel.

Although Colleen Hoover’s novels earn a great deal of hype, her work is also strongly disliked by many. As Hoover rose to fame, some readers noticed troublesome themes that were common in her works.

Sophomore Mia’Lani Mayo describes a common theme found in Hoover’s novels. “[Colleen Hoover] always paints the men in her books as heartless or soulless beings with no emotions and I feel like it’s unnecessary for her to feed into that stereotype.”

An abusive relationship is not rare to come across in Hoover’s books and many have seen that the author manages to get readers invested in the main love interest which displays toxic behavior. When toxic and aggressive behavior is displayed as love, an audience’s idea of a relationship can be affected. The inclusion of conflict and toxicity in romance novels may grab the reader’s attention but when the consumers of the stories consist of mainly adolescent girls, people fear it could alter their understanding of a good relationship in real life. 

Has spreading awareness become just blatant romanticization? is a controversial debate among readers lately. Fans have argued that Hoover applies awareness about abuse in relationships by frequently including such behavior in her stories. This contradicts her writing style as she tends to portray the abuser as a “tough lover” rather than someone that should be avoided. 

“I don’t know much about Colleen Hoover as a person, but I think that her initial goal when writing her books is to spread awareness about different abusive relationships; sometimes she does go a little overboard so I can understand why people say she’s romanticizing toxic behavior,” Mayo states.

As if the criticism Hoover has received on her novels was not enough, the author decides to announce early this month that she has plans to release a coloring book based on It Ends With Us. Hoover immediately received backlash from readers who claim the idea was insensitive and tone-deaf. Coloring books would interest mainly children, so naturally, people did not like the idea of a coloring book based on a novel about domestic abuse being released to the public.

Colleen Hoover often includes modern humor and language in her novels, which can be annoying for readers who read as a way to escape reality. If fictional stories filled with creativity, imagination, and complex language are what you seek, then look much, much further!