It Starts with Us by Colleen Hoover Review

My favorite book when I was fourteen was It Ends with Us. I didn’t read Hoover's other books at the time, but this was when I was blowing through romance novels with no sense of how it may be affecting my pubescent brain or my focus on more important things, like school. I kind of forgot about her until she blew up in 2020, and initially, I was laughing at how everyone caught on years after I had. However, that changed when many began to criticize her, and for good reason. Her writing doesn't always promote the healthiest relationships or depict the most sensible women, or most respectable men. I wanted to know what all the fuss and attention was about in 2021, so I read more of her work and was pretty disappointed, November 9, Ugly Love, and Confess were all sort of childish and the writing was even quite bad at times. I realized that I've grown out of such novels that over-explain things in a way that isn’t beautiful or insightful the way that Hoover does.

I recently found It Ends with Us and It Starts with Us both used, within three days of each other. I stared at the covers knew I’d feel embarrassed reading such work that isn’t as high brow as the classics or literary fiction i usually post on my platforms. But I thought back to fourteen year old Fiona staying up on nights I had PE class at 8 am the next morning, turning digital page after page in my childhood bed, a tear escaping at the climax of the story. She would’ve lost her mind if she found out a sequel was written. I bought them and read It Starts with Us in a few days, and yes, the writing is not as good as I remember it was as a high schooler. But sometimes pleasing my inner child is necessary despite being a hater at my core.

I'm not saying this series is the best, and I know the sequel was solely a cash grab. And I honestly wouldn’t recommend Hoover’s other works. But I think it’s important to think of It Ends with Us as a discussion of abuse and healing rather than a romance novel which is what the most of her works can be considered. This distinction is the main concern in most online discourse regarding the novel that exploded in popularity. I’m not defending her (I did not forget the It Ends with Us coloring book Hoover attempted to sell. Honestly I’m surprised Hoover did such an distasteful thing when the story of abuse is based on her mother and is supposedly a raw and emotional story for her to share) and I don’t even want to delve into the ways romance novels that glorify not ideal behavior from men permeate our culture in irreparable ways, but let’s take things one day at a time. So today, I healed my inner child, just a little, by staring at these two books sitting on my shelf, fulfilling my dream of one day having physical copies of all my favorite books that shaped who I am as a person. 

July 5, 2023