I can’t let go recently of Colleen Hoover’s novels. I read three of them, cover to cover, each in one day, and I can’t recommend them enough.
Hoover takes serious issues, like depression, domestic abuse and infidelity, sows a compelling tale out of it, showing us that problems are something that happens to all of us. And I absolutely love that about her writing.
"It Ends With Us"
Is the story of Lily Bloom, the daughter of a battered wife and an abusive father, who surprisingly enough, although she swore it would never happen to her, finds herself in an abusive relationship with a brain surgeon she was in love with. It’s a powerful, strong tale that would make your heart ache and your eyes water. And it is based on the author’s own mother’s life experience.
What makes it even more compelling is that it’s written, like all three novels I mention here by Hoover, in everyday language, describing the events as something that could happen to everyone. It is not overloaded with descriptions that could turn the read into exhausting. Its simplicity of events and the everyday life of Lily, really bring her story closer to the reader.
Maybe Sunday
Is a story of love and how it is almost unfulfilled. Sydney, a college student, believes she has the perfect life. Until she discovers, with the help of her deaf, gifted musician neighbor, that her boyfriend is cheating on her with her best friend/ roommate.
In her heartbreak she moves in with the neighbor and after an unexpected turn of events, finds true love.
Once again, Sydney’s story is made heartfelt and genuine by the simplicity of the language used to describe the deepest of emotions. What spices up this novel is the fact that there are poems scattered throughout it, a fact that adds to the beauty and depth of this piece of art.
Without Merit
Is the story of Merit, a part of a family of four siblings and two house guests that lives in the shadow of her mother’s agoraphobia and develops depression.
At the outset of the novel, Merit is very disturbed by her family, her father’s seeming infidelity to his new wife and a variety of other issues. She even stops going to high school.
After all hell breaks loose, in the course of one night of an outrageous outburst on her part, she realizes, slowly, that she suffers from depression. Her realization does not come as a shock as the reader encounters her at the various steps that lead to this understanding. She drops out of high school, she stops reaching out to others, she feels completely abandoned by her parents.
I just love how Hoover’s books seem at the beginning to be these mundane tales about the tiniest adventures of the most self-absorbed people, and turn out to be something completely consuming and deep.
Go get ‘em!
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