Remember when the world was going crazy about the spicy writer known as Colleen Hoover? The well-known New York Times author of more than 23 novels is back at it again, but not in the ways she was before. In 2016, Hoover published It Ends With Us: the emotional story where Lily Bloom finds herself in an abusive relationship with the handsome but controlling neurosurgeon known as Ryle Kincaid. The book wasn’t a popular read until 2021, thanks to BookTok, a TikTok community that shares personal reviews of all book genres. After reading It Ends With Us, people couldn’t get enough of Hoover’s writing style, describing her style as page-turning, with many unexpected plot twists.
Furthermore, it’s almost impossible to talk about Colleen Hoover without mentioning the drama that follows her around. Stating the obvious, her books tend to go into deep details about the characters’ romantic lives, which creates extremely graphic content. Without any warning, readers have been blindsided, some of those readers being minors. Another drama-filled problem was how Hoover marketed the book. She announced that she was releasing a coloring book, which is entirely out of touch with the story that talks about an abusive relationship. As expected, she got mountains of backlash, leading her to cancel publication. Many critics are commenting that the book, altogether, is romanticizing domestic abuse. The problem is less that she’s mentioning the abuse, but more about how it’s implied that it’s acceptable, which opens up doors for toxic masculinity. There was also a situation where her son was accused of sexual harassment. When the victim reached out for help, Hoover simply blocked her. As with anything popular, there will always be people who look for the bad or merely disagree. In some cases, it’s okay to like the book but not the author.
Moving forward, on Aug. 9, 2024, the movie for It Ends With Us was released in theaters and has now been accessible to watch on Netflix since Dec. 9, 2024. Although the movie was a success, behind the scenes, both of the main characters, Blake Lively and Justin Baldoni, were harassing and defaming each other, leading to a lawsuit. Hoover initially supported Lively, but later backpedaled, causing more problems. A messy start was just the beginning of what’s to be expected for Hoover’s adaptations.
Recently, as of Oct. 24, the movie Regretting You was released, another heart-wrenching book that was created into a film by Hoover. The box-office comparisons between It Ends With Us and Regretting You are significantly different. The opening weekend was roughly ten percent down from the first movie. The films that are yet to come out are Verity (fall of 2026) and Reminders of Him (spring of 2026). Hoover is seen as the executive producer, has on-set input, and occasionally is a screenwriter. She also made a brief cameo appearance in her first film. She is still planning to keep publishing her writing, but it seems she is becoming relevant again because the books that have been loved in the past are now on the big screen. Who doesn’t love to compare any film adaptation, which is when a book gets translated into a feature movie?
Moreover, the movie Regretting You is focused on the messy relationship between Morgan and her teenage daughter, Clara, which is complicated by family secrets and the tragic loss of close family members. The movie was well cast with Mason Thames as Miller Adams and McKenna Grace playing Clara Grant. Their teenage relationship itself shouldn’t be aspirational. Throughout the movie, Clara emotionally dumps everything onto Miller. He has his own problems, but acts like a dog for Clara, constantly bowing down to her, even though she treats him like trash. Toward the end of the movie, they got into an argument that realistically should have ended the relationship, but shortly after, they both said sorry, so everything was just fine. Happily ever after, one could say. I feel as if the apologizing should have been just as big a deal as the actual argument. The book was pretty similar to the movie. It’s satisfying to see the simple callbacks connect the two, such as the Watermelon Jolly Ranchers. The sweet treat has more meaning than just flavor, connecting two lovebirds, Morgan and Jonah.
One aspect that would have made the film more enjoyable altogether is in-depth character development. It might be why people say the book version is always better than the movie when a film adaptation is made. It felt so rushed. For example, Clara’s best friend, Lexie’s relationship with Efren was incredibly brief compared to the book, where they give us more of a backstory. It was a cute film that had my attention the whole time. I don’t regret taking the time to see the heartfelt movie, but it definitely could have been slowed down.
Overall, Hoover has built her way up in the book world, and it’s exciting to see the books everyone had their nose in at one point, now turn into movies. What she has done with her fame has sparked a lot of controversy. As said before, it’s normal to enjoy the story, but one doesn’t have to love the author. Hoover has much more planned for the future, but has created such a rocky path for herself that we can’t truly know what’s to be expected next.
