Five Books to Read Instead of These Colleen Hoover Novels

Colleen Hoover has become quite a big name in the modern fiction world, particularly on #Booktok, and this is for reasons equally great and not so great. Despite the fact that there are many enjoyers of her work, it’s painfully clear that Hoover’s novels are rather stiff, two-dimensional and laden with romantic scenes that often fill space in which plot advancements could be instead. Additionally, Colleen Hoover’s public behavior has caused plenty of people to disapprove of her, so it’s very understandable why many do not want to support her work. This is why I’ve gathered five of her most well-known titles and offered an alternative to each one of them. Instead of a Colleen Hoover novel, try one of these lesser-known pieces instead. 

Instead of: “It Ends With Us”

Try: “Ask Again, Yes” by Mary Beth Keane

In writing “It Ends With Us,” Colleen Hoover tried to discuss the theme of ending family trauma cycles. However, Mary Beth Keane’s “Ask Again, Yes” does a much better job of executing this. This novel is told over the course of about four decades and through several different perspectives. It all starts when two young NYPD rookies, both newly married, move in next door to one another and become friends. As time goes on, their children become very good friends, but secrets rumble behind closed doors in each individual household. When a tragedy tears the two families away from each other, it takes a long time for the two children to find each other once again, and an even longer time to unravel the past and learn forgiveness. Peter Stanhope and Kate Gleason are much more three-dimensional and relatable as characters than Ryle Kincaid and Lily Bloom, and the development of their relationships with each other, their families and their past (both shared and unshared) is much stronger and connects better to the mission of ending family trauma cycles. Unlike the rather predictable and often frustrating “It Ends With Us,” “Ask Again, Yes” keeps you guessing and finds a way to warm your heart throughout.

Instead of: “Verity”

Try: The Silent Patient by Alex Michaelides

“Verity” has become famous (or maybe a better word is notorious) for being a fast-paced thriller, but “The Silent Patient” fulfills the desire for a thriller much more than “Verity” does. Alex Michaelides does a wonderful job telling the story of a woman who shot her husband and subsequently refused to speak another word through the eyes of a psychotherapist who is simultaneously dealing with a potentially unfaithful fiancee. The two stories are similar in that they both revolve around a silent woman, or silent wife, who has seemingly committed terrible acts, and both narrators are curious third parties with access to the silent woman’s diary that may or may not reveal the truth. However, “The Silent Patient” is shelves above “Verity.” Where half of “Verity’s” pages are filled with slightly overly detailed sex scenes, “The Silent Patient” has a constantly moving, multilayered plot. Where the character of “Verity” is written as a stereotypical “crazy wife” that often makes a reader cringe, the character of Alicia is written as a mysterious yet genuinely disturbed individual. Both novels have quickly gained status as the top psychological thrillers on #Booktok, but “The Silent Patient” is definitely the better choice if you’re looking for a story with more meat to it. 

Instead of: “Regretting You”

Try: “The Love Hypothesis” by Ali Hazelwood

“Regretting You” is probably Colleen Hoover’s most lighthearted story, so a reader looking for something more lighthearted should look more at Ali Hazelwood’s “The Love Hypothesis.” “The Love Hypothesis” is a funny, feel-good story of a Ph.D. candidate at Stanford named Olive who strikes up a fake relationship with the young heartthrob professor, Adam Carlsen. It all starts when she frantically grabs him and kisses him in the lab one night, fearing that her best friend, Anh, will discover that she’s lying about having been on a date. Olive is desperate to convince Anh that she’s over her ex, but she doesn’t intend for the entire institution to hear that she and Adam are “dating.” Gradually, this false relationship faces some real tests, and a rumor can only go so far. While “Regretting You” and “The Love Hypothesis” are admittedly both full of rather predictable tropes, “The Love Hypothesis” just does a better job and utilizes much more exciting subplots and characters in order to carry these out. 

Instead of: “November 9”

Try: “Mistakes Were Made” by Meryl Wilsner

“November 9” was written with the intent of telling a story of two unlikely lovers who meet at the worst possible time, and what could have been a one-time moment soon becomes a long-distance love affair. Meryl Wilsner executed this intent beautifully with her raunchy rom-com “Mistakes Were Made,” and her two alternating narrators (and unlikely lovers) Cassie and Erin are a thousand times more likable than Fallon and Ben. When Cassie, a final-semester college student, goes to breakfast with her friend Parker in order to meet Parker’s single mom, she doesn’t expect to see the woman she hooked up with at a bar the previous night. Erin, Parker’s mother, is equally shocked to see Cassie the next day. Cassie and Erin’s little fling becomes an entire affair when Parker invites Cassie to stay at her home over winter break, and when the next semester starts, this long-distance affair becomes a full-on relationship. “Mistakes Were Made” not only executes this theme with queer people (something Colleen Hoover would never dream of doing), but it involves adorable side characters and much more relatable subplots. 

Instead of: “Ugly Love”

Try: “The Masterpiece” by Fiona Davis

“Ugly Love” has promise at first, being written with the intent of portraying the theme of allowing yourself to grieve the past in order to move forward with the future. However, if you want to read a book with this theme that doesn’t contain the sentence, “We both laugh at our son’s big balls,” turn to “The Masterpiece” by Fiona Davis. “The Masterpiece” is based on the story of artist Helen Dryden, whose work was mainly lost to history. The story follows two separate narratives fifty years apart from each other. The first narrative is set in 1928 and is centered around Clara Darden, an artist teaching classes at the Grand Central School of Art who is determined to have her work recognized despite being a female artist. The second narrative is set in the 1970s and is centered around a woman named Virginia who works in the Grand Central information booth and discovers a watercolor painting that catapults her into a mystery of lost art and the elegance beneath the now-decaying Grand Central Station. Eventually, the two narratives intertwine and become a story of recovering and grieving the past in order to move forward properly with the future (and yes, there are romantic subplots as well). The element of historical fiction adds a level of depth that “Ugly Love” doesn’t quite have, and the characters are, yet again, much more likable and relatable. And no, there are no inappropriate references to baby’s bodies in “The Masterpiece.” 

Realistically, all of us literature lovers are just looking for stories to read and fall into, so we may as well expand beyond the works of just one prolific author. Plenty of readers choose not to support her work because of her public behavior, and yes, her work is rather flaccid, but there’s no shame in being curious about her books. However, these alternative titles are a thousand times more likely to satisfy any reader. They are much richer works of fiction than any Colleen Hoover novel, and not one of them is uncomfortable to read. #Booktok will only show you so much, after all. 

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