Biography

Colleen Hoover is an American writer whose name is known far beyond the borders of the United States of America. Her works become bestsellers and occupy leading positions in the ratings created by the New York Times. Some of the author’s books have received awards and prizes. Colleen Hoover specializes in writing young adult novels. The work “Ugly Love” is at the stage of adaptation for film adaptation.

Childhood and youth:

Colleen was born on December 11, 1979 in the Texas town of Sulfur Springs. The girl grew up with two sisters on a dairy farm and did not shy away from traditional household chores. She milked cows and took care of chickens and pigs. Like many children, Hoover dreamed of owning a horse, but her parents had other plans.

Colleen lived in nature for a short time. Soon the family moved to Saltillo. In 1998, the girl graduated from a local school and entered college. Her personal life developed rapidly. Hoover managed to marry a high school friend and had children by the age of 20. During this period, she tried to realize herself in the field of journalism, but she was unable to fully devote herself to the profession due to the appearance of a family.

Colleen completed a social work course at Texas Commerce University and worked for a time in child welfare services. She had pedagogical courses under her belt, the completion of which gave the girl the opportunity to take up teaching. Hoover felt that she was doing the wrong thing because she had difficulty communicating with children.

Books:

Colleen Hoover wrote her first novel, The Keys to Your Heart, in 2012 to please her mother. She published her debut literary work on an Internet site for aspiring authors. Since then, her biography has been closely intertwined with her writing. The book became the founder of a literary series, which included “Return to Love”, “This Girl” and other works. It topped the New York Times rankings and became the 8th best-selling book of the year.

Soon the author’s bibliography was replenished with a new cycle. It includes the novels “Without Hope,” “Hope Lost,” and “Find Cinderella.” Experts call these works the main ones in the writer’s work. This assumption was made by the analytics of the Amazon.com website. The author gave the third book listed to readers as a bonus for the support she received from her fans.

Personal life:

Colleen Hoover is happily married. Her husband’s name is Heath. The couple met when the girl was 16 years old. It was love at first sight, which Colin and Heath managed to carry through the years. In 2004, children appeared in the family – twins Cale and Bex. In the interview, Colin speaks tenderly about his wife, emphasizing that her feelings for him do not subside.

Before writing novels, Colleen preferred the historical genre and read nonfiction. Now she has time to get acquainted with modern novels in order to know current trends. The writer loves diverse music, but her priorities include Pink, Eminem, Avett Brothers, etc.

Colin prefers fast food and loves Pepsi-Cola. She is a fan of social networks and invites fans not to be shy and subscribe to her accounts. The Instagram profile contains many personal photos, quotes, book posters and pictures that allow you to get to know Colleen a little better.

Colin Hoover now:

Hoover’s bibliography includes dozens of works. At the end of 2018, a book called “Verti” was published, and already in 2019, Russian readers saw the work “Anything is possible in love” on store shelves. It is curious that the novel was published in the USA back in 2015.

Now Colleen works a lot, but, according to the author, she is an absent-minded person and does not plan her literary activity as something systematic. Hoover does not like being called an author, because this removes the touch of romanticism from her profession, turning it into commonplace.

Bibliography:

2012 – “The Keys to Your Heart”
2015 – “Lost Hope”
2015 – “Maybe one day”
2015 – “Admit it”
2017 – “Too Late”
2018 – “Ugly Love”
2019 – “Anything is possible in love”

20 facts about Colleen Hoover:

(according to the author)

1) The most obvious. I’m addicted to Diet Pepsi

2) I hate polystyrene foam. Very.
3) I live on a lake, but I’m afraid of water.
4) I take great care of my pens (ballpoint pens). In fact, there is only one pen that I love.
5) I have two sisters. One is completely opposite to me. Another mixture of the two of us. I love them both.
6) I met my husband when I was sixteen years old, and we got married when I turned twenty. I’m 34 now, so I’ve been with him for over half my life. I really like him . He’s neat.
7) The word “author” scares me. It turns writing a book into work, and I never wanted to feel like I was working.
8) I am forgetful, disorganized, frivolous, and aloof. I have no idea how I find it in myself to finish a book and have it make sense and appeal to the reader.
9) I’m terrible at booking flights. I screw up every flight I book, so I’m not allowed to book any more flights. The last flight I booked – I was able to buy a ticket to New York for Friday, and a return ticket for Thursday (before I flew to New York). This is somewhat impossible without a time jump.
10) I love music. The Airborne Toxic Event and the Avett Brothers are the top two favorites right now.
11) I do not write to teach, inform or impress. I write to entertain. I hope this works.
12) I had never read a romance novel before I wrote Keys to Your Heart. By then I was pretty much sticking to non-fiction, true crime and biographies. Now I barely have enough time to read, but when I have it, rest assured, I read a modern novel.
13) I think Harry Connick Jr. is neat. Really neat.
14) I hate my cell phone. He makes me worry and I often hide him from myself.
15) Because of #14 – I am a really crappy friend. I’m hard to find and kind of unreliable. I’m not proud of it, but that’s who I am.
16) I grew up on a dairy farm, milking cows every weekend. We had chickens and pigs and cows, but never horses. My dad told us that we didn’t have enough land to own horses, but now that I’m an adult, I realize that wasn’t true. We had a lot of land for horses. I don’t regret that we never had a horse. No. Not at all.
17) I hate shopping. I REALLY hate it. This gives me anxiety.
18) I love going to the cinema. I love movies, even if the movie sucks.
19) I’m unemotional, I’m not a romantic at all. The fact that I write romance novels that make a lot of people cry is really weird.
20) Reading this list makes me sound like a terrible, forgetful, worry-ridden person. In reality I’m normal.

Latest reviews of the author’s books:

Alice..

After reading Verity’s Secret Diary, I decided without hesitation to continue my acquaintance with the author, thinking that other works would be just as excellent. Alas, the expectation was not justified.

I love mysticism in books, but here I was not ready for it and until the end of the story I had a rather contradictory feeling. I was quite annoyed by, let’s say, the rule of this world in terms of ghosts. I couldn’t wrap my head around how Willow had the strength to calmly drag objects around, as if she were corporeal, but invisible, and at the same time never tried (couldn’t?) to manifest herself somehow materially. And this thought did not leave me until the very end. And the detective, who seems to be supposed to help with the problem, also turns out to be a rather difficult character.
I have very mixed feelings about Leeds. Even though everything falls into place at the end, he surprises me for most of the story. It’s so easy to exchange a loved one for something incomprehensible and incorporeal. He spent so much time deceiving Lila, without really caring how she felt. And in general he is some kind of amoebic.

Most of the plot was uninteresting to me, but I have to give credit to the ending, it is very good, the author has a good ending. This is the only reason I give it a higher rating.

I already had one acquaintance with Colleen Hoover and it was not the most successful. But this book is considered the best by the writer and I decided to give it a chance, especially since its volume is modest. Well, if you call a book a thriller, that doesn’t make it a thriller. It’s a romance novel with a bit of a thriller element where I ended up on the wrong side of it.
Everything is bad in Luan’s life – her mother died, books are not selling, there is no money. For the first time in a long time, she goes to a business meeting and right in front of her, a man is hit and killed at the crosswalk. All in panic, hysteria and blood, she runs to a nearby cafe to clean herself up, and there she meets a man who, out of the kindness of his heart, shares his shirt with her. Now, in one try, guess who the customer she is dating will be? Yes, yes, this same guy who is all so chic, sexy and everything. And the order, by the way, is that Luan is offered to finish a series of thrillers, which was started by Jeremy’s wife, the famous writer Verity Crawford, since she became a vegetable after the accident. Luan, of course, begins to break down, but quickly agrees (no matter how she convinces the reader of her simplicity, she will not miss hers). So Luan ends up at the Crawford house and stumbles upon Verity’s autobiography, and it completely changes everything.
The problem with the book for me was that there were too many things that irritated me. Starting with Luan, who is all in a white coat, so good and perfect. Okay, you read in the diary that Verity didn’t want children, but when she became pregnant, there was no question of any abortion because of her husband. Even after giving birth, she could not fall in love with the twins, but she could not talk about it, because “A woman cannot help but love children.” But I understand Verity. I myself don’t like children and I’m not sure that I’ll ever want to have them. But Luan immediately calls Verity a psychopath and begins to feel sorry for Jeremy, who got such a monster as his wife. But what she does in the final simply deserves a checkmate. Sorry, but I think she did it purely to get a man.
Another annoying thing is the sex scenes. I don’t like erotic novels, it’s simply not interesting to me. And here, it seems, the genre is not the same, but there are a lot of descriptions of these scenes that are out of place. The most powerful was some pose during which Luan bit the wooden headboard of the bed out of passion. And she doesn’t mind her teeth.
And the cherry on the cake is the finale. Seriously, all this build-up about Verity ended in a page and a half!? This is some kind of joke, right? Because it cannot be that all 15 chapters of the autobiography and a bunch of suspicions led to a denouement for 5 minutes. It’s like a balloon burst
There is also an epilogue in my book, which is not in the Russian edition (I specifically checked it) and it shows how right I was in my suspicions. The ending shows “this is a twist”, as a result of which the reader must decide for himself who is right, but the epilogue confirms that there is more truth in the letter than Luan would like. And honestly, she deserved everything she got. It’s true, she fought – she got it. Now there’s nothing to complain about.
This concludes my acquaintance with Colleen Hoover for good. Even if she writes dark fantasy, I won’t be able to believe her. Because a writer of romance novels, she is a writer of romance novels and it comes out of all the cracks.
#usosedabetter extra 3 I took the book from @zablutshaya, although I was going to read it before

Marty Book:

Choose your truth 🙌
▫️▫️▫️
“I was good at talking nonsense. That’s why I became a writer.”
▫️▫️▫️
Lowen receives a very controversial offer, which he wants to refuse at the very first minute, but curiosity is too strong a feeling. And the girl is tight with money, so Lowen agrees, although he is drowning in doubts. Now the girl has to live in a large, dark mansion, delve into the notes of the famous writer Verity Crawford and write a book based on these notes.

Why doesn’t Verity finish her novel herself? Because after an accident, a young and very successful woman is bedridden. She no longer has control over her body and over her thoughts.

In the process of this work, Lowen will find something that she should not have seen and plunge into the secrets of the Verity family. Is everything written in Verity’s secret diary true? And if true, isn’t it dangerous to stay in this house? Run, that’s what I would advise the main character, but who will hear me 🤷🏼‍♀️

I once read the author’s books and was extremely disappointed with them, so I took on this one without expecting anything good. I’m glad it turned out quite well in the end. Of course, there were moments that caused bewilderment and I sincerely did not understand why they were there and for what, but overall I really enjoyed it. Immediately after reading it, I was wildly delighted, but a month later the emotions subsided.

This is what I can say for sure: if you are attacked by a non-cheater, then this book will help you fight him off. I (no joke) could not sleep because I wanted to know how all this madness would end. Atmosphere in the novel – 🔥😱

But what the author really went overboard with was the abundance of sex scenes and the love story.

After reading the book, I was recommended another novel by the author – Layla’s First Death. I hope he’s even better.

Sonya Kantor:

A story about simple truths that are too often forgotten.
The first chapter of the book seemed promising and I thought it promised a light and funny love story. Quinn comes to visit her fiancé, wanting to make a surprise, and meets an unfamiliar guy at the door of the apartment. The two of them sit on the landing and chew Chinese food, listening to their new exes selling their love behind the wall. I don’t know how it is for anyone, but to me this beginning seemed like a funny prologue to an easy and pleasant love story.
But the second chapter shattered my expectations. Quinn and Graham have been married for seven years and during this time they have already despaired of having a child. They tried all natural and not so natural remedies, but the result was zero. And Quinn, because of these failures, became literally obsessed with the thought of having a child – she deleted her accounts on networks because everyone there talks about pregnancy and children and thereby breaks her heart, she cannot simply enjoy her relationship with her husband, not counting the days until ovulation or not feeling guilty that Graham never became a father, and will soon leave for a woman who can give him a child. She suffers, and then she is killed, and then she is ashamed, and then she gets angry, and then she suffers again. And yet, Graham, the same guy from the stairwell who loved her from the first date, is still trying to save his crumbling marriage. But even the most patient and loving man cannot read thoughts and feelings, and Quinn doesn’t even think about sharing them, anyway, she knows her husband’s answer in advance.
Throughout the entire book (except for a dozen pages at the very end), the reader is in Quinn’s head. And for me it was pure torture. This woman’s whole world revolves around one desire, and endless twisting and thinking. She hears a phrase that it would be appropriate for Graham to become a father and concludes that she needs to leave him, because she is not allowing him to realize his calling. Graham wants to make love, and right during the act she counts how many days are left until ovulation. She considers the only problem of marriage to be the inability to give birth, and not at all the lack of adequate conversations and the reluctance to understand the partner at least a little. And yes, I probably don’t understand her suffering, I hardly dream of children, but still she goes too far, regardless of the scale of the problem. She would like to go to a session with a psychotherapist and work through her fixation, but she doesn’t believe in therapy, because such a specialist will not make her pregnant, and she doesn’t see any other ways. By the way, they cannot simply adopt a child because of Graham’s criminal record, but no one has canceled the paid options.
For me, this book was saved by only two things:
1, Graham is the image of an ideal, but real man who, out of love, was ready to endure anything. I don’t think many in his place would have fought to the end.
2. Final. Oh, how I was afraid that everything would come down to the banal ending that suggests itself here. But the author decided to choose a different path and I thank her for that.
But there were a few more things I didn’t like:
1. Quinn’s image. The quintessence of all those feminine values that make my teeth ache. In life, I would not be able to communicate with such a person.
2. Lack of a different perspective. I’d love to read more about Graham’s perspective or Sister Quinn’s or whoever’s perspective. This could show that the whole problem is not in Quinn’s physical condition, but in her head.
3. The author tries so hard to touch the reader’s heartstrings that it didn’t touch me at all. I never understood where I needed to shed tears because every review talks about how hard this book is and how many tears were shed over it.
4. Problem solving turned out to be too simple. Well, a marriage falling apart cannot be saved by a heart-to-heart conversation alone, although this is also an important part of the solution.
I think Colleen Hoover is a pretty good writer, but not my type. I don’t like slice-of-life romance novels; they have too much drama for me. But still, thanks to her for reminding me once again – a woman can be a woman without having children, and in marriage you can also be fulfilled without them. And yes, the next time you want to mentally ask, “When will there be children?” , bite your tongue – it’s none of your business, no matter what the answer is.