Don't listen to him - he IS sitting on books, because as we all know, Krimson's entire house is made out of books, including the floor!

"Hoover writes about boys who get the girl when they should get the chair." That put a big ass grin on my face because this man is made of poetry and comedy or a hybrid of both!

"She left me because I slept with her best friend; my personality had nothing to do with it." is a very funny line

"I don't care about your scars" goes from sweet to insulting when said by the person who created the scars.

Let's break down that poem in the beginning. "I am translucent, aquatic." So you can see through him, he's flowing like water. Water is clear. He's kinda like an open book, nothing to hide. He's honest and he's gonna tell you how he feels. "Drifting, aimless." But he got no direction in life, no purpose. "She is an anchor, sinking in my sea." So even though he's drifting aimlessly, she steps into the picture and becomes his anchor, a representation of stability in the wild, troubled waters of life. So in summary, it's about pegging.

You're not sitting on a full throne of books?! No, good sir, you sit on a throne of lies.

Alright, I have to say something about 3:02:25, where CoHo writes that Fallon received *FOURTH* degree burns to 30% of her body. A 4th degree burn means that the flames burned, not only through all of her skin, but into the fat and muscle underneath. 4th degree burns are very rarely survivable, because the damage is so extensive and causes so much interruption to homeostasis that it can very easily trigger multiple organ failure. If Fallon received a 4th degree burn to the face or neck, she would absolutely still be in the hospital receiving multiple reconstructive surgeries two years after the fire. She would not simply have scars, she would have had to receive skin grafts, she almost certainly would have been dealing with multiple infections, she almost certainly would have required a trachea tube to breathe through. And if we're to believe she received 4th degree burns to her arm, they would have almost certainly amputated her arm. It would be non-functional. Her breast would not have simply been scarred, either. She probably would have lost it entirely. People who receive 3rd degree burns to a significant portion of their body have to constantly wear pressure garments over their burn area, especially if it's on the face at all, in order to keep the scars from becoming massively raised and welted. They also require extensive physical therapy for years after their injury, and they generally have to receive multiple surgeries over the years. They suffer from excruciating nerve pain that sometimes even heavy duty narcotics don't touch. And those people still have all of their musculature intact. A 4th degree burn is going to cause extensive muscle damage, meaning loss of limb functionality and years of physical therapy. If CoHo wanted to write about a character suffering from extensive burns, it really would not take much research. There are people on the Internet who have documented their experiences as burn victims and what they deal with on a daily basis. I would hope even her editor would flag that the idea of someone with 4th degree burns over 1/3 of their body would not be able to function the way Fallon does throughout this story. Honestly, though, the idea of a thriller where a woman has to have a limb amputated and dealing with the fallout of that level of life altering injury, only to be manipulated into falling in love with the man who ultimately caused her injuries, and then getting some sweet revenge on his horrible ass, is actually really cool. The feeling the reader would get when they realize that this guy they thought was so sweet and charming throughout the book was actually an ice cold psychopath would be insane! It would be very true to many people's experiences of realizing that the person they fell in love with was a total facade and never existed at all, and that when their partner went "mask off", that was their true self all along.

"I don't want to traumatize my kids by making them watch me go through chemotherapy, so I'll just abruptly unalive myself, surely they'll be okay after that"

With context, that opening scene is absolutely disgusting. Ben is literally thinking "Hey there's that girl who I burned alive and left horribly scarred, I wonder if she's wearing a thong?"

I think writers like Hoover took the wrong lessons from Pride and Prejudice. In Pride and Prejudice, she doesn't forgive him because he's a horrible person. That's not how causality works. She forgave him after she found out that a lot of the horrible stuff about him wasn't true, and he was trying to actively make amends for the horrible stuff he did do. Most romance authors seem to completely forego the "making amends" part nowadays and go straight to the forgiveness part, which is where most of the problems come from.

I think Hoover heard the term "slow burn" and wrote this book without ever asking what it actually meant💀 Also, my condolences for Leia :(

I remember at a summer program a few years back a girl had a colleen hoover book with her and we would read passages out loud in our cabin and just get so frustrated about how fucking insane the characters were. Like just a group of 16-year-old girls yelling "JUST FUCKING LEAVE HIM" at a book.

"Grab my boob, Ben." "God he's so telepathic." I wanted to tear my hair out of my scalp hearing that.

bro really said, out loud, "you seem insecure so i'm gonna take advantage of that to get some." brilliant writing, colleen. very romantic.

I can't believe Hoover would make Fallon's mother be like "You weren't the only one scarred by the fire." Like that's the most unrealistic garbage. If my mother knew I had been retraumatized by the person who set me on fire and left me horrible burned, she would be in jail because she would have hunted him down and murdered him. What mother is like "Oh, yeah, sure, he set the house on fire, nearly killed you, and left you horribly burned, but because he didn't turn away from the scars on you THAT HE CAUSED you should show him some respect of reading this." Like what the hell?!

"Blue balls but in my stomach not in my balls" is the greatest piece of literature I've ever seen

"If you're packing underwear, that means you don't go commando. So by process of elimination. I've figured out that you're currently wearing a thong." Batman and Holmes have been real quiet ever since this behemoth took the stage.

Person with OCD here. I feel it important to repeatedly point out that OCD does not mean neat-freak/germaphobe, it denotes a need to perform certain rituals/behaviors or having repetitive thoughts and fixations, usually to establish some artificial security and alleviate anxiety. Someone with OCD may be compelled to never clean an object or even themselves or subconsciously touch things even if they consciously know it’s harmful. Not saying compulsions never involve cleaning but it’s just such an old stereotype and it’s pervasive, to the point it’s just a flippant comment, “oh you’re slightly more organized that average, lol you’re so OCD.” It’s worse now that people say it about themselves as if it’s some fun quirk, not a potentially debilitating mental illness. This is a rant but this issue is something that vexes me constantly.

"To kiss the scars I gave her" - that qyote gave me serious chills

My non-fan theory is that Ben daydreamed the ending, was woken up by the wait staff, and asked to leave the restaurant so they could close up.

The fact that her son allegedly assaulted a minor makes an.. alarming amount of sense considering the subject matter she writes about, and _how_ she writes about it.

Summary of all CoHo books: Toxic man doesn't need therapy, just a good door mat willing to put up with his abuse for a while in hopes of fixing him and eventually getting a happy ending. I despise CoHo's books and how they're marketed to teens and young adults. They're a great example of romanticizing toxic relationships by making the abuse seem normal and like an act of love/infatuation ("oh, he just stalks you because he's excited and likes you. Teehee what a quirky guy!" Or "He tries to control your choices and life because he knows what best for you and is just trying to help, you silly stupid girl 💅 Can't you see he's a keeper?") without the books or author really acknowledging it's abuse in the first place.

You literally lit me on fire, ruined my relationship with my dad, ruined my career twice if we count me moving back here to be with you, stalked me, manipulated the hell out of every situation possible, and the first time you saw me after seeing the damage you did you immediately started musing about my underwear but you have a sad mom story so 🎉soulmates🎉

"No I should be sorry for being so flammable!"

If only she wrote her 'romances' as thrillers, she'd be a billionaire and have better reputation. Can't imagine reading her books as a love story lol its like being in the mind of a stockholm syndrome victim

The reveal of the book throne being on the floor shook me more than anything in the actual review ever could. I always knew Coho's content was suspect, but the throne... I am a changed woman.

There were so many lines that were nearly verbatim from past *exceptionally* abusive relationships I've been through. Absolutely a thriller, but like if the ending was a delusion for what the main antagonist thinks should have happened. Edit: New headcanon. She died in the fire, and each Nov 9th is just his guilt ridden delusions and fantasies. It would explain so much.

There's one very easy, very simple change to make for a romance between Fallon and Ben to make sense. Ben didn't set the fire, he pulled her from it, saving her life, not caring if he lived or died after his mother committed suicide but thinking that this innocent girl deserved to live. His family was furious with him for putting himself in danger and nearly losing a son after losing a mother, but Fallon is in tears upon learning because she thought no one came back to save her. Cliche, yes. Stupid, yes. Convoluted, yes. But at least he's not an arsonist in this.

The fact that he started the fire really changes how it reads when he's like "You being horribly burned isn't the problem! All of your problems are YOUR fault!" Takes it from "pretty insensitive but I could forgive it, I guess" to "absolutely bone-chilling serial killer shit"

Ben: "I especially hate yogurt that pretends to be ice cream". Krimson: "And I took that personally".

Are we absolutely certain Hoover didn't like...get in deep with the mob and get forced to publish a novel written by the boss' creepy 4channer son in order to keep her legs? This shit is INSANE

“You were only sixteen.” Yeah…no offense Fallon, but there are plenty of guys out there, who even at that particular age, wouldn’t even dream of setting someone else’s property on fire in general (let alone specifically their car or house) out of pure malicious intent…

"Fallon" is such a weird and distracting name for a main character. Every time KR said her name I pictured Jimmy Fallon in a Wendy's mascot pigtail wig

I already hated Ben for all the obvious reasons in the story, but the fact that he hates frozen yogurt is an irredeemable crime

I don’t know how Crimson reads some of these lines straight. I have to pause like six times in one sentence because the cringe becomes overwhelming. He truly is a master of word.

Kyle: "Nah fuck you little bro, get bullied" Most older siblings: "There's someone besides ME picking on my little sibling?! Oh they FUCKED UP!"

2:51:25 "Fallon has, effectively, fallen for a younger version of her father." oh my god Freud was right

How to commit the perfect crime according to Hoover: Step one: set girls house on fire. Step two: stalk that girl until you feel horny enough to approach her. Step three: gaslight, gatekeep, girl boss her into falling in love with you and hope that she never presses charges.

Honestly as a writer looking at this from the outside, a way that CoHo could have made the forgiveness angle work is if what Ben did was an actual genuine accident versus him going out of his way to smash his mother's boyfriend's car set it ablaze. Like imagine he was GOING to do it, but instead of actually doing it, he just yells "FUCK!" and throws a lit cigarette on the ground, but the cigarette accidentally lit some dried brush on the side of the house on fire and it goes up in seconds. Ben tries to put it out with a garden hose but it grows too fast and in a panic, calls 911 and leaves the scene. And when he found out Fallon got burned, he's so overcome with guilt that he has to find some way to make things right.

Seeing BookTubers tear into CoHo is so cathartic to me as a bookseller. I see *so many* customers gush over her books and I just don't get it. Most, if not all, seem to promote the most toxic, unhealthy relationships. Plus, her characters suck and never act like real people. They're like dolls she just has act out the plot. Also I'm sorry about your kitty. I've lost several pets so I know how rough it is. She's waiting for you over the rainbow bridge. RIP Leia ❤

Leia was a great cat and you gave her a great life. I just wish I could thank her for making me smile.

my world shattered when i learned that krimson actually isn't sitting on throne of books

I’ll give her this: she writing teenagers and has managed to actually WRITE like a teenager. Impressive!

I read Collen Hoovers "It Ends with Us", everyone was reccomending it on booktok. It was the shittiest thing I'd ever read. I was really enjoying it, the way she describes an abuse victim is very accurate; moreso the cycle of abuse the whole "this person would never hurt me" then coming to the realisation that they can, they will and they won't bother to change for you. Then at the end where it basically skips over all that and is like "Oh but hes an amazing father and we coparent amazingly and blah blah blah so sad we divorced but it was ME setting him off", just YUCK. Edit; Also the fact that the male lead repeatedly said he didn't want kids then repeatedly had unprotected sex he was a DOCTOR apparently.

Her asking for HIS forgiveness was what pissed me off the absolute most, not only lets Fallon this dude get away with ruining her life, but she asks him to forgive HER for how SHE treated HIM.. are you actually kidding me Colleen Hoover? just say you hate women we all know you do

I've heard others describe Colleen Hoover as "books for people who never had their middle school Wattpad phase", and I think that sums it up nicely. If you grew up going to that site, a lot of this isn't very shocking and generic. But if you had never gone through that phase, then a lot of this seems a lot more shocking and taboo, making those people want to read her books more. Plus, her writing is quite easy to read. If you haven't picked up a book since high school or just aren't a huge reader in general, then they are easy to get through. I wouldn't be surprised if those things are a huge factor in why her books are so popular. But, that doesn't mean that I ever like them, since all of the male protagonists are pieces of shit along with everything else. If I wanted to get my spicy fix, I'll stick with Katee Roberts or shit I find on AO3. If I want to read something in general, I'll read just about anything else.

I think there could be a world where "boy inadvertently causes something that scars girl for life and they connect over the pain and regret of it all" works, but like... If you're dead set on that idea, it should be a car accident, not a house fire. A house fire is so much more personal than a car crash. If someone causes a house fire, that means they destroy everything-all your worldly possessions, the things and people you care about, the memories that it holds. It doesn't matter that he *only* meant to set Donovan's car on fire, it was still a vindictive act and makes it impossible to sympathize with his pity party. You can lose a lot in a car crash, don't get me wrong, but a car is inherently more transient. You exist in a car but for moments at a time. So using that in a story like this would stress the impermanence of life and the twists of fate-how individual moments can make all the difference. Even if you make him run from the car crash after, it doesn't inherently make him an unsympathetic monster. Ben and Fallon were 16 at the time of the tragedy. It's entirely reasonable that Ben, a stupid teenager who's been driving for less than a year, can cause a major accident that kills someone and severely injures another person while managing to come out of it (mostly) unscathed. Ben peeling away from the wreck in fear, being consoled/scared straight by his brother, him waiting for any news coverage from the event only to learn that damage was worse than he could possibly imagine... it makes Ben's reaction to causing a house fire feel like a joke by comparison. There'd be depth to that story! From the way the house fire reveal was done here, it makes Ben look malicious, and Fallon has *no* reason to think otherwise, and that's what the reader is primed to believe as well. But if that line was about causing the accident, we'd be invited to speculate on things; why the wreck happened, how he might have felt at the time, whether or not that matters in the way we perceive him now. And regardless of our answer, Fallon's given the same dilemma, so she can feel conflicted about her feelings towards him rather than completely (and justifiably) being disgusted by him immediately. This would come with a whole host of rewrites, obviously. Just off the top of my head: Ben and Donovan don't need to come in contact at all-you can still have Ben's mom take matters into her own hands, and then have him try to run from the problem as far and as fast as he can. Instead of tailing Donovan and just so happening to run into Fallon, maybe he tried to seek her out to apologize for what he's done, but gets cold feet because he couldn't stomach facing the consequences of his actions. Don't get me wrong, it'd still be unsettling, but it makes Ben a character first and a love interest second. As it's written, Ben basically doesn't know Fallon exists; he heard a girl was in critical condition, but then he forgets about her until the exact moment they meet. And his first thoughts are, and I quote: "*pant* *pant* *pant* AWOOGA" Make his attraction to her gradual, let them be friends before they get physical. The second scene between a fire survivor and the person who accidentally caused it should not be him changing her so they can go to dinner. You can still have him be flirty if that's just who he is-make it lighthearted at first before making his words more genuine-but for the love of god, don't give him multiple paragraphs about wanting to know what panties she's wearing. AND DON'T MAKE THAT BE THE THING THAT ATTRACTS HER TO HIM IN THE FIRST PLACE!!!

“Large manuscript revealing a massive twist about one of the characters that may or may not be fictional” is a crutch Hoover has done at least twice, the same thing happened in Verity.

I'm from Germany and November 9th is actually a date where a lot happened here, some terrible things like the "Reichsprogromnacht" where a lot of jewish people were killed, but on November 9th also the Berliner Wall fell, but we don't celebrate that since the aforementioned also happened on the same day some years prior. That's why when I saw the title of the Colleen Hoover book in book stores the last thing I thought about was a romance story tbh

Honestly, if there was a sequel where we find out she's playing him in an attempt to get revenge and burn down everything he holds dear to him, I would be here for it.

As someone who likes to involve all her senses, to hear about Fallon having a juxtaposing experience with her scars was intriguing to me. Because with her sense of touch, they're soft and velvet-like and she likes them that way - to me that makes sense because the warping is, aesthetically, a pleasing experience in that regard. But when she looks at them, they're visually warped, ugly, and not aesthetically pleasing, and a reminder of her trauma in a much more visceral manner. I'm not surprised but sorely disappointed Hoover didn't go into detail about how awful and painful her burns must have been. That is something that sticks with you for life, and two years after the initial onset is a miniscule timeframe to be totally cool with it. Like surely it took months, if not an entire year, for Fallon to heal physically. So for her to be pretty mentally kosher a year after that is disappointingly lacking in realistic character.

I'm just so mad at the "Kyle is a good older brother because he let his little brother get bullied" thing. My younger brother was pretty good at taking care of himself, probably could handle himself better than I could help him even though I was a few years older. But one day on the bus a kid got pissed off and threw himself at my brother to punch him in the face. My reaction speed normally isn't great, but in an instant I had grabbed hold of the kid and pinned him to the seat and gave him an earful that the whole bus could hear. I don't even remember what I said, beyond "what the hell is wrong with you?" or something to that effect. It's not important. The point is, even though in my thinking brain I know my younger brother was more than capable of taking care of himself against the little twerp who came at him, in the moment if you mess with my brother there will be no hesitation on my part. I will stop you. Sure, it's good for people to learn how to handle things themselves, but we don't let people come to harm in the hopes that they'll figure it out eventually. God, as an eldest sibling Kyle just makes me so mad.

An incel fantasy… written by a woman. How does someone mess up that badly? Well only one way to find out. Edit: Oh that's how. Yikes! Also, RIP Leia.

If I ever met Ben in real life he'd end up with a restraining order within 5 minutes of knowing him. 🤢

Yes Ben confessed, after the statute of limitations expired. Deliberately setting out to lead someone along and then confessing to a major crime against them after you can no longer be prosecuted is awful. Edit to add: Hoover seems to write all of her stories with older characters in mind. Not much older, but like mid to late twenties. But then she ages them down 5-6 years and it just gets weird.

1:55:00 as someone who studied civil aviation I can tell you that, you aren't allowed to get off the plane after boarding. The crew has more than enough reasons to think you left a bomb or something dangerous like that in there. If you insist on leaving, it can get very complicated. In some cases they might have to unload the whole plane, match the baggages with their owners, and do a through search in the plane to make sure it's safe. This can cause hours of delay or even cancellation.

As someone who has had very visible facial scaring since I was a baby, I'm so exhausted by how many stories have scars as a flaw/deformity characters have to deal with or overcome. I know my experience is not universal and it definitely IS a valid story/character arc, but to have it every time? Eye rolling.

Imagine the grandkids asking Grandpa Ben how he met grandma Fallon “well kids, it is kinda a funny story. All started when I set your grandma on fire 😊” “Grandpa you are such a goofball! You can’t be serious 😅” “😊” *awkward silence*

"This is one small step for bad romance, one gigant leap for common logic" - Colleen Hoover upon writing the ending of November 9th

The moment Krimson went full ballistic when Fallon forgives Ben really shows how fucked this ending is Unreal, true fiction shit. Edit: R.I.P Leia. We will miss you, lil furball 😢

11:44 I know you mean 'Since I started working on this video', but it's much funnier to imagine that she published three additional books in the last eleven minutes.

Hi. Former protection order unit worker here. Protection orders/restraining orders get mixed up a lot, but they have similar processes to get them going. When you're filling out a protection order, there's a lot of legal stuff you have to go through. At least in my state, you needed at least two incidents of where the person you're filing against harassed you/did harm/put you in fear of your life. Usually needed their legal name, addresses they can be served at, and of course your information. Fallon would 100% put down that she was nearly killed in a fire if she wanted traction. (Although it usually has to be in a certain time frame if you want it to go anywhere). There's a lot of court and people ducking getting served (some courts will drop the case if the person can't be found/served after a certain amount of rescheduled hearings) And depending on how things go in front of the judge it could potentially go to trial, taking more time. It was pretty common for some people to wait almost a year for their orders to go through. Even if it did get granted, there was still people who would violate it because it was just a piece of paper. And the filer could drop it, too. (Which was common if there was children involved and both parties were parents) But this... Made me think of a lot of cases were obvious abuse victims dropped the orders. The job really burned me out. Sorry, just felt I could give some insight on the process of getting an ex parte.

This was written by someone who read all of One Piece and thought “my only complaint, Sanji doesn’t perform enough sex crimes”

Up until the big reveal I was like "sure, Ben is a bit of an intel, but within the context of romance tropes, I've seen worse, and she's an idiot too". But then it came the literal dumpster fire... HOW DO WOMEN FIND THIS ROMANTIC?! Also, Fallon's mom is the real villain here. She should be calling the police, not pushing her daughter in that psycho's arms!

I have to admit, the "I can read you like a book, and I believe that book is full of erotica" line made me laugh a bit. It's a shame it was probably meant to be genuinely romantic, and not a joke about how bad of a pickup line it would be.

Hoover sounds like a woman that would send love letters/marriage proposals to imprisoned serial killers.

Never got to do THIS before, but "speaking as a burn victim": Fallon having mixed feelings about her scars feels accurate, to a point. The scars really are stupid soft and almost hypnotic to feel and trace, but they're also ugly as sin. When I was little, I'd try to gross out or otherwise shock people with my scars. Scars that i got bullied for. They're equal parts badass, ugly/shameful, and an intimate part of myself. The problem is that characters aren't real people. Characters are supposed to have an arc, not just the mishmash of emotions real people have. Real people don't like their favorite foods because of symbolic themes to their story. So if the point of her mixed emotions was that she doesn't actually mind the scars, just what they represent, and these emotions are discussed and resolved by the end, that'd be fine. But based on how this review is going, I'd be shocked if that was the case. To just throw that detail in there without elaborating just muddies the story. Also, she got these two years ago? 25% of her body burned in a horrific accident just 2 years ago? I don't think she'd be handling this that well. The fact that she's still on any sort of speaking terms with her father is kinda astounding.

The sad thing is that colleen hoover literally wrote a whole book about her mother's abusive relationship and how she escaped the cycle and then goes ahead and writes THIS (and ugly love) with the same emotionally abusive men as Ryle.. There're so many people, especially young teenagers and even adults who read these and literally think this is the dream relationship. I honestly feel sorry for them that they haven't been educated enough to realise that this sort of relationship is absolutely horrendous. If you break it down a girl gets burnt and is insecure about her burns and no one helps her, then the arsonist who set the fire responsible for her burns tracks her down and pretends to be her boyfriend, and becomes so obsessed with her and trying to "fix her". Then she finds out he set the fire, but instead of turning him into the police she FORGIVES HIM? And even APOLOGISES for breaking his heart?? It sounds like a psychological horror book about a girl with mental issues and a crazed arsonist.

I'm sorry to hear about Leia. May she rest in peace.

The fact that her own mother shames her for not contacting Ben after reading that preposterous letter is so disappointing and disheartening. Also, your shirts are adorable.

Using "Ladybug" (we call them 'ladybirds' here in the UK) as a pet name for a burn victim is kinda sick... look up the poem, "Ladybird, Ladybird"... Ladybird, ladybird, fly away home! Your house is on fire, your children all gone,

This book reminded me of how much i hate it when characters "get over" their self hatred of things like scars just because their love interest says they like it, like they can't help themself they have to have somebody else "fix them" You know what a lover can make you get over? Things like a bad haircut, subble things like that, not physical scars. Of course a partner CAN help but theyre not going to fix it like romance makes it seem, you have to help yourself with that yourself if i make sense

It's disturbing how many books there are of these toxic relationships being framed as romantic. Especially since they're coming from female authors.

i know everyone sees their scars differently, but coho's introduction to fallon's scar feel so off to me. scars are something i've felt a lot more strongly about ever since i got my own ugly big scar from an event i don't like remembering. it's completely possible to write a character with complicated feelings about her scars and struggling with how she doesn't think of the scars how society says she should, but the way coho writes it is so disgustingly fetishistic. it reminds me of how onision writes about school shootings and abuse victims.

Ben: *says he can’t write romance because he doesn’t have experience* Me, who has never been on a date but nonetheless wrote a love story my friend described as “peak romance”: Sounds like a skill issue

I'm about 35 minutes into the video, but wanted to comment on the feeling of the scars before continuing. I'm not a burn victim, but I grew up with moderate to severe skin disorders. I was ashamed of my sores and scabs my entire childhood and adolescence, and was also always covering up my body, but once I became an adult, I eventually grew out of the worst of my skin disease, but with a lot of scarring. As for my scars themselves, it's strange, but I too unconsciously run my fingers along my scars. It's hard to explain, but the alternating bumpiness and smoothness of the scars is soothing somehow, almost comforting. Not sure if that helps any with explaining Fallon's actions, but had to put my 2 cents in. On with the rest of the video!!

finding out the twist really puts that first meeting into perspective. like, you meet the girl you lit on fire for the first time and the main thing on your mind is her boobs. class act😭

From all the videos about CoHo I’ve watched, I think her favourite word is “justify”. Coz that lady really just loves having women realise how “justified” their abusers were.

Colleen Hoover being dragged gives me life :) The only book I've read by her is "It Ends With Us," which is about a relationship that becomes violent (to put it mildly). From the beginning of the book, the male protagonist does creepy incel things like Ben does (doesn't take 'no' for an answer, objectification etc). Because I knew the book was about domestic violence I completely misread Hoover's intentions and I assumed it was meta commentary on how older "romance" narratives romanticized toxic actions that should be seen as red flags!!! Eventually, I realized that Hoover doesn't see those actions as red flags whatsoever and was simply romanticizing the toxicity. And in an interview included in the back of the book Hoover explicitly stated that she wanted readers to fall in love with Ryle (stfu, not a chance) for his romantic gestures (what? they were toxic af) just like Lily did. In the same interview, Hoover explained Ryle was loosely inspired by her father...

I gotta say - inserting random clips of shows as jokes doesn't normally work for me as they tend to just feel lazy and only vaguely relevant, but yours never fail to make me laugh out loud like a crazy person. They're always so incredibly specific and insane and intentional, and I respect that a lot. Kudos for that 👏👏👏

The biggest problem with Colleen Hoover as an author is that she markets her books as romances to teenage girls, particularly the demographic of tiktok which we know skews pretty young, and that demographic often can't understand how toxic the dynamics are. If her books were marketed and discussed as literary fiction describing abusive or unhealthy relationships that would be one thing but because they're discussed and marketed as romances and many times the abusive behaviors go unchallenged by the main character and the side character even more often, you have an entire demographic that genuinely things that those red flags are just character flaws that can be fixed or excused "because no one is perfect." We're just repeating the exact same mistakes that were made in the mid 2010s with twilight's unhealthy stalking and the manipulative love interests tricking mary sue mcs.

I love that Ben gave the equivalent of an “but did you die” speech to Falon

What I think is interesting is that her villain character in It Ends With Us is literally demonstrating the same behaviors as her other male leads

I found out about Colleen hoover through a girl I was interested in in college. She loves Colleen hoover books and so I decided to read November 9. I then promptly lost all romantic interest - red flag avoided

I've been crying laughing at "Her boobs. Both of them." All damn day, dude.

Ben perving over Fallon and shamelessly telling her that, thinking that would boost her self esteem....wow just wow

Something that really struck me about Ben's mom is that, statistically speaking, women don't go for firearms, they go for overdoses. (This is part of the reason why men's suicide rates tend to be much higher - overdoses are much easier to survive than a bullet.) The reasons tend to be for other people's benefit rather than efficiency: an overdose is much easier to clean up and far less traumatizing to walk into Granted, we don't know anything about the mother - she could have been someone who wanted to go out with a literal bang - but someone who has their kids' well-being as a reason for going through with a suicide does not sound like the kind of person who would pick a gun as the method But Hoover doesn't even think her main characters' personalities through, so I'm not surprised that she can't be bothered to consider a fridge

Honestly, this book reads like a thriller ESPECIALLY with the first poem. The way I read it it felt like a confession of a serial killer. Him being very cold and unchanging until this one event (the fire) brings her (an anchor) into his life and it ripples through. As anchors are usually symbolic of something that provides stability and safety he tries to cling to that but he fails since in his waters the anchor can only sink and decay withering at the bottom of the sea. Even the other poems felt like they were indicating a very obsessive love that would claim Fallon's life by the end. Are we sure Colleen wasn't writing a thriller at first here and then had her wires crossed with a cliche romance novel?

Can you imagine being someone's housemate/roommate and a person you've never met just charges through your living room to tell you that your housemate's underwear is red? Like I'd just send a text saying 'Hey... so... this new guy... I think he might be insane. Wink twice if you need help and I'll call the police.'

“I’m not actually sitting on books, I’m sitting on the floor” feels like it should be in a Top 10 Anime Betrayals, just above Griffith 😢

I think the reason why it has such a good rating on GoodReads is because her audience is on the younger side, therefore they can't really deconstruct the book. Hoover got her fame through TikTok. Even though I wasn't even on the book side of TikTok at the time, *I* still caught wind of it

I feel like the argument of "if Ben hated his mother even before she died, why was he so broken up about her death" is not a really valid argument. Losing a close family member is pretty much always painful and traumatic, especially if it's sudden and/or unexpected and/or deliberate (on their own part or on a hypothetical killer's). You lose the opportunity for closure, any chance to mend the rift between you or - to cut them off properly and give them a piece of your mind - is robbed from you. Especially when it's a parent, someone that you've been raised to understand was meant to care for you and provide for you, and you never got that from them - and now you never will. Of course, expecting them to have at some point turned around and become a better parent is hardly realistic, but we're talking about emotions here, and often the loss of a loathed parent is when it sinks in that you are *never* going to have what they denied you, that any hope you might've subconsciously clung to for the thing you desperately wanted them to give you, just died with them. And even-more-especially if the one who lost the family member is so young! Ben was 16 when this happened, if my understanding of the timeline is correct? That absolutely would've hurt him deeply no matter what his relationship with his mother. Add in the hormonal cocktail that is the teenage years, and yeah I don't think Ben's emotional response of "I hate her, why did she do this, I'm never going to get over losing her" is at all out of place. Maybe strange that he hasn't, at any point in the following years, recognized and explored those contradictory feelings to the point that he's able to parse them better, but only two years (again, at a pretty young age, all things considered) is definitely a small enough span of time that I could imagine him trying to grapple with this and still not having processed things thoroughly. That, or he just isn't good at writing this story and juggling his perspective - honestly, something I sometimes have difficulty with in writing is my bad habit of shifting perspectives. That's a writing flaw, but a believable one for a young writer. Or, it would be, if he was meant to be a bad writer, but the story seems to assert he's an incredible author and his book is unimaginably moving, so...

Three and a half hours of Krimson ripping into Colleen Hoover is EXACTLY what I needed today. Thank you king

I hate when Hoover's male protagonists are romanticised, when their behaviour gives off SEVERAL alarming red flags. At least Ryle from "It Ends with Us" was purposefully written to be abusive and controlling.

Yess, there is such a big difference between a book with immoral/bad characters that is framed as such and a book with immoral/bad characters that thinks they’re sweet.

The very best opening line I have ever written, that I'm still quite happy about is thus: "It was night, dark and cold, and he was a tee shirt." Certainly makes you go "Wait... what?"

I’m usually horrible at predicting plot twists, but as soon as the whole thing about Ben having some “dark secret” I was jokingly like, “OoOoOo he was the one who set the fire.” And as soon as there was some sort of drama around Ben’s mom I was thinking about how, “Secretly his mom and her dad were dating.” To put it lightly I am super disappointed that I was right. Several times in this video I actually laughed out loud at how absurd the character’s actions were because these 2 are weird as hell.

Gotta love Theodore immediately and randomly flipping to being a jerk because she didn't know how to write that scenario in a way where Ben looked like the better choice.

I have been thinking for the longest time that if Colleen changed her genre from romance to thriller or horror, it could actually be good.

I can see the basic outline of this maybe working, but there clearly were some execution problems. I feel like the biggest issue is probably how Ben acted in the first meeting. With the full context, those scenes become incredibly creepy. Well, more creepy than he already was. If he'd first stepped into Fallon's situation (even with the weird "I'm her boyfriend" thing) to help her, out of genuine niceness, guilt over burning her or even just disliking her dad, then tried to leave but Fallon kept talking to him, he agreed to help her with her luggage and they make the November 9 pledge as a non-romantic thing that later becomes romantic, I think it would be okay. He made a terrible decision that cost Fallon dearly, but he's either trying to make it up to her or is generally a decent person. That's an okay position to start with if the goal is for Fallon to eventually forgive him. The fact that we KNOW that he did it because he was horny makes all of this much worse - he didn't insert himself into Fallon's life to help her, but to help HIMSELF, and that appears to continue pretty much throughout the book. Almost nothing he does throughout the book is for her benefit - even his apology for the fire is mostly about him rather than her. I also think that an ending where Fallon decides to forgive him by telling him that she won't call the police, but she doesn't want to see him again, at least for a few more years, would work better. She could leave the door open to someday doing something, but not for a while. A little melancholy of an ending, but also not totally screwed up. The book should probably emphasize more the anger she feels towards her father over the fire that she believes he caused to have greater effect when the target of that anger shifts. For that matter, her father should be in this book way more, given that he is critical to the backstory and Ben even assigns her the homework of improving her relationship with him. As a minor point, her Sherlock Scan thing should definitely have returned every year as she tries to guess what Ben's life has been like. Bonus points if she's wrong half the time and the book plays that as a joke.