A complete history on my feud with Colleen Hoover 

the fact that a 16 YEAR OLD BOY was able to recognize problematic and abusive shit in a book written by an ADULT WOMAN. 💀💀💀💀💀💀💀💀💀💀💀💀💀💀

The fact there are ACTUAL Wattpad stories out there which have better plotline and stories than her book is honestly shocking.

colleens son abused a girl and when that girl came to colleen through messages to tell her colleen blocked her.. im not apologizing to colleen

Aside from her books being just terrible, Colleen Hoover has a problem with naming her characters the weirdest things. Benton, Atlas, Verity, Lily Blossom Bloom? Like bro 💀

when we were 13, my best friend read Ugly Love. She read it in about 2 days, and told me it was the worst book she ever read. Literally, she read me the quotes, and I thought she was reading a wattpad fanfiction. I told her Colleen has more books, and she almost cried. like, tearing up

Colleen Hover book lovers are people who didn’t read when they were younger and are now going through their wattpad phase at age 20

The fact that Colleen Hoover was paid real money for Lily Blossom Bloom but no one ever saw a PENNY for Ebony Dark’ness Dementia Raven Way

Tip for writers; you can write problematic stuff, just for the love of god don't advertise it as unproblematic because that's a bald faced lie that can and will get readers hurt

as a former 13yo wattpad writer (who was ironically born on november 9) the weird body swap au i started writing & never finished was better than this

okay but the fact that caleb was just a young boy and had more awareness than all the adults in the book community bullying him for disliking colleen hoover.....

i’ve read better books written by 15 year old ao3 authors than anything colleen hoover has ever made

to be honest, my biggest ick w colleen hoover is her writing style, she writes abt these suuper emotional things but her sentences are too simple and when you're reading abt her being pushed down the stairs its hard to really emote and feel for her because its like: I walk out of the door. Ryle follows me. What are you doing ryle? i ask. he pushes me. I fall. i am down the stairs (or smth like that i read the book a while ago) and its like how am i supposed to feel for her when these sentences are like 5 words long at most.

When Lily Blossom Bloom named her daughter after Dory (the fish) I knew I could not trust Booktok ever again

i’d feel so uncomfortable writing about my own mothers assault and abuse, then profiting off of it and turning it into a movie without her actually doing it with her own words. that’s just me though..

Abuse? Gaslighting? Sexual Assault? Yes. All the great qualities of a romance novel.

The biggest problems is that the books are labeled romance instead of just contemporary. Having a book about demotic abuse and toxic relationships is fine, but portraying it as romantic isn’t.

I’ve never read her books but after seeing the “we laugh at our son’s big balls” quote, I don’t think I ever will

Before I knew about Colleen Hoover and her crimes against literature, I was convinced by a booktok girly to buy one of her books at Barnes and Noble. i will neither forgive nor forget, SARAH.

Imagine having such power that you can literally call your character Lily Blossom Bloom and nobody fucking stops you. I want that much power

It’s sad that she’s been very open about the fact her mother was in an abusive situation and then writes characters in that situation but spins it as love. I honestly think she’s got trauma and dealing with it in one of the worst ways

Biggest flex is i have never picked up a Colleen Hoover book

the hate pepople had for a boy at the time for pointing out ABUSE and assault is insane...

You don't come across as a misogynist at all. In fact it's rare for a man to stand up against the internalized misogyny represented in Colleen Hoover's books. Hoover writes for hetero women with low standards and expectations. I grew up in the 70s and 80s, it's all too clear to me. You just have better decency.

My problem with it ends with us is that people always advertise it as a silly romance book or “books to read for hot girl summer” and I genuinely had no idea it was about domestic abuse

misogyny runs so deep that even adult women think that abusive behavior in Hoover's books is cute and quirky - like ladies, let's have some self respect and boot these boys, not romanticize them!! You deserve better!!

I thought Colleen Hoover was like 19… I was shocked to find out she was a middle-aged woman with a son. Like, these bad books are written by someone who is middle-aged?!?!?!

Colleen rlly out here romanticizing concepts that literally get women killed 🙌🏻🥵

It’s crazy how both most known Colleens are problematic 💀💀

god bless the hoover hater community bc we truly are constantly in the trenches against the booktok girlies

I think the reason some people like her books is because they didn't read bad fanfiction as teens so now they can't discern between a well written romance and a badly written one. "It Ends With Us" reads as such an edgy Wattpad fanfiction at times, and I picked up on that immediately. Like everyone in that book is super successful and rich and they live in a penthouse?? That's such a fanfiction thing

when the world needed him most, he returned to expose colleen hoover!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

this video is why i never go with the public opinion on things. Caleb was super perceptive with his initial review of Colleen hoover books and yet no one took him seriously because he was some nobody. Meanwhile, it was only when someone much more popular than him made the exact same points that the criticism towards her actually had some merit. I felt the exact same way with Sarah J Maas' stuff because while everyone was super enchanted by the fantasy world and cool action, i couldn't get over the less savory stuff people completely brushed over. It pissed me off.

I got banned in her Facebook group for criticizing her writing all I said was “it wasn’t my favorite the writing definitely could be better” 💀

I will never forgive booktok for the tiktokification of books 😭 every book they recommend make me want to rip my eyes out

i hate how her books romanticizes toxic relationships and how young girls start to think that it’s cUtE & how relationships are supposed to work and it completely messes with their perception of love but no one’s willing to talk about it

I never liked Colleen Hoover because I knew she had a problematic target audience but after learning the contents of November 9th, I don't feel any remorse on hating this woman. I was burned as a baby and I've lived with scars my whole life and seeing this written in such a popular book that (mainly 13-year-old) teenagers are reading and romanticizing is absolutely boiling my blood. I don't see her "apologizing" for the assault scene as caring for her fans and readers because if she did, she would have removed that horrid book from her shelves in the first place, addressed more than one issue with the story, and, I don't know, write a proper romance where the MC isn't a burn victim in love with the man who ruined her life and almost burned her alive.

I’m convinced that all Colleen Hoover fans are teen girls going through a wattpad phase and want a 6 feet tall hot mafia man to kidnap them treat them like a princess

colleen hoover loves to throw the most traumatizing themes at this young audience and teach them “oh no no no! if he’s good at sex and is hot- who cares if he SA’d and abused you? you’re so dramatic. forgive him!🥳” and people continue to eat it up and now are taught to WANT this kind of relationship. absolutely not.

Her whole career is just romanticising abusive men and using trauma as an excuse

Every time (not every time obviously) middle aged women write romance stories, they always write the weakest female leads and problematic male leads, and I just wanna hit my head against a wall. Like the amount of erotica’s written by middle aged women where the female lead is a barely legal adult and the guys are always like 30-40 year olds, it’s creepy, and I will never stop writing harsh reviews on goodreads lol

i’m a bookseller at barnes & noble and i have lost count of the amount of times me and my coworkers diss CoHo and the people who obsess over her (ESPECIALLY ugly love. “we both laugh at our son’s big balls.” WHAT WAS THAT PART)

And no offence to you but why can a 16 year old boy identify toxic relationships more than a 25 year old woman reading this? the fact that women are reading these books as romance is messed up! Thank you for speaking out.

In my opinion, something really problematic about her writing is, that every book, she uses trauma as a plottwist. She doesn't use it to go in depth on the trauma itself, she doesn't write about it to shine light on awful situations and expierneces some people have to go through. The sole purpose for the traumatic stuff happening in her book is, that the reader is shocked. That the reader gets to say 'I didn't see that one coming' . And that's so wrong. It shows no care for the victims of such situations and even worse, it exploits their trauma. I personally found hope forever to be especially awful and demeaning, considering the sole purpose of the girls tragic background story is, so she has a plot line that gets her with the male lead... Just awful.

Nah. I have zero guilt. She’s influencing all these young girls into thinking abuse is sexy

thank you for creating a safe space to hate on Colleen Hoover books😌 the majority of social media will come at you with pitchforks the moment you try to voice your dislike of any of her work.

People have tried to gaslight me that “It Ends With Us” is a great book because she wrote it based on her mother’s trauma but I’ve never read something more horrid, triggering, and romanticizing very real, very dangerous issues of the world, like that book does. It’s not cute, it triggering. Lily’s husband and Atlas are BOTH equally bad. And yes, Atlas did wait for Lily to turn 16 to have sex with her. It’s gross, stop romanticizing DV, assault, and manipulation. Even Wattpad writers write better than this!

I work in a bookstore, and let me tell you it makes me SO uncomfortable every time i see 12-15 year old girls buy Colleen Hoover or any other adult romance/fantasy books because of TikTok. that app is truly so dangerous for the kids nowadays it's not even funny

I read a super messed up book when I was young and its always been in the back of my mind. Tried looking up "girl who was sa'd by dad when she was a kid and finally remembers because of boyfriend", "girl tries to have sex but can't bc of past trauma" etc and I kid you not, after years of searching, I just found out it was a damn Colleen Hoover book!!!! Completely makes sense. It was 'Hopeless'

What an author writes about is literally their whole career and she writes about assaulting and disrespecting women and idolizing this kind of horrible, hurtful, damaging behavior.

Booktok is just a cesspool of terrible recommendations. They validate the most problematic things or the cringiest sex scenes known to man.

hating colleen hoover is the biggest green flag ever

Colleen is the Sam Levinson of authors

Finally a safe space to be a hoover hater I can believe that people are comparing her to Jane Austen Edit: You guys its been a year since I commented this I just heard someone say 'Fyodor Dostoevsky was the Colleen Hoover of his time' Im so fucking done I thought there were more Hoover haters these days but apparently not.

All of colleen hover’s books should be marketed as horror and tragedy

It is so depressing that Colleen Hoover spent her writing career romanticizing abusive men to the point that there is a subsection of her own fans who romanticize the dude she based off of her own mother's abuser. And all of this is with no major reflection on College's part about why the romances she's written about are problematic.

"Obama chuckled. 'You mean the Chaos Emeralds?" is a more compelling line than anything CoHo has ever written

I've known plenty of teens and 20-somethings who believed that constant drama and anxiety were the epitome of romance, while deeming normal, stable relationships "boring". I think that's CH's main demographic. They just don't know any better and equate strong emotional distress with love.

most colleen’s hoovers male love interest remind me of andrew tate 😭. like it’s ok to make a character terrible, but you need to acknowledge that they are bad and not to romanticize their toxic and abusive behavior.

She lives in my town so shes practically worshiped here. You can’t say one bad thing about her without being attacked. She has so many valid criticisms about her and her books. And personally, some of her books are so unnerving to me. She normalizes all of the abuse in her books and it can be genuinely harmful. A lot of people who read her book are teens and highly impressionable. She should so much more responsible about the things in her books because of the age group that she writes for.

Hoover is a bigggg no. The way all of her female characters CANNOT speak for themselves and how they just forgive and then GET PREGNANT!? It’s like her saying that women can’t be happy unless they’re pregnant or in a relationship. Yikes

omg colleen hoover is one of the reasons the tiktokification of literature has become more common. i can't believe a successful professional really discouraged listening and learning from negative criticism especially to new writers wtf??? I'm crying so many new books coming out lately are so bad we gotta get rid of tiktok

What didn’t set right with me was the fact that colleen was living in an abusive household and then grow up to writing books about romanticize abusive and problematic relationships , like are u ok?

There is page on Ugly Love by her. It says ‘’We laugh at our sons big balls.’’ That’s when I was done. Like I never felt so uncomfortable while reading a book.

The response I always get when complaining about her is "well the book isn't actually promoting that, it's showing what abuse is like and how people are manipulated and choose to be with their abuser." If that's actually the case, WHY is Colleen not more vocal about the fact that her books portray abuse and shouldn't be romantisised??? Why are these books being promoted to CHILDREN as young as 13, 14, 15?? Why does every single book not have trigger warnings printed in it? I could possibly be ok with her if bringing awareness to abuse was actually her goal, but it doesn't actually appear to be. The worst part is her entire fandom has been gaslit into thinking it's okay to recommend these books to young people without trigger warnings or downplaying how horrifying the content is. A ton of my friends like her and it's honestly insane and sad that girls my age think promoting or romantizing these books is ok.

she doesn’t need to apologize she just needs to stop writing LOL

It sucks that "It Ends With Us" is an autobiographical experience based on seeing her mother going through the cycle of abuse, and that is traumatic for anyone to go through. What hurts me the most is that supposedly Colleen Hoover worked as a social worker prior to becoming an author. She would've seen people going through similar abusive relationships, talked them through it, and/or help them get out of there safely, as well as processing and helping victims on the path to healing. But her books don't reflect that - they only focus on the relationship being "ugly" and how we should feel bad for the male love interest because he's sad and can only express his emotions through anger and control. Even a disclaimer for the relationship being toxic or providing resources for readers who are or know somebody in an abusive relationship would be better than nothing.

I heard of Colleen Hoover from Booktok and everyone made her out to be this really skilled author who writes the most heartbreaking books ever and I was in the mood for a little heartbreak so I started looking into her books. I stopped that when the first book of hers I found was a teacher student romance

Who is here after the It Ends With Us movie drama? 🙋‍♀️

I appreciate how you acknowledge the possibility of participating in a culture where art that women enjoy is often criticized, but I definitely think there’s more to it than that. While it’s true that many people probably just read such books for fun, the issue with an author like Colleen Hoover is that she doesn’t exclusively target the ‘dark romance’ audience: adults (mainly women) who are not looking for healthy or aspirational love interests but escapism / fantasy. Instead, her books are written and marketed as typical new adult / adult romance, so there is always a chance that people who are inexperienced in relationships or at impressionable ages can read them and adopt harmful ideas about what romantic love should be.

I just can’t believe it’s the ENTIRE INTERNET STANNING HER NOW not just booktube 😭

Im sorry but i just find it INSANE how FALLON APOLOGIZES TO BEN FOR RIGHTLY LEAVING HIM AFTER FINDING OUT THE TRUTH OF HIM RUINING HER LIFE. And then when her mother reads the menuscript of the book and instead of being infuriated with the man who ruined her daughter's self esteem and almost got her killed. SHE DEFENDED HIM AND SAID THAT FALLON SHOULD REREAD THE MANUSCRIPT AND SEE FROM HIS POINT OF VIEW AND HIS PAIN. Hello?! He committed arson and almost murdered her over the fact of not reading his mother's suicide note and actually knowing the real reason, and jumping to conclusion that it was Fallon's dad.

In the author’s note for It Ends With Us, Colleen Hoover mentions that Ryle was inspired by her father. She mentions her father did unforgiveable things even despite having good qualities such as being smart. I think she doesn’t fully want to villainize Ryle because it means villanizing her father. And seeing that toxic relationships are all she writes about, I think she seriously needs help but hasn’t come to terms with that realization. I think there’s some serious trauma she holds on to and needs to heal from. And this is why she’s so defensive and won’t accept criticism. Update: I just read It Starts With Us (the sequel) and she does the same thing at the end. SPOILER WARNING: So she’s still trying to deal with Ryle in her life while pursuing a relationship with Atlas. And Ryle sends her threatening messages, pushes her against a wall, and Lily’s finally had enough. Yes girl! Finally. Take his ass to court. But no. Her and Ryle’s family stage an intervention and tell Ryle to start going to anger management classes at the end of the book. Again. Colleen Hoover doesn’t wanna villanize her father, so Ryle doesn’t go to prison, get sued or lose his medical license. I just don’t believe anger management classes hold him fully accountable for his behavior. EDIT: Wow, this got tons of engagement/likes. But my stance on this whole thing CoHo is traumatized AF. She probably became a social worker first bc she wanted to heal herself. And tbh she should go seek therapy instead of writing these books and romanticizing trauma.

Colleen Hoover was so popular so I decided to read iewu because everyone loved it. At first, I felt weird for hating it and just assumed it was bc I’m a queer south asian girl and couldn’t relate to it at all. But then I realised that everyone else was stupid and I was correct because the whole book was just lily (lily blossom bloom the emo florist 💀💀) being ‘stop it this isn’t you! 🥺’ and pulling every man while having no personality but trauma. And oml the fact she wrote to Ellen and named her kid after finding dory makes me wanna drop dead. I’ve been more emotional and inspired by reading 15 year old ao3 authors who start the fic with ‘sorry english isn’t my first language’ also merry christmas

Not only is she popular on booktok, she’s popular on bookstagram too. I’m sure most of the people crossover, but it’s so cringe seeing posts of her “romantic” quotes highlighted in pink and with hearts drawn around them like it’s not the most wattpad cringe sentence I’ve ever seen or just straight up toxic

32:27 that's basically all her books. She writes about the most toxic, manipulative, controlling, abusive, illegal things but makes it ✨sexy✨ and all her young, impressionable fans and even immature, mentally underdeveloped adult fans romanticize it 🤮

I find that judging books by their cover is very useful for the romance genre

i read 'it ends with us' because everyone was like, it's a beautiful, heartwrenching book (even reviewers i trusted) and istg, i've never hate read a book, never hate reviewed a book, but that shit got me so fucking angry that i never trusted those reviewers again, i don't trust anybody who likes coho and i hate, hate, HATE how her audience are primarily young girls who'll not realise they're abusive fucking relationships and will end up romanticising that shit. [saw a guy post a picture of him reading that book on tiktok and many women said they wanna date him and all, like ARE YOU OKAY???💀]

Every time I see a Colleen Hoover book I scowl and think about how Caleb would be disappointed in me for even 𝑙𝑜𝑜𝑘𝑖𝑛𝑔 at it.

All of her books could be called “Are The Straights OK???”

the fact that she has a degree in social work and doesn't know any better when writing her stories, damn

"Colleen experienced abuse as a child", "Colleen romanticizes abuse" Freud is laughing from hell right now.

when colleen started getting popular on booktok, all i knew about her was you and your negative thoughts on her books. thus, i've never understood the hype around her especially due to the themes in her books. I've avoided her books all thanks to me finding your channel at a formative age, thank you caleb.

one thing skipped over in this video is that it's more than 'her book problematic lets dogpile on her'. As a relationship abuse victim, her bs in books actively contributed to my staying in that relationship and the age of her fans only makes it worse. She is a real person, but criticizing the dangerous views portrayed in her books is not a personal attack on the person. She clearly experienced abuse as a child and there is nothing wrong with acting it out. It's a common trauma response and traumatic events can even become kinks (not a healthy response btw), but they must be acknowledged as such and not romanticized

I read “It ends with us” a while ago and it absolutely infuriated me. They used the main male leads trauma to excuse his behavior and not report him to the cops! And they still let him see his child, even though it was made very clear he hurt people. I knew something was bothering me but I’m so glad you summarized it so well!

Thank you for addressing the fact that Colleen had the audacity to give her character three names relating to flowers and then make her a FLORIST?! I have never seen anyone else be bothered by this and that alone made me nearly stop It Ends With Us after the first page.

the ellen/finding nemo stuff was literally the very last thing i could have ever expected and thoroughly took me out

Had the book been marketed as a dark romance, there wouldn’t be this backlash (I think). We were given the impression that it was a “cute” romance when there were supposed to be trigger warnings (something that darkrom authors are very transparent about).

I've never felt that you were a "woman hater" who was just dunking on things that women enjoy. You had/have extremely valid criticisms that should be spoken about more. The fact that you were a 16 year old boy who understood what a toxic relationship was, is very commendable in my opinion. I love hearing your opinions!

oh we’re tuned IN

I FREAKING LOVE YOU. I start to read “It ends with us” and the fact that she WRITES LETTERS TO ELLEN it was the final straw like WHO THE FUCK DOES THAT?!?!?

I will say that her son has been accused of SA and she defends him and that leaves a sour taste in my mouth with her being an “abuse advocate”

As a teen girl, I’m disappointed that my peers have such poor taste and feed into a culture that primes us for toxic relationships.

November 9 still has 4.3 stars on GoodReads, and only 1% of reviews are 1 star. There are people giving her 3 stars and simply saying "I love these books, though some of the things Ben did/said were not okay". And she's still getting 5 star reviews today. Someone gave her 5 stars last July and wrote paragraphs about how amazing Colleen is. This woman says, and I quote: "Every girl deserves a Ben!"

The problem with this sort of stuff is that the meta-narrative supports the abuser. You can write some effed up, toxic relationships, but the majority of your characters should recognize this behavior for what it is. You can write the victim as unaware, manipulated, or even cooperating freely with their abuser... but there needs to be some awareness represented in the story that the behavior isn't acceptable. That this is a tale of a toxic relationship, not a healthy romance.

I'm impressed that you were already so aware of toxic behaviour at 16 years old! It's sad to admit this, but I'm pretty sure 16 years old me would have believed the romanticization of toxic relationships word by word.

people get way too defensive when u say that its clear the only reason shes so big on booktok is bc all the ppl who love her books are the same ppl who haven't read anything since like 5th grade and it might seem mean but im sorry it's true,, they're literally going through the awkward weird book phase that most ppl go through in their teens but like, at 29

Ok, I read It Ends with Us a couple years ago, but I swear to god the Atlas relationship is a lot creepier. I remember him disappearing or something, and then coming back to visit… on Lily’s 18th birthday and that’s when they sleep together for the first time. I remember this vividly because I ranted about it to my friends. He came back as soon as it was legal to sleep with her.

People who enjoy her books clearly have never experienced emotional/sexual abuse. Victims of abuse find it disgusting and uncomfortable Edit: I can’t speak for every victim of abuse. Nonetheless, romanticizing abuse is not healthy. Many of us find it concerning and harmful.

Is anybody else circling back to this video because of the “it ends with us”controversy lol literally thought of Caleb immediately.

You can be underwhelmed, you can be overwhelmed, but can you ever just be... whelmed? Yes. That's what it's like reading Colleen Hoover.