Colleen Hoover is proof that women can be misogynists because she seriously expects us to think that him feeling bad for setting her on fire was worse than her actually being set on fire.
@@withcindyFr fr he's traumatized that "TOTALLY" exsuxes him to g-r@pe her manipulate her sexually harass AND assault her and take her clothes off like an horny disgusting monster, now that's a man ❤❤❤
That was so weird 😭😭 Like worse HOW because she's the one who was on the brink of death AND because of him. Shouldn't the mom be reporting that dude for arson or something instead 😭😭
God the amount of internalized misogyny radiating from Colleen Hoover is astonishing. Knew this was gonna be awful when the stupid MC said something like: "mom was stupid crazy absurd and wrong! why should a woman try to find herself and her identity before when she can't ever make herself feel as good as a man can?" Such a gross way of thinking. And the fact that so many young girls praised this book when it first came out? 🤢Colleen is like that one girl who agrees with the alpha make podcasts, Pearl is her name I think. If pearl went into writing instead of podcasts, this would be the sh1t she would write, guaranteed. Surprised I didn't see a "he claimed me" line in there.
It seems like the writer has never met any man before in real life or has met only the abusive ones because her standard of a “good man” is frightening.
no but imagine being kyle 😭😭 like imagine you’re dealing with your mother’s death, as well as the fact that she had cancer that you didn’t know about (which correct me if i’m wrong, but i think could be genetic), and all of a sudden your little brother just. disappears. and when he shows up again he’s like “yeah i just committed arson”. AND THEN WHILE YOU’RE MAKING SURE NO ONE WAS INJURED, YOU FIND OUT THAT A SIXTEEN YEAR OLD GIRL WAS SEVERELY INJURED AND BARELY SURVIVED IT. so now you’ve gotta make sure that your little brother isn’t sent to jail for being an idiot, WHILE planning your mom’s funeral. and then years later he’s at your house with what you think is his girlfriend?? and then the girlfriend turns out to be THE GIRL HE BURNED YEARS AGO. AND HE JUST. HASN’T TOLD HER. my man saw where this was going and said “hard pass” and crashed his car i’m 😭😭😭 AND THEN HIS LITTLE BROTHER HOOKS UP WITH HIS WIDOWED FIANCÉE I WOULD BE LOOKING LIKE A ROTISSERIE CHICKEN IN MY GRAVE 😭😭😭😭
*"GRAB MY BOOB, BEN.* He totally reads my mind and grabs my boob. *GRAB THE OTHER ONE.* God, he's so telepathic." This almost redeemed the book for me.
I hate that Colleen implies that being sexualized should be a compliment. Almost every time Ben is complimenting Falon, it’s for sexual reasons and blatantly so. It’s gross.
I recently reread some of the Meg Cabot books I loved as a teen and they’re THE EXACT SAME WAY! I’m starting to realize some of my issues around beauty/romantic/sexual relationships come from these dang YA books! They’re like indoctrinating kids into thinking being sexualized is the peak prize of womanhood
@@harashe1000these are adult books young adult books are for ages 13-17 and don’t have anything sexual in it, they typically have few swears and maybe imply sexual stuff but dont ever say it directly lol
@@Sweetl-cx9xi Hey, I think you're talking about sex scenes, which is not what I'm referring to. It doesn't have to be intense and graphic sex-- a lot of times it's the way they write around the topic of sex and, more commonly, sexual attraction that is really bad and gives a bad framework for girls to think about themselves in relation to partners/romance/desire. Meg Cabot's Mediator series, The Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants series, Sarah Dessen's books, The Summer I Turned Pretty series, Anna and the French Kiss-- all of these very much YA books have seeds of very problematic views/hyperfocus on beauty and desire (which in YA books may be covered up as love, but starts from a physical desire/attraction that in adult books leads to more graphic scenes. So basically it is a watered down version of that same desire) and nearly always make becoming someone's girlfriend a main prize or focus. In nearly all of the books, the main girl's physical attributes are always being marveled at and garnering male attention, astonishment, gawking, etc. etc. etc. And this male attention is nearly always considered flattering. It makes male attention a measurement of the (usually female) MCs worth. Notice that in a lot of the books the MC is gorgeous and always receiving male attention for her looks or, if she starts off awkward and without male attention, then one of the major turning points is when she *does* turn pretty and start getting that attention. Even though it's not as graphic as adult books, it normalizes in the mind of readers that getting sexual attention is a prize and something to seek. Like The Summer I Turned Pretty series where pretty much the whole point of the books is that Belly becomes someone sexually desirable and has her pick of boys. That's what I was referencing with my comment. Like the OP said, these writers "[imply] that being sexualized should be a compliment." That is a lesson that can unfortunately create a lot of self image issues and internalized misogyny for people who read a bunch of those books (like me). Anyway, tl;dr: Many YA books imply or directly share very problematic ideas about relationships, desirability (usually based on physical attributes or masked as "we just know we're meant to be"), etc. etc.
@@Sweetl-cx9xi growing up is realizing that d!ck is cheap and abundant. men will literally f farm animals when they don't have access to women (remember pony the orangutan?). That's how little their s3xual attention is worth
Burn scar victim here. This book pickles the fuck outta my cherries because I *never* would have gotten to a state where I was comfortable wearing clothes that didn't cover my scars if Ben's "pep talk" was all I'd gotten I still have days where I just don't want to deal with revealing them. And even the points where I treated my scar in school as a way to be cool and make friends I was treated like a freak until all that energy was beaten back down, confidence doesn't magically do away with ableism! Colleen really hasn't got a clue
For reallll I got mine when I was a toddler so I literally have never known what it's like to not have them and I'm still not entirely cool with it nearly thirty years along Fallon's only two years into having hers Ben worstie chill@@withcindy
The fact that the beginning scene where Ben fetishizes Fallon's scars is horrible enough without context, but with context, it becomes 10 times worse. Without context: Random-ass stranger ogles a woman and her burn scars, gets way too close for comfort to her, talks about ther scars quite inappropriately, and is an overall douchebag. With context: The man who BURNED this woman years ago manages to find her at the restaurant, ogles her, and seems to want to look at her scars to probably "see the damage" HE CAUSED. And yet people still call this book a romance, and it sickens and concerns me at the same time.
I remember clearly an episode of the show "Lie to me" with Tim Roth in which the only survivor of a serial killer now in prison, left with horrific disfigurations, is found out to have married the killer copy-cat, who showed himself as a doting husband, but in reality was getting off all the time on all the pain she had to endure in her daily life. The fact that this plot reminded me so vividly of this horrifying fictional crime story tells everything there is to know about it
I think the only thing worse than hookiing up with your brother’s widow and raising his baby as your own IMMEDIATELY after he passed, is doing all that and then subsequently abandoning your brother’s widow and baby just a year later to get together with a woman who you’ve known for a collective total of 4 days.
The ending really aggravated me, because Ben ruined Fallon's entire career and body, and also violated a restraining order, yet she still forgives him, for seemingly no real reason, other than that it's a romance novel. It would work better as a thriller, in my opinion.
the fact that the man r@ped the girl in this book and colleen hoover thought it was romantic and only removed that scene once she got called out by thousands of people tells you everything you need to know about this woman
I’m disabled- I have spinabifida and am an amputee. This was SO triggering because men do be treating me exactly like that. I’ve had around 17 surgeries and will have a colostomy surgery next month and my scars are a source of insecurity. CoHo writes trauma porn that manages to marginalize the female characters even more than their tragic backstory. The men in her stories are narcissistic and predatory. I’ve been told I’m conventionally attractive, and a lot of men acknowledge that while acting like they’re doing me a favor by finding me attractive or they fetishize it. At one point a man asked me to do a fetish modeling shoot without my prosthetic leg, in a wheelchair, with my left leg IN A CAST so that I appear “as helpless as possible.”
I'm never going to be okay with how you could be suffering the most traumatic physical pain possible and some guy can come up to you thinking they're helping by saying "You can still be fetishized! It's not too late for you yet!"
The fact that MC's mum read the whole manuscript and her overwhelming conclusion was to push her daughter towards the person who (unknowingly) caused her to get burned, and is incapable of saying anything that isn't sexual harassment. Like, with parents like these, who needs enemies?
That's literally what I was thinking when I read the end. I was like "what type of mother would push their daughter into the hands of her abuser". I can't believe this is people's favorite book.😭
Also this is the same character who told her kid not to date until she's 23 and her prefrontal cortex has developed a bit, thereby giving us the (undeniably shaky) premise of the book. It's the consistency for me.
The fact that Fallon was burned as severely as she was over so much of her body, but she doesn’t apparently have any numb areas or loss of range of motion or function with her arms or legs tells me that Hoover did no research about burn victims or burn victim recovery. I have nothing to say about Ben other than I’m so sad that Fallon didn’t find out what he did until after the statute of limitations expired.
It totally checks out to me that she does no research. There's another book where the twist is "this secondary character secretly has cystic fibrosis", even though in reality CF usually has some pretty obvious symptoms and lifestyle requirements that you could not conceivably hide from anyone you spend more than hour at a time with. It baffled me that she chose CF when there are so many other conditions that are much, much less visible that she could have used for that plot point
Oh my god. The statute of limitations for Arson in California is 6 years. No wonder Ben agreed to the stupid 'date once a year' plan. He was a mastermind all along.
I genuinely feel so concerned for the people who like Colleen Hoover and say that her love interests are the best and that her writing is so poetic, like babe, are you okay?
I think avid Colleen Hover fans who read her works unironically must’ve skipped the “reading unhinged fanfic written by other teens during your teenage years” phase. That’s the only explanation I can come up with tbh
@@Sophia-rq6oo I've seen this explanation everywhere for like a year now, and it's kinda true... for the younger ones. Adults have always been into kinda trashy romance
So, as a therapist I can tell you that they might end up being okay. I see has a bad case of Human Giver Syndrome as typical women are taught to be human givers to the man's human being-existence. I think some women can just read the fantasy of it but not live it as much. Like they can watch The Bachelor and still be "okay." It speaks volumes that many women who write these books are single. They can't be "givers" when they write all the time.
@@DisWriteruhhh? I was ready to read some Colleen Hoover comedic and serious criticisms in the comments but this comment took me out Lots of red flagsss lol wouldn’t want this type of therapist
"how dare you be embarassed about your scars, you should be grateful because they mean you loved through that fire >:( " while he was the one who literally caused the fire and became obsessed with her because of it 💀
@@withcindy I just watched your video about the extreme horror writer who dedicated a book to a lady who gave him a bad review... the audacity just keeps increasing with these authors :0
That sushi-pad tai nonsense was written by someone whose most exotic meal is supermarket deli counter Sweet & Sour Chicken with Fried Rice and an oily egg roll.
The most unrealistic thing about this is that in the whole years between seeing this man she never met another dude or had a best friend who told her how fucked up her situation was
BITCH WHAT THE HELL 😭 This would be SO GOOD as a horror novel with a revenge story where Fallon sets HIM on fire, but naur, we have to endure Colleen's "writing"
exactly...esp with the way Ben fetishizes the scars he caused. Usually, this is a plot in a thriller or a detective story where a girl is stalked by some deranged murderer/serial killer/arsonist who developed an obsession bc she "escaped" or is "the perfect" whatever for him and it all culminates in either her shooting him or him being dragged away by cops after final confronation. While she stands there, in rain with sirens blaring and illumnating her face. and if there is romance the lead investigator/private detective who helped her with the case is standing there with her and she has his jacket over her shoulders. CoHo saw this thrope and went "Let's reverse it and make it a romantic story with happy ending where she chooses the deranged stalker! It's so romantic! He's so in love with her!"
"Kind of like blue balls, but in my stomach instead of my balls." I can see Ben the writer's creative writing classes are going super well! His prose is so Shakespearean.
The fact that he was both an annoying little pervert with the brain of a twelve year old boy AND the person responsible for disfiguring and nearly killing her was such a gag 🤭
At first, I didn't click on this, because I JUST watched two VERY long reviews of this book. But then I realized that, if there's anyone I need to hear roast this book, it's DEFINITELY Cindy.
"You make me want to swear men of forever", said the girl to her dad, the girl who then goes on a date with a guy that only objectifies her and wants to know everything about her underwear.
Tiktok made me believe the male interest biggest betrayal was him hooking up with his dead brother's girlfriend, not that he's the reason for why this girl's dreams and careers were tarnished
it's actually impressive how ben always, without fail, has the worst possible take just sitting in his back pocket. "you should be grateful for your scars because it could've been worse", "your dad is a pos but you should have a relationship with him anyway because you're blood-related", "su!cide is the most selfish thing a person could do", like i'm about to get a bingo on my Red Flag Opinions board y'all
“So how did you two meet?” “Well, I was stalking her dad because I found out he dated my mom before she died, then in a fit of anger I lit her house on fire, where she was horrifically scarred, then years later, I began dating her on false premises. It’s really been a blur”
"I know, I know, but he's the only father you have" Me, not having spoken to my father in years and being much better off for it 👁👄👁 Bruh that just pisses me off so much 😂 Honestly, so much happier not having a father rather than having a shitty one.
for real, my father would face nc right now if it weren't for my mom and sister, and I'd lose nothing for it. And my father didn't forget about me in a fire
I hate it when someone forces their partner to reconcile with the family they've distanced from for a reason - especially when they assume just because they get along with their own family every other family should work the same
Mainstream media dealing with characters that are disfigured and or disabled? Yikes. Either it’s tragedy tinged with cringe comedy or it’s inspiration porn that’s saccharine. There is no in between.
I have a disability myself and the lack of GOOD representation really bums me out sometimes. Even in fantasy which I read most of its either the disabled person will get magically cured or something, and it's never truly part of that characters unique individuality.
the only way i can console myself after hearing about this book is by remembering the balls line in ugly love and knowing nothing can be as bad as that
@@withcindy Spoiler.... During a sort of flashback, the male love interest is remember how he had a baby with his stepsister. Just before they end up having a car accident that results in the death of the baby, his step sister is like, "Thank you for giving me this baby." And he's like, "The only thing he got from me was his big balls." And then it goes "And we both laugh about how big our son's balls are". Then they drive into a body of water and the baby drowns. In short - they were apparently not big enough to be flotation devices.
@@GunmetalRaveni'm sobbing bc i knew abt the balls line out of context but i had NO IDEA abt what happens after lmfaoooo. the fact that i have had friends recommend that book to me is insane
I heard someone say he only revealed this _after_ the statute of limitations had run out :( so he _waited_ until she couldn't get the law involved to come clean.
Someone please explain to me why, in a book filled with lots of terrible stuff, the thing that annoys me most is the atrocious treatment of Fallon's injuries? And I don't just mean Ben basically telling her to get over it. I mean that Colleen Hoover clearly did absolutely no research on burn severity and treatment; she basically treats 4TH DEGREE BURNS like Fallon just accidentally burned her arm while taking pizza out of the oven or something, instead of the life-threatening, life-changing injuries they are.
bruh whats so funny is that i looked up november 9 on tiktok and ppl were doing makeup looks for Fallon and they were literally just fake scratches on her cheeks LOLLLL
I had a unilateral mastectomy. As a result I have numb patches on the underside of my arm and back and I had to do a few months of physical therapy to get full use of my arm back. There’s no way Fallon is done healing after two years.
It probably annoys you the most because she uses disability and disfigurement as a plot device for her characters to have "weakness" and "insecurity" rather than realizing REAL people identify as being disabled or disfigured and they aren't weak or insecure due to their disabilities but who could blame them for reacting negatively to people like Ben aka Colleen who view them as objects to project their own insecurities on.
I was telling my mom about November 9 and she immediately figured out the plot twist. When I asked her how she knew, she told me and I quote, "I just imagined the worst possible thing." 😂😂
Just noticed now, but the reveal that he was behind the fire also makes more disturbing how he keeps blaming her for her insecurities about the scars. It's not just toxic positivity, the scars are actually his fault, but this way he is separating from them and blaming his victim while assigning himself the role of the savior. It turns the whole thing from being simply tactless to actively manipulative.
33:25 That part reminds me of a time I was working at a Chinese restaurant. A man in his forties asked me for the sushi menu. I told him we didn't have sushi. He asked "what kind of Chinese restaurant doesn't have sushi?" He was VERY upset when I explained to him sushi was Japanese and not Chinese.
When Cindy says that's the worst love interest she's read about then that says something, from the number of horrible love interests we've seen on this channel.
The part which unnerved me the most is that Fallon likely never would have slept with Ben had she known upfront what he'd done. Also, Ben's mother is presented as sympathetic, yet she could have simply told her sons about her illness, instead of traumatising them further.
November 9th is the date my mother passed.. when I first heard there was a book with this title I was so intrigued because of what the date means to me. The more I learned of the plot the more horrified I’ve become and know I will never read it.
The true equality is that we have both women writing men badly as men writing women badly. But seriously, I’m concerned that Colleen might possibly think this is a healthy and great relationship.
Please continue to read Colleen Hoover so we can get an hour long rant videos. I have nothing do with her but it brings me so much joy that we get such beautiful nuggets ✨️
@@withcindyplease do Slammed next. It’s one of her older ones and the only Co Ho book I’ve read. The male lead is her TEACHER and it’s filled with shit poetry. I haven’t seen a book rant on it yet and I need the validation 10 years later.
i can't believe coho called pad thai and sushi "almost the same thing" because they're both asian food. i would rather be called a slur than have someone say that to my face.
I'm looking through the comments before watching the whole video, and I was under the impression that they just ate both at the same time (I've eaten so many different foods at the same time, so many cursed meals), but that's way worse.
If she wanted the love interest to be so obsessed with the lack of panty lines, why did she have the main character wearing DENIM??? Does Colleen Hoover think everyone wearing jeans is going commando because she can't see the lines of their underwear?
Fallon is basically the textbook version of forgive and forget, because DAYUm everytime she opens a new vhapter to ben, she puts on her 3D glasses to ignore the Red flags. I cannot count how much times i wouldve been realistically creeped out by ben. ☠️And sad thing is, he is probably the best male lead collen Hoover has created so far☠️not saying much, hey?
I thought the teacher from slammed, the dude from looking for hope and the dude from reminders of him were a lot more harmless than this cheating arsonist.
Obviously I have to recuse myself as the therapist for this as even someone in these comments said they wouldn't want me as their therapist because of my opinion of this book.
@@falconeshieldsome romance novels are quite good. And adding an emotional through line and good character building can make erotica sections even more satisfying. Just because this author is a horrific POS doesn’t mean all romance is bad or that the people who read it (btw it’s the most popular genre) are pathetic or loser virgins like you seem to think
The male love interest really said "I wanted to push her towards the roaring traffick" and also try to gaslight her that him causing the incident that almost killed the main mc. The amount of mental gymnastics I had to do to finish this book was unparalleled.
I lost it when you said she apologized to him. Like what?? He intentionally provoked the fire that almost killed her, sexualized her from the first moment he met her and hid the truth for years??
Actually loved slammed. Years ago even went to event with her when she promo ugly love in my country back 2015(?) after that no single book for her i read and this boom for her books took me with wft
The last chapter made me gag: this girl asking for forgiveness, having to read his thoughts AGAIN about her panties, every single time they talk! nobody talks like THAT! That last "bookish" talk. I wish I never learned English so while watching this video I would only hear gibberish.
I always thought her books were supposed to be like a rom-com (because I saw tiktoks of her books) but when I actually saw reviews oh her books, they have the MOST weird plots and veryyy questionable men who are unfortunately romanticised...
@@withcindy I think the most funny thing about her books isn't the outta pocket stuff she writes but actually thinking about how a human being could actually write them and trying to rationalize her thinking process is.
,,All this time I thought he was a weirdo with a burn victim fetish, but it turns out he is a weirdo with a burn victim fetish...and an arsonist. '' 😭😭😭
it was NOT #smoothtalk, Cindy 😔 first he kisses a stranger, then he talks nonstop about underwear, and then he puts her down about *his* perception about her insecurities Like girl get the hell away
I was a camp counselor this past summer and one week I had a cabin of girls (age 13-14) and two of them were obSESSED with Colleen Hoover and I just had to sit there and pretend to not know but all I wanted to do was take their books and give them something better to read 😭
It's not that she writes the bad, it's that she writes the worst possible route. It's not only that the literal love interest caused the main character's injuries, is that SHE is the one who has to apologize. It's not that his mom ended herself, is that she was going to die anyways so it was all for nothing. This is truly inspiring, every time I think it can't get worse, she finds a way 💪🏽
13 minutes in & I legitimately cannot believe this is actual content in a book written & published by a woman for women. Ben is definitely one of those "and then they spoke" characters where any goodwill or interest I had in them was just gone the second I learned their thoughts. First he seems to have a scar fetish mentally undressing her to wonder how much might be hidden by her clothes & then the underwear stuff? Dude, gtfoh. One summer I got very bad sunburn while wearing a bikini so I skipped wearing a bra to work the next day I worked & a male co-worker that I was friendly with decided it was time to ask me out because I was braless in public so that was like a green light to men???? My skin was blistered, peeling & so painfully red it hurt to not constantly apply aloe so I skipped a bra for my personal comfort & he saw that as code for single & looking to mingle???? So, OMG, I know men like Ben exist, but forgive me if I want to escape to fiction where they maybe censor more of these thoughts when interacting with a woman. I would not have been able to read any further into this book so I applaud your ability to power through.
You guys are young and didn't sneak read your mom's Danielle Steele books at 8 years old. To be fair I don't think Steele would ever write a character that wasn't physically flawless. In a way I prefer that then to this type of writing where the author pats themselves on the back for writing a disabled/or disfigured character and I really just wish they hadn't.
@@DisWriter I love you for grouping me as young with Cindy. 🤣🤣🤣 My love for romances comes from my dad's mom & sisters who introduced me to Harlequin & Silhouette books at a very young age, so my tastes were formed by the likes of Diana Palmer, Lynne Graham, Linda Howard, Elizabeth Lowell & more Nora Roberts than I care to admit. I only ever read Message From Nam by Steel & found it so boring even though I was lowkey obsessed with the show China Beach at that time. It's interesting to think of them as comparable authors, though. In terms of popularity for their time, I can see Hoover as this generation's Steel in her 90s heyday (at least that's when I remember her books being big & made into movies), but I'd have to have read more of their work to see if there's any similarity in writing.
I've been making a lot of jokes at Colleen Hoover's expense in my videos lately, and I started to feel like it was maybe getting excessive and I was being too harsh. Thank you so much for reminding me that nothing I say will ever impress just how bad this book is.
The more summaries I hear about romance novels, the more I just want to curl up and read about a healthy and supportive relationship. Like, can this be a new genre? I require it. I watched FMA Brotherhood again after like... a decade. Shocked at how solid every relationship ends up being in that anime, from family to romantic. Can we get more husbands gushing over their wife and daughter like Maes? Or supportive battle couples like Izumi and Sig? Or a respectful evolution of childhood friends to lovers like Ed and Winry? Like, I'm starved for some emotionally mature, healthy, supportive love in stories. Please, authors. I beg of you. I will give all of my money for some decent romance.
@@skolas-aditya The only reason they're not the best is the inherent power difference between them as officer and commander, but you know what, I won't even hold it against him because it was a deliberate choice on her part, and they're also a great team. Also, they have a beautiful son together. ...I'm talking about Black Hayate. Such a good boy. Best dog in the show. .....Shh. Let's not think about her.
The way Colleen Hoover decides to write a whole book about a burn victim, without looking up information on burns first. From the description of injury itself, Fallon should be about as scarred as Harvey Dent - and the suffering made him a Batman villain. How does one "mentally undress" a person in a non-sexual way?
The fact that there are like a whole MAJOR subset of gals who absolutely love CoHo books and there's this one girl who brags about introducing CoHo to her hostel (& how Nov 9 is her fav) like its a badge of fuckin honor MA'AM I AM FIGHTING FOR MY LIFE OUT HER-
