Tag Archives: Colleen Hoover

Review: Layla

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No, we’re not reviewing former Divas Champion Layla El.

My obsession with Colleen Hoover books, despite the fact that they’re mostly unhinged and the twists are deeper than my love for Real Housewives, I was eager to pick up as many Hoover books as I could with my aforementioned Sarah gift card.

Continuing on in my quest of reading Hoover books, my adventure took me to Layla. This fictional novel tells the story of Leeds (Colleen looooves to pick unique names for her protagonists), a man who meets a deliciously eccentric woman named Layla and in true fashion, they fall in love. After a tragic accident puts Layla in the hospital, Leeds is by his woman’s side, helping her to recover. However, the scarring of the accident has changed Layla both emotionally and mentally, so Leeds goes to the troubles of trying to find the love back that he had prior to the accident.

Sorry, that isn’t the silhouette of former DIvas Champion Layla El.


Okay so, Layla wasn’t what I expected at all.

Besides reading the blurb on the back, I had no prior knowledge or expectations of the book so I went in with a fresh mind. Maybe bar the fact that because the title is just a feminine first name, I assumed it was going to be similar to Verity. Boy was I bloody wrong.

Without giving too much away, Hoover tried dabbling in the supernatural when she wrote Layla. I think she did a fair job if this was her first time in doing so, but from a personal standpoint, I prefer the realism of her thriller stories, so I wasn’t particularly the biggest fan of the supernatural touch to this book. I guess, in addition to that, it probably means I wasn’t the biggest fan of the book altogether.

Layla is written well as is to be expected by Colleen Hoover, and the characters are well fleshed out, which is to be commended. I think it’s important to mention that while I think the ‘slightly eccentric yet doesn’t know she’s beautiful’ archetype is a bit overdone and borderline unbelievable, that the character of Layla was actually very likeable. (If you’ve read this book, then take that sentence very literally.) Leeds was alright, I guess.

I also liked the isolation of the main characters at the B&B location so it meant that the storyline wasn’t too affected by the outside world, and of course, the sentimental reason behind this location to the characters was cute.

Because the big twist, and a main portion of the storyline, revolved around the supernatural, I just wasn’t as much of a fan of it as I probably could have been. When I inevitably got to the big reveal towards the end, I remember scoffing and saying “Ugh, really?”

Wid-o-meter
Storyline: 6/10
Style of writing: 8/10
Overall: 7/10

I think, if I can offer my readers any kind of advice before going into reading Layla, is to go in with low-to-no expectations, and if you’ve read Hoover’s other works, then go in knowing that what you’re about to read will be like nothing else you’ve read of hers. I think this was my downfall tbh.

Happy reading, lovebugs!

– by The Black Widow

Review: Never Never

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Another Colleen Hoover mindfuck coming at you.

First of all, I’d like to start this review by thanking my dear friend Sarah who bought me a Dymocks gift card for my birthday. This considerate gift was emailed to me, and even though I starred the email, I swiftly forgot about it. Until the memory of having an almost expiring gift card whacked me, and in my haste to make sure I used this gift card, I bought a stack of books, including Never Never by Colleen Hoover and Tarryn Fisher.

Never Never is a romance mystery novel telling the story of Charlie Wynwood and Silas Nash who have been best friends since childhood and grew up loving each other. And then suddenly, one day, neither of them can remember anything about themselves or each other. Charlie and Silas realise they need to work together to figure out what happened to them, before it’s too late.

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Let me tell you right now that I am a major Colleen Hoover mark. In fact, I spent majority of my gift card on Colleen Hoover books, and the premise of Never Never really struck me. I like a bit of romance, I love a bit of mystery, and to combine them both? Wow. This was also my first opportunity to read some of Tarryn Fisher’s work, and I am always a fan of authors collaborating on work.

Never Never was definitely a page turner. The mystery of why the main characters suddenly just lost their memory was so captivating, and then going on the journey with them to not only figure out what happened to them, but also try and piece together their own lives was very interesting. I don’t think I’ve ever seen or heard of this concept being done before in both book and cinema, so I was definitely intrigued to the point that I stayed up til 1 or 2 in the morning to finish this book across two nights.

When I eventually read on and found out the reason why they had lost their memories, I was incredibly… underwhelmed. I won’t spoil it for anyone who wants to read it, but in my mind, I had built it up to be something big or shocking, and to me, it was neither big nor shocking.

A big thing for me, which I’m sure I’ve highlighted in other book reviews, is that I tend to find the female protagonist of romance novels annoying. I don’t know if it’s because authors are unintentionally perpetuating negative female stereotypes, but romance novel females are always whiney, insufferable and unaware of others around them. Colleen Hoover does a great job of making her heroines feel real, and have a likeable quality about them.

Charlie was very much a likeable book heroine. Her character was written to be layered and quite complex, which was a stark contrast to the Charlie pre-forgetting which seemed to be a bit one-dimensional. Her male counterpart Silas (Colleen really likes her pepelo male character names) also served his role well as the book hero, written to be charming, caring and handsome, but not unrealistically so, and was the optimistic golden retriever compared to Charlie’s pessimistic black cat.

The style of writing flowed very well between both authors, to the point where I had forgotten that one author had penned Charlie while the other had penned Silas. I believe Tarryn was Charlie, and Colleen was Silas, but I could be wrong. The language used from both authors evoked vivid imagery, and real emotions and feelings where you really connected to both Charlie and Silas.

Wid-o-meter
Storyline: 7/10
Style of writing: 8/10
Overall: 7.5/10

All in all, the book was great, and I would recommend it to others, especially if you’re into an interesting conglomeration of romance and mystery. I wouldn’t say it’s my favourite work of Colleen Hoover, but that isn’t really saying much seeing as Colleen is always hitting 10’s with her stories.

– by The Black Widow

Let’s Talk About It Ends With Us

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Warning: this is NOT a book review.

A couple of my girlfriends had read It Ends With Us by Colleen Hoover and recommended it to me. Now, I’m one of those people that will say “yeah I’ll get onto it” and have no intention of doing so, and this was one of those situations; however, when I found myself strolling through my local Dymocks, this book was there and I thought, ‘why not’?

Let me tell you: I should have been prepared for the emotional rollercoaster that was about to happen because Colleen Hoover tends to go from 0 to 200 in a matter of seconds (Hopeless anyone?), but nothing could have prepared me for this absolute whirlwind of emotions.

In short, Colleen Hoover had fucking done it again.

Don’t be fooled by this innocent book cover… no seriously, don’t.

This article won’t be formatted as a standard book review as done before on Widow’s Lure; it will just be an emotional discussion about the happenings of the book, because let me tell you I finished this book months ago and I am still not emotionally recovered from the rollercoaster ride that Lily, Ryle and Atlas take us on.

I don’t know if I’m the only one like this, but when I am listening to a song and see someone, or in this case, reading a book, that song will stick in my head as officially attached to that book, and now You by Lloyd will always remind me of It Ends With Us, and my heart stops every time I hear it because of this damn book.

SPOILERS! YOU HAVE BEEN WARNED!
Discussions of domestic violence ahead. If you don’t feel comfortable reading about this, please do not continue.

Okay, like, wow. Hoover is a wordsmith, and she can tell a great story regardless of the circumstances. But boy howdy was I not prepared for this.

First of all, I thought the title was going to have a romantic tie in to the story. For example, perpetual unhappiness ends with us because we are so damn in love and happy together, or loneliness ends with us, or bitterness ends with us, or any other negative emotion ends with us because we found each other and we fell in love and that bad feeling has ended. At no point during the story did I ever think it was domestic violence ends with us, my newborn child.

I knew that the recounting of her mother’s experience with domestic violence would tie into the story somehow, but I hadn’t pieced two and two together, even after the first time that Ryle had lashed out at Lily. Much like my feelings towards Hopeless where you expect to go on a standard romance story ride, but then out of nowhere, the plot just takes a whole fucking turn and all of a sudden you’re thrust into this world of violence, I sat by and idly watched as this seemingly beautiful love story between Lily and Ryle takes a dark turn, and all of a sudden that predictable ending you thought you were headed to takes a detour and you’re headed into this dark unknown where you cannot see three feet ahead of you.

What makes it even worse – personally for me – was I wanted Lily to give Ryle another chance because I wanted nothing more than for Ryle to better himself and become the man that Lily truly deserved. This goes against everything I am as a human, because my thing with domestic violence is one strike and you’re out; you don’t get a second chance with shit like that. But then there was Ryle who had one outburst, and I was crying because a) Lily didn’t deserve it and b) Come on Ryle! Get your shit together!

Everyone yelling at Ryle to stop fucking up.

I remember discussing with my friends how I felt conflicted while reading this book because of this. There are some things in relationships that I think are unforgivable, and domestic violence is one of them. So how could I as someone who feels so strongly about this feel for someone like Ryle? That just goes to show how well Colleen writes her characters and creates sympathy for someone like Ryle Kincaid.

I loved Atlas, and thought that the love story that he and Lily shared was a thing of beauty. That pure connection that they had was easy for me as a reader to feel, and a part of me wanted Lily to gtfo there and run into the willing and capable arms of Atlas.

But Ryle… sweet, disturbed Ryle… we were all groomed to love him, and I truly did.

In a nutshell, when Ryle broke Lily’s heart, he broke mine, and it’s something that I am still working through months later.

Alas, I was left satisfied in the epilogue of the book where Lily, after finally leaving Ryle because it definitely ended with her and her newborn daughter, was happily co-parenting with Ryle and then entered an ambiguous relationship with Atlas.

If you or someone you know is a victim of domestic violence, I know it might see like the hardest thing in the world to do, but it is not weak to speak up and seek help. Australia’s nationwide domestic violence assistance organisation 1800 RESPECT are available for 24 hours over the phone (1800 737 732) or Live help at their website. If you are in immediate danger, please call 000 or your nation’s emergency hotline.

Anyway, with all of this in mind, I’m going to take a break before reading another Colleen Hoover book because I know she is going to f me up again.

– by The Black Widow

Review: Hopeless

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I’m not trying to sound like a broken record a la the last book review I did, but I finally got around to finishing this wonderful novel that I had been in the middle of for a good month. Now that this novel is finished, I’ve realised that I need to do some serious book shopping!

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Hopeless by Colleen Hoover details the life of 17-year-old Sky, an extremely sheltered young girl whose life is turned upside down when she meets Dean Holder, the resident bad boy with a bad reputation to match her, to be frank, slutty reputation… despite not being a slut.

This novel starts out pretty cruisy, until you get to the middle-ish of the novel where:

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Never in my 21 years of reading novels have I read a book that escalated as quickly as Hopeless. What seemingly starts off as a typical teenage romance novel turned upside down on its head and did a Booker T spinaroonie because the drama that followed was so… dramatic. Without revealing too much, the drama was so good.

The storyline was so predictable that it was unpredictable, if that makes sense. I read it thinking “Oh yeah, and now this is going to happen and this is going to happen” and while some of my predictions were correct, most of them were so wrong that I felt the need to say sorry to Colleen Hoover. Colleen, if you’re reading this, please forgive me for doubting your excellent storyline abilities. The characters personalities were expressed well in the novel through the use of descriptive writing and the image of Dean Holder was clear in my head. COUGH Steve Grand.

The relationship between Sky and Dean was cute, albeit a bit clichè. Two unusually attractive teenagers with troubled pasts fall for each other and are completely in love after a month or two of being completely inseparable. Sky was a hit-or-miss with me; she was either really annoying and “Wah feel sorry for me” one minute and next, she was this funny, sassy spitfire who I found myself to really like. Dean Holder was perfect… almost too perfect. He was so swoon-worthy that I didn’t feel the need to swoon. He had his shining moments just like Sky, though, so I will praise him as a character.

Colleen Hoover’s use of language in this book was almost flawless. The action in the novel was impeccable and the use of imagery and other descriptions painted a clear picture in my head as I read this novel. I can no doubt see why this novel is so acclaimed and why it’s a New York Times bestseller – the author is great and the story is even better. The fact that nearly all the loose ends in this novel were tied together in a nifty little bow by the end of the story demands a round of applause for Hoover who really, in my sweet and humble opinion, knocked this one out of the park.

Solst-o-meter
Storyline: 9.0/10
Style of writing: 8.6/10
Overall: 8.8/10

I can guarantee you, whether you’re a romance reader or not, that this is definitely a must read. I was so wowed with the entire novel as a whole that I don’t know what to do with my life now that I’ve finished it. I can also guarantee you that you will not want to put this book back down once you’ve gotten into it. It is that damn good.

– by The Black Widow