It ends with Colleen Hoover.
“There is no such thing as bad people. We’re all just people who sometimes do bad things’’ reads an excerpt from ‘It ends with us’, a bestseller from the renowned American author, Colleen Hoover. But how bad is too bad? How often is it too often to make mistakes? What makes a mistake? Although this article cannot answer all these questions, it certainly does start a conversation about it. This article dives headfirst into the public persona of Colleen Hoover and the topics being discussed here are catalysts for nuanced discussions, not formative statements. With that being said, if discussions on verbal or physical abuse, sexual harassment and online harassment might upset or trigger you, this might not be the best article for you.
Colleen Who-over?
If you’re not familiar with the name Colleen Hoover, you are probably not a part of the BookTok community- the side of social media primarily TikTok, Instagram and Twitter which discusses anything under the sun about books and authors. Colleen Hoover had a meteoric rise on TikTok in late 2021. Posting about her daily messy life posed her as a relatable figure among influencers promoting unrealistic standards. She displays her self-deprecating sense of humour which feels genuine along with documenting her writing process which gets fans to feel involved and marries them to the idea of a new book by her, in turn building her a fanbase. She became one of the rare cases whose social media virality translated into long-term real-life success. The algorithm benefited her gaining over 3.9 million followers across her social media, whose domino effect made her the #1 New York Times Bestselling Author. Her success birthed BookTok shelves in libraries and bookstores online and offline alike. As of October 2022, she had sold more than 20 million books out of which 8.6 million were sold in 2022 alone which outsold The Bible (about 5 million) that year. Her Bestselling book, ‘It Ends With Us’ has sold over 4 million copies, and its successor, ‘It Starts With Us’ has sold 800,000 copies on the first day alone. Since starting her writing career in 2012 with her first body of work, ‘Slammed’ she has published 24 books up until 2022. She bagged 2 Goodreads Choice Awards and 1 UtopYA Con Award in her 10 years of writing. So what could go wrong with such a successful woman? Well, all that glitz and glam did have a dark underbelly to it all.
Romanticization or Reality of Abuse
Glimpses of cracks in Hoover’s career arc started to show early in her writing. Although the critics described her writing as mundane and generic to the level that anyone could visualize themselves in the empty basic vessels of characters Colleen writes, the fans didn’t mind it though. What did bother readers were the depictions of borderline abuse as “hot” or “romantic”. “I’ve never wanted to use physical force on a girl before, but I want to push her to the ground and hold her there until the cab drives away” from ’November 9' and “ “I need to leave,” she says as she passes me. I back up until I am pressed against the door, holding it shut” from ‘Reminders of him’ are a few examples across Hoover’s books where borderline abuse is presented to the reader as an act of dominance which in the Colleen Hoover world of misplaced emotions means something attractive or to be desired in male leads. We could be here all day discussing strange lines and excerpts from Colleen Hoover which walk the line between weird and just plain toxic, but the point of the discussion isn’t the absurdity of the text but the implications and impressions it has on its readers.
It is a universally agreed upon fact that Hoover’s demographic ranges from teenagers to new adults. Sure, nobody would like to admit teens are reading her books, but they are. That age range is a very confusing period of life for many, we are figuring out ourselves during that time, our likes, dislikes, interests and everything else in between. Consuming media similar to Colleen Hoover’s work in such formative ages can skew the reader’s perceptions of the concepts being depicted. Young readers reading scenes from her books where literal sexual assault is being presented without any kind of resolution later will think that this is normal, they would perceive similar toxic traits and red flags as normal things and think that maybe this is what real relationships are like. They’re not. To some degree, Colleen Hoover’s books contribute to normalising toxic tendencies. Although it is not fair to blame Colleen alone for such a widespread generational problem, her work did contribute.
The BookTok queen’s post-pandemic virality wasn’t her first rodeo. Before the ‘It Ends with Us’ craze, Colleen had her moment in the spotlight way back in 2016 with the release of her book “November 9”. Praises from book fanatics from all over the internet poured in, ‘November 9’ was on everyone’s reading list that Christmas. Although this is nowhere near the amount of virality that ‘It Ends With Us’ had, it was pretty notable back in the day. So what happened you ask? Well, sit tight for a short storytime. Some reviewers saw right through the overwhelmingly positive feedback for ‘November 9’, the most notable one of them being Whitney Atkinson. Her review shed more light on the drawbacks of the book and highlighted the disturbing sequences in there. “ “Stop,” I tell him, my voice louder than it’s been all night thanks to the distance from the music. His hand is right back where it was before grazing the edge of my panties, forcing my eyes shut as if it would even make a difference in there. “I’m trying” he whispers, threading the hand that isn’t up my skirt through the strands of my hair. He grips the nape of my neck, “Ask me again” ” reads an excerpt from the book. This extract disturbed readers as literal sexual assault is being portrayed here without any kind of reprimands or resolution later. People started calling out Hoover over this scene and well, she did respond. Hoover addressed all that backlash in a now-deleted apology video uploaded to her Facebook account. In the said video, she spoke about the SA scene excluding any other criticisms about the book. The toxic relationship between the two main characters outside of the SA scene was never addressed. Meanwhile, Colleen clarified the SA scene in the book missed some context which was deleted earlier by an editor who worked on the book. She apologized and released a new version of the book which did not have the SA scene included in it. This got the internet to quiet down and the controversy and Hoover’s at-the-time relevance ran their course.
Hoover’s efforts in addressing the backlash were commendable and her removing the scene from the book entirely was a responsible move on her part. But how genuine is your concern on an issue with your work if you deleted the video of you addressing it off the internet? Colleen Hoover’s authenticity comes into question when bringing up instances like this, great thing to resolve the issue but why delete the apology and sweep it under the rug? Her habit of sweeping things under the rug so that the new readers don’t find out about it –which comes into play later down the line– becomes very evident here. She aims to preserve her public image and is trying to do that by covering her tracks for anything remotely she is at fault.
Levi Hoover and the silenced
Colleen Hoover all the while claiming to stand with victims of abuse continues to deprioritize her morals to favour her career. She excuses her borderline glorification of toxic relationships saying that they’re depictions of real-life situations yet actively silences people who speak out against such situations when it doesn’t favour her narrative. In late 2020, Colleen’s 20-year-old son (22 now), Levi Hoover allegedly sexually harassed a 16-year-old (18 now). This issue started to spread in August of the following year after the victim spoke up about the issue. The girl involved used to be a fan of Colleen Hoover before the incident. Levi and the girl were allegedly friends on Snapchat before he started asking her (still a 16-year-old) for explicit images, that’s where the sexual harassment began. Levi was allegedly fully aware of the fact that she was 16 at the time. She quite respectfully contacted Colleen about the incident via Instagram of which screenshots circulated the internet after which she was promptly blocked. The girl describes reaching out to Colleen about the incident as cathartic and helped her really put things into perspective, but then, she was blocked and silenced. How could Colleen Hoover, an avid supporter of victims of abuse justify her blocking a victim who reached out to her about her son? The issue then started being discussed on social platforms. Hoover’s haters weaponize this incident to discredit her, using someone’s traumatic experiences for a low blow ratio on an abandoned twitter thread is on another level of exploitative and insensitive which we don’t have enough time to get into.
However, this is where the public knowledge of the incident ends. This divided the Colleen Hoover scene into two distinct halves, the ones who believed and the ones who didn’t. Some of the ones believed the girl, weaponized her experience to spread hate on Colleen more than to set things right and hold Levi Hoover accountable. Some of the ones who didn’t believe her called the girl a liar, and completely invalidated her experience, they cyberbullied a child who came out against an established author’s son who allegedly harassed her into limiting her social presence.
In an exclusive interview with me and WayV, a friend of the victim spoke more about the matter and shed some light on the aftermath of the discussion which wasn’t public knowledge yet. The Verified source says that, After the issue reached a boiling point on the internet, Colleen Hoover who once blocked the girl allegedly decided to reach out through e-mail. In these email conversations, the girl asked Colleen to address the issue on her social platforms where most of her audience interacts with her. The girl wanted to prove all the people on the internet who called her a liar wrong, she wanted Colleen to address it so she can clear her name. But in the good old-fashioned ways of Hoover, she decided to ghost the girl and sweep this issue under the rug once again. Maybe the now world-renowned author worries about her public image if this incident ever gets addressed, she doesn’t want all the new readers picking up her book to know about her connection to such alleged incidents, but this wasn’t the right way to handle it.
Z-Library and Do you deserve to read books
Z-library was what it advertised to be, a library. An endless archive of thousands and thousands of e-books all free to download and consume for everyone with internet access. Z-library is a service relied upon by readers worldwide who don’t have libraries accessible, who don’t have some books sold in their region or maybe cannot even afford to buy these books. Many readers relied on Z-library for their supply of books, especially students who couldn’t afford the overpriced textbooks used z-library to bridge the gap between their education and financial conditions. Z-library did not just house textbooks, it also had rows and rows of digital shelves filled with rich literature and recent works of Fiction. Z-library also carried Colleen Hoover books in its catalogue.
When a Colleen Hoover fan got excited about finding Hoover’s work on the website, they proceeded to tweet about it to somewhat brag and celebrate the discovery they made. This caught the internet’s attention and along with the internet came the actual FBI. Authors called the practices of Z-library unethical and illegal for pirating books and stealing book sales from them. The FBI promptly took down the website, blocking access to so many resources. The sudden takedown of the website on November 3rd 2022 shook the interwebs. A huge part of the BookTok community was shunned from reading free books ever again. Millions of students lost access to textbooks and academic papers essential to their coursework. Many young readers who could not afford to buy actual books from the stores and used z-library to feed their curiosity could not read anymore. The whole internet was speechless and all that people thought during the time was “Who is gonna pay for my textbook now?”. Even though it isn’t solely Colleen Hoover’s fault that Z-library got taken down, it is often used against her and her fans in discussions.
Does one’s ability to afford a book dictate their right to read? Do you not deserve to learn if you cannot afford to pay for an overpriced textbook? The right to education is deemed a fundamental right yet it is being actively taken away by low-income students. Sure pirating and stealing art from artists is wrong but Z-library did help millions of readers with over 11 million e-books under its roof. At the end of the day it comes down to ‘Was Robin Hood wrong for stealing?’ or as Colleen Hoover would put it “There is no such thing as bad people. We’re all just people who sometimes do bad things”
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Credits to Charan (Writer at WAYV).
