I can’t stand Colleen Hoover

Content Warning: brief mentions of domestic abuse and grooming in books 

Over the past few years, TikTok has become insanely popular. As a platform, it allows users to film and share short videos. TikTok is also famous for its algorithm, which puts users into ‘sub communities’ of videos based on different interests. One of these communities is BookTok. As an avid TikTok user, and a lifelong reader, I have crossed paths with BookTok many times. Although I love watching book videos, I hate BookTok. 

Yes, you read that correctly. Let’s backtrack though. BookTok is a place to share book recommendations, reviews, and reading challenges. I’ve seen many people get inspired to read because of the sheer amount of recommendations coming out of BookTok—I’m sure you’ve seen the “BookTok” tables Indigo is capitalising off of. BookTok is making reading cool and relevant again. If you were around the book community many years ago, you may remember BookTube, which was the 2012–2016 YouTube equivalent of BookTok. I used to trust everything BookTubers would say, and my shelves are still haunted by those impulse purchases. BookTube is definitely picking up again in terms of popularity, but I think the ‘bite-size’ consumption of one minute versus ten minute videos gives BookTok the upper hand. Regardless of which platform you might have used, the sharing of book recommendations and reviews online has been around since the beginning of the internet. I’m glad BookTok is getting more people to read and encouraging people to read for fun. Why, then, would I say that I hate BookTok? 

While I think BookTok is nice for people who have recently begun reading for fun, I think it’s a bad space on the internet. On the elitism of reading, I have seen videos shaming users who use the library, use audiobooks, read manga, graphic novels, and more. These methods of reading are not always considered ‘reading’, which is incredibly harmful. I think a book community should cater to various types of reading (audio, predominantly visual, etc.), various types of genres, and most importantly, accessibility. I mean, I feel incredibly lucky to live in Canada where I have access to any book I want. Reading is an act of freedom and an act of protest, and creating an elitist system to ‘read properly’ is beyond me. 

If that wasn’t bad enough, BookTok is full of the same recommendations and the same five authors. Many creators who share unpopular recommendations are not promoted by the algorithm, so a deep-dive is necessary to find unique stories. The problem isn’t that the same books are recommended, it’s that they are bad books. In my opinion, almost every TikTok recommendation I have read, from The Love Hypothesis by Ali Hazelwood to It Ends with Us by Colleen Hoover, to They Both Die at the End by Adam Silvera, has been a major disappointment. Many of these popular recommendations have bad writing and mediocre plotlines. Simply boring, overdone, annoying, and frustrating. 

The biggest red flag of BookTok, in my opinion, is that it constantly promotes toxic and problematic books and authors. The biggest offender here is Colleen Hoover, hence the title of this article. If you’ve never encountered her work, count yourself lucky. Colleen Hoover writes New Adult books, mostly in the romance genre. BookTok fails to mention that most of her books, if not all, feature problematic and abusive relationships. The book I (unfortunately) picked up was advertised as a romance, but if you’ve read It Ends With Us, you’ll know the main theme is domestic abuse and the abuse of power over a minor. No video I saw featured trigger warnings, so I went in blind, which I cannot recommend less. I was physically sick at the descriptions in the book. One love interest is a persistent abuser and the other love interest grooms the 15-year-old protagonist while he is 18. The book is supposed to be about breaking the cycle of abuse, and yet there are no consequences for the abuser and no conversation about the harmful subject. Many of her other novels feature women-hating, female protagonists and toxic if not abusive relationships. To add to this, Hoover herself is very problematic. Along with authors like Sarah J. Maas, she’s been accused of racism, homophobia and a number of scandals in her personal life. 

I often hear it is important to separate authors from their works. To that I say, authors pour themselves and their experiences into their books. In fact, Colleen Hoover states in the preface and acknowledgments of It Ends With Us that she writes from her own experiences of abuse. It’s difficult to separate a problematic author from their work because their books are part of them. So, the personal lives of authors are as relevant to the stories as the stories themselves. 

I’ve also heard the argument “it doesn’t matter what people are reading as long as they’re reading,” but I disagree. Ultimately, it does matter what people read. Throughout history, books have been banned and censored, so it’s obvious books have incredible power over us. While BookTok is fun, maybe it’s important to ask ourselves: why are these books constantly being recommended and are we okay with the subject matter? What are the authors doing to discuss the uncomfortable topics in their books? If authors continuously write about toxic relationships and there’s no conversation on why they’re toxic, younger readers might deem these relationships okay. I think if you’re aware that a work is problematic, it’s up to you if you want to read it. But the knowledge of why it is problematic is extremely important. While reading is fun, it is a powerful tool, and without the open dialogue on problematic plot elements such as abuse, rape, and more, it becomes dangerously easy to see these themes as acceptable. 

Next time someone recommends you a BookTok read, make sure you check the trigger warnings first.