I Want To Live In My Books I Want To Live In My Books I Want To Live In My Books I Want To Live In My

‘You know, you want to think you’re… You want to think you’re not like other women, but you are, you know. You’re still… that’s still how the rest of the world, how men are going to see you. Like, I know you hate labels, but like… You live in a woman’s body. You’re vulnerable. No matter what you think, you’re vulnerable, and sometimes, you’ll need other people. Friends. Me.’

- Boy Parts by Eliza Clark

TW: Rape, Abuse

Photo Link: Echo Wang

Why I dislike Colleen Hoover : The decline of reading critically

Colleen Hoover is an American author who rose to fame after her books got popular on “Book Tok.” Book Tok is a “side” of tik tok that reads and reviews books. Her most popular novels are November 9, Ugly Love, Verity and It ends with us. Personally I’ve only read It ends with us, but from excerpts of her novels I don’t plan on reading them. 

Anna Todd is a popular fanfic author who wrote the infamous After series. So popular it got picked up for…. How many movies? Too many. (4) Anna and Colleen both have two things in common. Both terrible popular writers who romanticize and write hard topics beyond their writing skills. 

Even though my dislike for her is strong, there are a few things that I think she has accomplished. She became a popular known-romance author. Her novels are easily accessible because of the simplicity of them. I can admit that! I believe that readers of Colleen Hoover should develop better reading comprehension skills. 

I feel so strongly about my dislike of Colleen Hoover because I’ve read many, many romances. I’m a very picky romance reader. I can’t stand abusive, toxic, possessive men. Why would I want to surround myself around men like that? Now my preference strongly influences my dislike but not fully. Colleen Hoover doesn’t believe in Trigger warnings. Trigger warnings aren’t new, but to the modern political world people don’t need them! But here's the thing, Colleen Hoover doesn’t use them! Despite her constant use of rape, abuse, violence in almost all of her novels. Now this is debatable, why would this be bad? Because she believes it “Spoils” the story. Telling me that she uses these real life traumas solely on plot twists. If you look at most of her reviews from stans most will say they LOVED the plot twists. That is what Collen Hoover is, a “Romance” writer who writes rape as a plot twists. These characters do have “Happy Endings.” Spoiler for november 9 : She gets with the guy who burned her house down. Caused the burn damage on her skin and killed her mother in the fire. If that’s not a meet cute, I don’t know what is. 

Colleen Hoover also included a rape scene in her novel November 9. Later apologizing and having it removed from the novel. She later deleted her apology from facebook and never spoke about it again. Now this is relevant to Colleen Hoover’s character. When a girl online spoke about the sexual assault against her son, Colleen Hoover blocked the girl and continued to defend her son. Now of course not everything on the internet is true, but with the way she writes men makes me wonder how she views men. She also markets her novels as romance. 

Is simplistic writing bad? Of course not, simple language is what gets people reading. Most people wouldn’t read if they started with Crime and Punishment by Fyodor Dostoevsky.

I don’t hate Colleen Hoover fans, or the younger teenage girls for enjoying it. I just wish that the romance genre, although dominated by women, was less misogynistic and saw female characters as true, fleshed out characters. I believe that Colleen Hoover could improve the quality of her craft and her writing, by not calling her novels “Romance” and picking up a dictionary once in a while. 

I think the moral of this story is that not all popular writers are good, some just get lucky.  

practically every character in The Secret History played a role of someone that they were not.

richard and bunny played themselves as rich, when in fact they were poor.

charles and camilla played themselves as pure, when in fact they were weaved with immorality.

francis played himself as cool, when in fact he was an anxious mess.

henry played himself as intellectual, when in fact he was blinded by his own stupidity, wealth, and ego.

julian played himself as a father figure, aiding to the care and minds of the Greek students, when in fact he was conniving and egocentric, swept away by his own gain, unlike a true father.

mrs corcoran played herself as a victim and sorrowful mother of a lost child, when in fact she only cared about her own appearance in front of the camera.

hell, even dr roland played himself as a psychologically-forward man, deep in intellect, when in fact he was nearing dementia and a complete gobble of a man.

i mean, gosh, this theme plays out so grandly. putting up a front and hiding your real self. whether for gain or by self consciousness.

midnights is actually just folklore dressed up as 1989

Memory is a funny thing. When I was in the scene I hardly paid it any attention. I never stopped to think of it as something that would make a lasting impression, certainly never imagined that 18 years later I would recall it in such detail. I didn’t give a damn about the scenery that day. I was thinking about myself. I was thinking about the beautiful girl walking next to me. I was thinking about the two of us together, and then about myself again. I was at that age, that time of life when every sight, every feeling, every thought came back, like a boomerang, to me. And worse, I was in love. Love with complications. Scenery was the last thing on my mind.

- Norwegian Wood by Haruki Murakami

my brain has too many tabs open

I'm waiting for both.

Screw waiting for my Hogwarts letter, I’m waiting for my door to the Starless Sea.

We think we are alone. We think we are so special. We are deeply mistaken.

-Bunny by Mona Awad

"damn, this movie is so relatable." and the movie they're watching is qala.