Love is messy, unpredictable, and even ugly. I finally read my first Colleen Hoover book, 2014’s Ugly Love. You should know something about me: I am a contrarian, but also, a contrarian to being a contrarian, as I’m also someone who needs to know what all the hype is about in pop culture. Certainly, within the last few years, Colleen Hoover’s name, and her books, are everywhere, often met with equal amounts of elation and derision; ergo, I needed to see what the hype was all about, one way or another. Enter Ugly Love, a novel about two 20-something-year-olds, Tate and Miles, who meet in San Francisco and immediately experience a spark that turns into lustful fireworks. But Miles has a past he won’t talk about, and a future he’s closing off to Tate.
Hoover goes back-and-forth between the present day with Tate and Miles’ budding lusty relationship (more on that in a moment), and six years ago when Tate met a girl named Rachel when they were both 17-years-old. Tate and Rachel also had an immediate spark that blossomed into a relationship, but whoops, their parents are dating and then married, so, they’re step-siblings. They persist anyhow and then Rachel gets pregnant. Since we know at the start of the book something ugly happens with Rachel that brought Miles to his present, stoic, and closed-off single self, I figured she died, but then when she got pregnant, I figured maybe he pressured her into an abortion. None of that happens. Instead, we learn toward the end of the book, that when they’re driving home from the hospital with their newborn baby boy, they get into a car accident and the baby boy dies. Rachel blames Miles and moves back to Phoenix. Love is ugly and grief is ugly and that’s how they meld into the same, and how Miles is the man who doesn’t want to allow himself to love again.
But returning to the point: both love situations are quite literally “love at first sight” situations, Miles with Rachel, and then between Tate and Miles. At least with the former, it sort of blossoms into a beautiful young and wild love that maturates to a higher plane, if momentarily, when they have a baby together, but with Tate and Miles, it’s pure lust, as far as I’m concerned. And it also has an air of taboo to it because Miles is Tate’s brother’s best friend, and they’re initially sneaking around. Taboo just like dating your step-sibling, right? There’s nothing wrong with lust and lust can turn to love, of course, but I’m not sure we get enough oomph for that pivot from Hoover. Tate goes immediately to love at first sight and obsessed at first sight and holds onto that obsession until Miles realizes he can love again, and decides to allow himself to love Tate.
I’d be remiss if I didn’t mention that a podcast about Stephen King’s books has a section for “pound cake” to talk about all the awkward sex scenes in King’s book. Not that I’m surprised, but Hoover’s books had a lot of pound cake, often going for pages at at a time. That’s why I got such a lusty vibe from Tate and Miles’ relationship-but-not-a-relationship.
Nonetheless, as I said, Hoover goes back and forth between present day and six years previous, but she also distinguishes it visually with the present day in the normal book format with a justified alignment, and the six years ago chapters with the font center-aligned, like a poem, to represent Miles’ love for Rachel. At the end of the novel, Miles visits Rachel and realizes she’s married, has a daughter, and is happy again, so, he can be happy, too. Hoover then changes the scenes with Miles and Tate to the font being center-aligned. I thought that was a cute touch to bring it back around and together.
Overall, there is indeed a lot of hype around Hoover’s books, but not to the point of setting some lofty standard. I went in expecting a breezy, fun, and lusty read, and that’s basically what I got! I don’t think I’ll ever quite understand people that think Hoover books are emblematic of what’s wrong with “books today” or “readers today.” The way I look at it, if people are reading books, even if you think they’re trashy, poorly written books, then that’s a net positive. For what it’s worth, I don’t think the book was poorly written, despite my criticism about Tate and Miles’ relationship. Again, the way I simply assess a book: You got me to read it, turning page after page, so, mission accomplished! How can that be bad writing? There is better writing, obviously, but is it bad writing? Hardly. Those who have also wanted to dip their toes into the Hoover-mania, I recommend giving it a whirl. Why not? It’s not that ugly.
Milam's Musings 