With 24 books total and more than four million copies sold this year, Colleen Hoover is on top of the literature pyramid and plans to keep her spot.
The American author, specializing in young adult fiction and romance, has become a household name around the country and an admired author at the high school this year.
Hoover has acquired many awards such as the Goodreads Choice Award for best romance with Confess in 2015, It Ends With Us winning the same category in 2016 and Without Merit clutched the award for another year in 2017.
She wrote her first book Slammed in January of 2012. This was the initial story in the three book series about a highschool student, Layken, who just moved to a new state with her family. She finds love with the guy next door, Will, and tells a story portraying how to navigate love when society deems it wrong. This series completely kick started her writing career and it has taken off quite nicely since.
Since then, Hoover has been publishing multiple books every year, grasping the attention of more mature audiences. This group of readers, which continuously grows, is affectionately known as “The Hoover Train.”
Hoover has romantic, plot-twisting and heart wrenching stories that have helped high school students rekindle their passion for reading.
Senior Courtney Delaney is a proud rider on “The Hoover Train” after indulging in multiple books so far this year.
“It was really easy for me to get into all the Colleen Hoover books, just because there’s always something interesting happening in them,” Delaney said. “[The books] are definitely intriguing, you always want to find out more.”
Hoover makes it tough to put the book down, keeping the pace of her books extraordinarily high throughout the whole story. There is always a fascinating plot and an enchanting dynamic between two characters that keeps readers wondering how the story ends.
Starting in the beginning of the 2022-2023 school year, staff at the high school have started to observe the fascination effect Hoover’s books have on students. Such books include Hopeless, All Your Perfects and even a more thrilled-based plot such as Verity.
English teacher Shelli Tabor recognizes the excitement both her current and previous students have for reading with Hoover now in the mix.
“It’s nice when you find an author that connects with you. Of course, it’s going to pick up your pace and volume [of reading],” Tabor said. “It’s good that people find stuff to read for [their] enjoyment.”
Finding an author that one can resonate with and completely enjoy is extremely important for choice reading. Seeing their students go through books in a matter of days is an English teacher’s dream, and Hoover has made it come true.
“It’s mostly student to student word of mouth, and that’s what choice reading should be about,” Tabor said. “It feels like they’re maybe on the shelf for about two days before someone else grabs another.”
Another student at the high school, senior Sophie Ritsema, discovered Colleen Hoover over social media and was captivated by the great reviews.
“I like the open ended [endings] because it leaves you curious, especially with It Ends With Us,” Ritsema said. “You had to wait for the second book so you’re just kind of thinking like, what’s gonna happen? How is this going to take a turn?”
Hoover just recently released the follow up novel to It Ends With Us in October 2022 and has been spotted all around the high school. This second book, It Starts With Us, picks up right at the end of the first, and gives a more in depth look at the relationships between the main characters Lily Bloom, Ryle Kincaid and Atlas Corrigan.
Hoover left readers with a cliffhanger in the first book, but completed the story in second. It goes more into detail about the past of Lily and Atlas but also what their relationship develops into.
Her books are especially enjoyable to read because Hoover includes different styles of writing. In some books, such as the two mentioned above, there are pages of letters that were written by the characters in the book, bringing the writing more to life than it already is. It presents a dialogue between two characters without any quotes, which is extremely hard to convey due to confusion on who is really speaking and why. This is not seen in most literature on account of the difficulty of having characters communicate without verbal words.
“She does a really good job explaining the whole plot [and] the story, I’m really getting emotionally connected with the characters,” Ritsema said.
Hoover traditionally pulls at the heart strings of the reader. Her novels are so raw and realistic, it makes it easy for the reader to identify and bond with the characters. Though Hoover is most popularly known for romance novels, she also includes psychological thrillers and influential young adult fiction books in her publications. Therefore, a book by Hoover fits all readers regardless of preferred genre.
Follow this link to her website which contains a full list of her novels, information about her and a shop to purchase these books.
