by Alyssa Khan
The outline of two intertwined lilies sits just above Charley Edginton’s elbow, a reminder to just keep swimming, paying homage to the book that she says changed her life. Edginton picked up her first Colleen Hoover novel at just 15 years old as part of the required reading curriculum at her high school. She’s stuck with Hoover ever since, going on to read six more novels by the TikTok acclaimed author.
For the past four years, Colleen Hoover has been inescapable. The pink petaled cover of her best seller, It Ends With Us, has appeared on social feeds and TikTok “for you” pages everywhere, launching the Texas-based author to the top of the New York Times bestseller list seemingly overnight. The title’s success brought opportunity to Hoover’s door like never before, prompting a sequel — and even landing her a movie deal. Her main character, Atlas Corrigan, was coined the perfect book boyfriend by readers worldwide, sparking an expansive fan base that overtook the BookTok community.
“If you made a video about It Ends With Us, you were guaranteed to get views.” Says Kevin Norman, a Los Angeles-based Latinx BookToker with over 200 thousand followers. Norman started his TikTok account in September 2020, hoping to create an archive of LGBTQ+ titles for his community. The sheer popularity of Hoover’s strained novel brought the book to Norman’s feed despite it falling so far out of his niche. “The allure with it was so many creators talking about how emotional it was, and emotion will sell books.If I know something might emotionally devastate me, I’m like, ‘oh my gosh, I need it.’ That’s what happened with It Ends With Us. That’s probably why it blew up,” Norman explained.
BookTok is turning the page on Colleen Hoover
Since her TikTok debut, the narrative around Hoover and her work has notably shifted, evident in the near radio silence following the release of the movie adaptation of her most viral novel from the community that once praised her.
It Ends With Us is undoubtedly one of Hoover’s most popular titles, coming second only to its sequel, It Starts With Us. Originally released in 2016, It Ends With Us was Hoover’s fourteenth published book. It remains her top-ranked novel on Goodreads, and has spent over 130 weeks on the New York Times best sellers list. The follow-up continuation came in October of 2022, and sold over 800,000 copies its first day on the shelf. The title broke sales records at Simon and Schuster, a global leader in the publishing industry also responsible for hits like Jenny Han’s To All The Boys series, the BookTok famous romance The Spanish Love Deception by Elena Armas and the viral Bookstagram read The Seven Husbands of Evelyn Hugo by Taylor Jenkins Reid. By the time Hoover had published the sequel, 4 million copies of It Ends With Us had been sold, contributing to the 8.6 million print books Hoover sold for the year. It Ends With Us and It Starts With Us remain her crown jewels, holding the top two spots, respectively.
Hoover’s success came from mounting fame and pressure from fans who found themselves hanging on to her every word. Her story became a social media sensation, crowning her the queen of BookTok. But, with rising fame comes controversy, and that is exactly where Hoover found herself early last year after unveiling plans to publish a coloring book based on the complicated romance, which carries heavy tones of domestic abuse, homelessness, depression, and neglect.
Readers like Edginton flock to Hoover for her ability to capture reality in her pages. The mere fact that she even considered publishing the coloring book called her character into question. The court of public opinion turned the tides against her, and even after apologizing for the “tone-deaf” project, her fanbase remained split.
“I don’t see why you would pick your one book that is about domestic violence and emotional abuse, and then make it into something that doesn’t necessarily need to be made. It just made me re-evaluate the kind of person I thought she was, and if that’s a person I want to support, says Edginton. “I don’t think people want to be coloring ‘Oh, Lily, you fell,’ or people literally getting bitten.” Edginton explained in her Tiktok, which now has over 1.8M views and a notably conflicted comment section.
Both Norman and Edginton had to limit their comment sections at one point, citing hateful and aggressive comments coming from a part of the community that still supports Hoover. While other BookTokers, like Morgann Book, who typically finds her reads outside of Hoover’s niche, saw consensus in comments.
“[Viewers were feeling] the same thing that I was. It was like everyone just agreed, [the coloring book] was just out of touch. It’s just not the kind of thing that should be done,” Book explained.
How fans are responding to the film
Facing backlash and raging comment sections herself, Hoover has gone private on TikTok and has limited her comment section on Instagram, but as the buzz about the film adaptation continues to grow along with her controversial reputation, creators, critics, and fans alike will all have much to talk about in the coming weeks. We reached out to Hoover for comment, but never received a response from the author who once shone brighter than the sun.
Directed by Justin Baldoni and starring Blake Lively, It Ends With Us hit the silver screen just a month ago. Advertised again as a PG-13 drama/romance, the film made a killing in its opening week, grossing $50 million domestically and $80 million globally. But even a star-studded cast couldn’t blind audiences from the emotionally sensitive and controversial plot. Promoted with florals and press on nails, the marketing for the film didn’t help either.
“Like the book, it’s not obviously marketed as a story about domestic violence and surviving domestic violence. Once the press tours started, it was even more apparent that the serious, and very real, message of what the book and film should have been [marketed as] was abandoned by pretty much everyone, bar [Justin] Baldoni,” says Edginton.
The backlash has made waves on social media, prompting larger discussions about sensitivity. More specifically, audiences are highlighting the drastic contrast between Baldoni’s conscious and sensitive demeanor versus Lively’s soft and positive approach to the plot.
All in all, the novel and film center on a broad issue that impacts over 12 million men and women annually in the United States alone, including Hoover herself. In interviews and press tours, the author has loosely attributed her inspiration for the bestseller to her parents’ relationship. Though the detail has done little to soften social backlash.
“I would consider myself someone that can detach the author from their work, with Colleen in particular, I just can’t ignore her. It’s ruined.” says Edginton.
