Anyone who has been in the BookTok community during the lockdowns in the heat of the COVID-19 pandemic would know the New York Times bestselling author Colleen Hoover.
Affectionally called by fans as 'CoHo,' Hoover started her writing career with 'Slammed," published in 2012. Stephanie Cohen, her boss at the time, was so enamored with her writing that she took on some case work for Hoover, giving her plenty of writing time. In January 2012, Hoover uploaded the book "Slammed" to Amazon's self-publishing platform.
Already a New York Times' bestseller author before becoming a BookTok legend, Hoover's popularity exploded during the lockdown when fans, collectively known as 'CoHorts,' started posting videos recommending her books on TikTok. She was then dubbed as the 'queen of BookTok' by Slate.
In 2022, Hoover held six spots in the top 10 on the paperback fiction bestseller list, an excellent achievement for a single writer. Hoover also sold 8.6 million print books in the same year. Many of her bestselling books were released some years ago, a publishing phenomenon practically unheard of.
Hoover's biggest hit is "It Ends with Us," released in 2016. The book has sold over four million copies and was the bestselling book of 2022. "It Ends with Us" focuses on Lily Bloom's tumultuous relationship with her husband, Ryle, when her first love, Atlas, reappears in her life.
A movie adaptation of "It Ends with Us" starring Blake Lively as Lily will also be released in theaters in June, further proving the book's popularity.
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Another Hoover's bestseller is "It Starts With Us," the sequel to "It Ends With Us." Written from Atlas' perspective after he reunites with Lily, the novel focuses on the aftermath of Lily's divorce and her ex-husband Kyle's wrath.
Hoover delves into a romantic thriller in her bestselling novel, "Verity." The story focuses on Lowen Ashleigh, a writer on the verge of bankruptcy, who receives a job offer from Jeremy Crawford to finish the books of his injured wife, Verity. As Lowen sorts through the notes, she finds Verity's unfinished autobiography detailing the night that changed her family forever. Initially deciding to hide it from Jeremy, Lowen faces a dilemma as her feelings for him deepen. Publishers Weekly reported that "Verity" sold over 2 million copies in 2022.
Here are some notable quotes from Hoover's works.
'Love isn't always pretty. Sometimes you spend all your time hoping it'll eventually be something different. Something better. Then, before you know it, you're back to square one, and you lost your heart somewhere along the way.' - Ugly Love
'He terrifies her and captivates her all in the span of just one encounter, and something about the way he makes her feel sparks buried memories from a past that she wishes could just stay buried.' - Hopeless
'I think love is a hard word to define," I say to her. "You can love a lot of things about a person but still not love the whole person.' - Confess
'Love is the most beautiful thing in the world. Unfortunately, it's also one of the hardest things in the world to hold on to, and one of the easiest things to throw away.' - Point of Retreat
'It took four years for me to fall in love with him. It took only four pages to stop.' - November 9
'Ugly love becomes you. Consumes you. Makes you hate it all. Makes you realize that all the beautiful parts aren't even worth it. Without the beautiful, you'll never risk feeling the ugly. So you give it all up. You give it all up. You never want love again, no matter what kind it is, because no type of love will ever be worth living through the ugly love again.' - Ugly Love
'Push your boundaries, that's what they're there for.' - Slammed
'Not a lot of people have the courage to say what they're actually thinking.' - It Ends With Us
'It takes an astronomical amount of pain and courage to disrupt a familiar pattern.' - It Ends With Us
'There is no such thing as bad people. We're all just people who sometimes do bad things.' - It Ends With Us
'I want you to remember who you are, despite the bad things that are happening to you. Because those bad things aren't you. They are just things that happen to you. You need to accept that who you are and the things that happen you, are not one and the same.' - Hopeless
'In reality, people are who they are and they'll never really change.' - Finding Cinderella: A Novella
'Selflessness. It should be the basis of every relationship. If a person truly cares about you, they'll get more pleasure from the way they make you feel, rather than the way you make them feel.' - Confess
'It's what happens when two people become one: they no longer only share love. They also share all of the pain, heartache, sorrow, and grief.' - Hopeless
"'Absolutely. Regret is counterproductive. It's looking back on a past that you can't change. Questioning things as they occur can prevent regret in the future. I questioned a lot about my relationship with your father. People make spontaneous decisions based off of their hearts all the time. There's so much more to relationships than just love.' - Slammed
Hoover has written 24 novels and novellas in her 12-year writing career. In her 12-year career as a writer. Although best known for her romance novels, she is not confined to a single genre. Hoover has written romances like "It Ends With Us," psychological thrillers "Verity" and "Too Late," and a supernatural thriller "Layla." Even though it is difficult to classify Hoover's works, the majority of them have a seductive blend of drama, sensuality, and crazy narrative twists.
Atria Books, Montlake Romance, Grand Central Publishing, and HarperCollins Publishers publish Hoover's books. She won the Goodreads Choice Award for Best Romance in three consecutive years with "Confess" in 2015, "It Ends With Us" in 2016, and "Without Merit" in 2017. The TV adaptation of her novel "Confess," produced by Awestruck and starring Katie Leclerc and Ryan Cooper, was released in April 2017.
Before becoming a writer, Hoover earned a bachelor's degree in social work. Then, she worked in the field for several years, first at a child advocacy center, a home health hospice, and a state agency offering nutrition counseling.
In 2015, Hoover and her family founded The Bookworm Box, a bookstore supporting charitable organizations. The Bookworm Box hosts an annual Book Bonanza, an auction and book signing event with over 200 writers, to raise money for food banks and other nonprofits around the US. The Bookworm Box has given over $1,000,000 to support those in need.
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