Install Raid for Free ✅ IOS/ANDROID/PC: pl.go-ga.me/tmzxhuem and get a special starter pack with an Epic champion ⚡ Drake ⚡ Available only for new players 🎁 Use the promo code JTSKIN to get the Epic champion Stag Knight and a Skin for Stag Knight designed by JonTron! Don't miss your chance, the promo code is valid until October 7th, only for new players. 📱 If you are an iOS user, enter the promo code here: plarium.com/en/redeem/raid-shadow-legends/ 00:00 Book Review 34:10 Content Warning - S.A 48:10 Content Warning End
No matter what you think of RAID Shadow legends, I have to admit that it is cool how they sponsor content creators not even remotely related to gaming. TFW you see them sponsor book review channels, makeup channels and quilting channels 😂
@@lunar-1340 i was so confused about the sponsorship, I'm assuming she doesn't actually like/play the game and is just doing the ad read tongue-in-cheek, especially considering Raid's reputation. Have they just leaned into it? Is this really advantageous for the company?? I mean it's kind of funny but I'm surprised they're ok with it.
It’s amazing how Colleen Hoover hasn’t written a single likeable character-just from mathematical probability you’d expect she’d write one out of dumb luck
I mean, the female lead in this book, Bridgette, doesn't feel that bad. Not like I'd go out of my way to hang out with her or anything of the sort, but I don't actively hate her. Warren, on the other hand, is revolting, and I can't stand him.
This is the same logic of a lot of slashers. The leading character has lost their parent / sibling / best friend in an accident years ago, and is traumatized by it. Then they go on a trip to a remote location with the whole group of their friends and face their fear in the form of a monster who kills for fun. Most or all of their other friends also get killed, and the main character barely survives, but as they ''mastered their fear'', it's implied that they somehow grew from this experience, and aren't as traumatized by the end. This whole logic is as flawed as a Swiss cheese!
@@Dominic-he7sgWell, that only applies to some horror movies or psychological movies. There are plenty where the main fails and gets dragged into some type of evil by the monster and others where the main dies too. The Ring and The Grudge are examples of these. And then there are movies like The Shining where it isn't really implied they recover, they just survive. And then there are the ones where the main keeps getting dragged in to deal with the monsters as they get obviously mentally damaged like Alien. All of these are kind of old, but I haven't watched horror in awhile. I just remember it being incredibly varied in how the main gets through. Or not.
Systemic misogyny unfortunately. If someone asks why you are a feminist you can point to CoHo books and their popularity. There are fantasies and then there is CoHo books that should be classified as horror/psychological thrillers NOT ROMANCE.
@@azureascendant994 I would not make assumptions about any experiences she might have had but she definitely does not care about the negative effects her word vomit has on young women which is sad since she used to be a social worker. At least she was held accountable for the SA scene in "November 9" but her publishers and fans seem to happily accept any harmful crap she wrote ever since...
@@spOOkytimes YES! The way her books get depicted as harmless romances reminds me of the covert misogyny of the "divine femininity" movement. The funny thing is CoHo actually wrote a "psychological suspense" novel called 'Too Late' in which the protagonist gets SA'd over and over again by her boyfriend using the same scene set up as in 'Maybe Not' but it's actually somewhat acknowledged as violent behavior...
it's genuinely so horrifying... Back when I was in an overall abusive relationship, I was assaulted several times with oral sex. Even after a year of therapy now, I still sometimes feel ashamed for not liking oral bc it's triggering af for me. ANY form of SA can genuinely destroy not only your sex life but your overall self image, the relationship to your body and mind etc., and I'm so very fed up with people not taking it serious
Bridgette: I get harassed and dehumanised every night, I only work there because it pays well and I need money to live Warren: ugh she’s impossible to talk to she’s so inconsiderate
And then him after she tells him about her dehumanising experiences when she returns to the house: "I don't bother to ask what she's angry about this time. Probably something trivial like a light turning red." Like, Colleen honey, you really outdid yourself with the level of unlikability you achieved in this one.
@@GoldenWreck And then when she tells him about her trauma about being MOLESTED, he's like "damn, she can't be this broken can she? is it possible for a person to have THIS MUCH BAGGAGE?" like I don't usually think there are many people in this world that deserve to die (outside of child molesters) but I think Warren (and anyone else who thinks the way he does) is on that list.
"this time i really mean it, we should go back to Egypt! don't ya remember? snorkeling in the Nile (they drowned our children) three square meals a day (we were forced into Egypt because of famine) plenty of exercise (they worked us to death) oh it was paradise!" "...we were in slavery!" "nothing is poifect" -veggietales
I genuinely don’t think Colleen Hoover deserves a platform, the things she writes and how she writes them, it’s so disturbing. How can she write sexual assault so nonchalantly? Framing it as ‘playing hard to get’ makes me ill, she knows exactly what she’s doing and refuses to acknowledge it. Boggles my mind the lengths people go through to defend her.
@@marlaacoleeThat’s saying a lot then because Verity wasn’t even that different from the other books she wrote, the only difference is that there’s murder
@@KreeZafi Colleen's son was sending sexual messages to a 16 year old girl when he was 21. The girl messaged about it Colleen and Colleen blocked her.
can't get over him watching porn in their shared space if my roommate did that I'd move out immediately. I'd move countries just to get away. absolutely insane behaviour
I lived with an abusive man as my roommate for around two years and he would watch porn in the living room loudly while i was stuck in my room. Also would bring women home and hook up with them in the living room and it felt like he was trying to make me feel uncomfortable and small
My problem with Hoover's books is watching my 14 year old students read them, and then accept or expect that type of treatment from often their first "real" relationship
I'm in grade 10 and a bunch of girls have been reading CoHo obsessively for a few years 🤮cringe romance is fine, i enjoy trashy YA books, but her books are just inexcusable.
we had to present books in english class last year and seeing a bunch of 15/16 year old girls talking about coho books as if they're romantic light hearted fun was truly concerning
That's the most dangerous part of this. Children haven't got the maturity, critical thinking skills, or experience to fully understand how wrong everything in CoHo's books are. Like, I remember being that age myself and reading the House of Night book (I think I only read the first one) and I can't remember thinking anything was weird about it. Hearing Alizee review it now as an adult makes me kinda horrified at the thought of how I as a young teen didn't bat an eye at all the blatantly awful things. Same thing could happen with any other book as well.
@mollypop6887 I agree to an extent, and unfortunately, abusive relationships have existed as long as people so you cant blame her books. The particular student I am thinking of purposely looked for those relationships though. She made those choices, and unfortunately had no one at home to help her navigate that at all
the fact that coho is presenting what Warren and all the other men in her books do as normal is fucking wild. Especially when "it ends with us" was supposed to be ABOUT abuse and yet the only difference is that in the end the girl leaves
Exactly and even in that book, atlas is kinda creep (a 18-19 year old doing the thing with a 15 year old girl who just turned 16) yet he's framed as her true lover here. I think the only reason why he's seen as bad for sa than Warren isn't when saying Bridget is that he physically abuses lily and Warren didn't, even if that still wouldn't make a difference that he still sa her.
I think her work combined with the fact she says she remained close to her father and still thinks he was a great dad even after he abused her mum so badly she went and wrote a book about it when she grew up (in which the abuser is portrayed as sympathetic and romantic and it's oh such a shame that he really couldn't help himself because he really is such a good person, honest) says she just has literally no idea where the line is with abuse or what a good man, father or male lover looks like. She probably internalised all the moments where her dad wasn't as blatantly abusing her mum as being what a couple looks like when they're "happy and in love" by contrast to what it was like the rest of the time or something.
@@Lemoncakelover678this !!!!? atlas was just as creepy, I can't believe people find him dreamy when he was also a creep and was just doing the bare minimum
@@thatveryvvitch7225exactly! He wouldve been okay had he been the same age as lily but he met her as an adult and waited till she turned two years older than him to sleep with her. It just makes him another bad love interest for the protagonist (which isnt helping when shes with an abuser)
Honestly as bad as the assault was, the car scene is what's really fucking terrifying/triggering to me. It's such a vivid description of conflict in an abusive relationship. It hits EVERY POINT of tension when an abuser is escalating to exploding point, to the extent that it would be great writing in another context. I genuinely don't understand how someone can write that, write it the *way* she does, and not intend it in any other way than to inflict a feeling of anxiety and terror in the reader... baffling...
Ikr?!? Like It's almost incomprehensible to me that Colleen intended such behaviour to be romantic. There's just no way someone who has it together in the head would think that.
it feels like she's trying to present it as teehee enemies to lovers so quirky XD which. like. you can insert scenes where characters are arguing over something stupid with a straight face, and in the hands of an author who isn't secretly a goblin cosplaying as a human being it'd be funny, but all the preexisting context combined with the fact you're supposed to eat hoover's word slop uncritically just makes it fucking bleak.
@@b.collins2656 Enemies to lovers only really works to me when the reason they are enemies is over something trivial & then they chose eachother as behated. Then they have to work together & go: "hmm there's more to you than I thought/we have more in common than I thought". After that slowly they fall in love Not whatever the hell this book was doing
This is the exact feeling I have with these books. The fact that she's acting like a rape victim and he's acting like a rapist. The behavior is uncanny in its accuracy but then she pulls the rug out from under you and pretends it's normal and romantic. This book would work perfectly as a thriller with an unreliable narrator, but it's literally marketed as romance. My greatest worry is that young male readers will consume this content in hopes of trying to understand women and they'll fall into the trap of thinking all women want to be assaulted deep down. Colleen is an actual threat to the minds of her readers.
I am baffled by how casually some authors (CoHo, EL James, etc) write sexual assault while failing to realize what they have written. Like that forced pleasuring scene? Couldn't have made that much more rapey if you actively tried
The fact that Bridgette's actions afterwards are consistent with those of an assault victim is just an extra level of vile. Like Colleen writes from the POV of a delusional rapist.
I feel like Hoover is on a different level because most of the others write scenes where the behavior is abusive but it's perceived by other characters (including the victims) as romantic or sexy. But Hoover's scenes are written like they're from a thriller. It doesn't feel in the moment like you're supposed to find it appealing, but then everyone goes on like it wasn't a terrifying thing to do to someone. I do wonder on some level if her own personal experience has skewed her perception of abuse. But even if that's the case, I feel like enough people have called her out that she should be more aware of how her writing is perceived by now.
Colleen Hoover has an obsession with writing brat play without any of the preceding dialogue or negotiation that would actually make it consensual, and that just bothers the hell out of me.
that's what i was thinking!! breaking out the "i'm going to tell you what to do and you're going to like it" thing the first time you have sex?! no discussion beforehand???? no safe word ⁉️
Wow, didn't even know there was a subset in kink about being a silly goober. ..Or are you talking about the sub being a "brat" by not relenting/playing "hard to get"...?
@@trucevideos I've seen it in many AO3 fics, the "brat" in the majority of them needs to repeat to the I guess "tamer" what their safe word of choice is. Popularly the traffic light system is the one authors go for & they have to talk through what it means. Then they are asked when intensity goes up a little "what's your colour?". They also do aftercare a lot It's weird to say but in that regard, fanfiction can be educational. It's not perfect, but it does help form an idea of how that works
@@Nathi98 (sorry in advance for the censorship but you know how youtube is lol) exploring fanfiction when i was pubescent and just discovering the internet legitimately taught me WAY more than s3x ed did. it taught me what a cl1toris is and what it does, what safewords and consent really meant and how they should be explored, how to treat a s3xual partner with respect, dignity, and safety, and made me a lot less ashamed of my own sexuality. as well as teaching things that my school NEVER would have even considered, like how s3x works for trans people, gay people, lesbians, etc. im not even joking, fanfiction genuinely gave me a greater awareness than any of the stuff they taught at school. and i was actually invested in it, instead of trying to make time pass faster in a boring class
“If you dont like dont read it” is such anti-intellectualism I can’t. It literally keeps companies/authors/writers/whatever what from taking accountability for the damage or exploitation that they do.
People who think that nonconsensual oral doesn't count as assault makes my blood boil. Thank you for talking about your experiences Alizee, as hard as that might have been. I have experienced assault in this manner too and I can confirm that you feel absolutely _disgusting_ after it happens. I remember going to take a shower afterwards and almost throwing up as the sensation lingered.
Gosh, I'm so devastated and furious for you. Fuck that person straight to hell for doing that to you. You're absolutely right. Unwanted oral is assault. Hell, unwanted anything that's to do with physical touch is assault, forcing someone to hold hands or to hug you when you've already expressed you don't want to, is assault. I just hope you've been able to find peace and a sense of freedom from your past experience. It doesn't by any means define you as a person, and has everything to do with the disgusting perpetrator. You have no fault at all.
I wouldn't give her the benefit of the doubt and say she didn't realise she was writing a SA scene when this was written and published years after November 9 - a book in which she got into trouble for writing a SA scene (the one in the nightclub) where the female main character clearly says no and stop and the love interest carries on anyway. She got into trouble for writing and publishing that scene and had to change it - her idea of changing that scene was to just take out the part where the woman says no, the rest of the scene is exactly the same so it still has the same coercion vibe. The woman in this scene says no and stop several times and the guy carries on anyway - so clearly she didn't learn her lesson. She understood to some extent what was wrong with the November 9 scene because she understood enough to remove the one line that made it a clear cut SA and made an apology, so there is no way that she was ignorant to the commonalities between the scene in this book and the one in November 9. She is vile. She actively and knowingly perpetuates the harmful romanticisation and glorification of abuse and SA, wraps it in a bow labeled 'romance' and shoves it down the throats of young women and teenagers, the majority of which do not have the emotional maturity or life experience to understand that what they are reading is toxic and harmful and could be influenced by the books she writes and take onboard the very clear message she perpetuates that this is romance and something they would be lucky to emulate in real life. Her books are dangerous and harmful and it makes me unbelievably angry.
I mean, that makes it pretty clear cut that she just wants to write r'pe. She was waiting for enough people to forget about it so she could write it again.
What's weird is that dubious consent (dub con) and depictions of SA are in adult/smut manga, but the community surrounding it gives trigger warnings at the beginning of the chapter and rarely roots for the person perpetrating it. It's also tagged accordingly (dub con, thriller, etc.) fully embracing what you will be reading. You know when you are reading it that it's fucked up, but it's part of the scary. CoHo is trying to play this off as fluffy romance and its just so weird thinking the wild west that can be manga is far more responsible than a very popular author and publisher.
My most charitable take is that she’s a victim herself and this is her way of metaphorically taking back control of the situation and imagining an alternate version in which the female character enjoyed it. Or maybe she doesn’t want to believe it was assault and these stories are supporting her denial. Absolutely does not excuse it but it’s at least better than her just thinking SA is ok
@spOOkytimes I've came across fanfics tagged as dubcon in which both parties wanted smex but couldn't give straight consent. Like they both were hit with smex pollen or something. It's questionable but far away from what she writes and yet it's still tagged Honestly tagging is great when you want to avoid certain topics. I see "dead dove do not eat" and I understand that the writer is probably not in the best state of mind but need a place to explore their dark thoughts. They're not pretenting they're writing a romcom and I can respect that
This whole book is abuse. Not one scene is romantic or cute or funny. He starts off ignoring the very smallest parts of consent and escalates to actual assault. This is how it tends to happen in real life and it's disgusting that this woman can make money off of the very real pain of us victims. This made me feel sick and usually these videos don't bother me. I think it's because this specific story reminds me of my own, down to small details.
i love how he criticizes her temper and how she gets “set off by stupid little things” when he threw a tantrum because *checks notes* a woman was using the shower??
So TMI but I actually cannot get off either with a partner or alone due to lots of things like the fear of loss of control, fear of the unknown and other trauma stuffs. I’m 36 years old, had 3 children but never an orgasm. I would seriously be traumatized and so freaked out if some guy tried to force it on me like that. No one ever talks about it but it’s a thing people struggle with and it’s shameful and embarrassing but it doesn’t give you permission to assault someone.
It's not shameful at all and I'm sorry you've been made to feel that way. 💙 Sex and sexuality are very complicated and so no one should be shamed or embarrassed for trying to feel safe and comfortable with something that can be so intimate and personal. You're so right about the characters though! He didn't even stop to consider what might make her not want to orgasm. She might not even like it, some people don't! He literally just forced her to experiencing something and assumed she secretly wanted it. How can CoHo not see that as assault?
i also experience this, i just physically don't feel aaanything... not because of trauma luckily, i think it's more to do with me being asexual, having an almost non-existent libido, and being a recent side effect from my anti depressants. it kinda sucks but i really don't mind too much. so yeah i was really personally fucking horrified by this, i couldn't stop thinking how i would react to having this happen to me, and again i don't even have sexual trauma so i cant imagine how victims feel
i'm with you there. the trauma is a horrible thing to live with every single day. it affects nearly every part of my life, my relationships, and my self-image. it's especially been a struggle as of late, so this video hit a little harder than usual. my heart goes out to you and others who feel this 🤍 i cannot imagine how an established author can get away with this over and over, somehow managing to get worse than last time!! coho can use all the money she earned from selling SA torture stories to teens to pay for a fkin writing class and actually make something worth reading.
@@kai_maceration this is a tiny thing but I'm a sapphic ace that feels the same way, it's nice to see I'm not really alone in that respect, also much love to OP, they have nothing to be ashamed of
@@merediths.693 omg im happy to hear that! it's not tiny, believe me i know how important it is to know you're not alone in your feelings and experiences.
I want to do that every time I'm in a bookstore but I hate getting attention and putting Coho books in the horror section will definitely make at least a few teenagers and women with no happiness in their lives come after me
I work in a bookstore and it's so depressing to see how many of her books we get, what I've heard young teen girls say about them and then actually buy them with their parents who have 0 interest or understanding about them. I internally cry every single time.
This is literally Joe from You looking at a stranger and deciding that she wears a bunch of bracelets because she wants attention and that everything she does is a secret message to him, personally. And he gets to be right. The desire to vomit is stronger than normal for this one. 🤢
58:35 ain't no way Coho just implied that a person who's been sexually assaulted is broken. I've seen a lot of shit Coho's written, watched her achieve new lows, and that STILL takes me off guard. I can't imagine reading this when I was younger, as someone that HAS been abused in that way. I was a very naïve kid, I probably would've believed it.
It makes me hate that mentally as well thinking of Spanish footballer Jenni Hermoso who partied because she achieved her biggest dream in becoming World Champion after also getting assaulted on the same day by her boss' boss' boss She didn't act like the "typical" victim, which in my opinion doesn't even exist. Assault is liniar, victims' behaviour is not
I’m not even gonna pretend anymore, I get a big head and feel intellectually superior that I can’t stand CoHo and her books and can point out all of the horrific things she writes
Colleen Hoover seems like the Andrew Tate of women. I mean she’s not spurring violence or committing crimes that we know of, but it’s genuinely alarming how many women are reading these books unironically 😨
Ever come across Just Pearly Things? She probably eats this shit up. Even though Colleen Hoover is a woman who misrepresents women, let's be real, there are women who are horribly indoctrinated by toxic masculinity, and there are women who just suck as much as some men do. I'm not sure which of the two she is.
Literally, watching this made me think about all of the toxic and “rape culture-y” stuff that I learned as a teenager that was passed off as romance and it ended up hurting me and people I was in relationships with. Language like this and storytelling like this is so damaging and dangerous and I’m so angry now
The fact that they have sex every night for 3 weeks but don't talk makes me question how consensual that 'sex' is. Honestly, I couldn't imagine how horrifying that would be
Without getting too personal, this is SA, and something I dealt with myself after being in a situation of childhood abuse similar to the main female character. It took years for me to realize I'd been assaulted, and many more years to relieve myself of the shame situations like Chapter 5 gave me. This can't be fixed by sexual domination. What a disgusting thing to put in a book. You're clueless, insulting and harmful Coleen. 😞
Yeah I hate the idea that women all need to be dominated to be whole and happy, some women don't like sex, don't like bottoming, don't like being submissive etc. but Coho subscribes to the sexist idea that all women need to be sexually dominated by men to be complete
Steven King is great at writing characters, at getting you into their headspace. The gunslinger from the Dark Tower series is particularly awful (at the start) but King is able to simultaneously make you empathize with him while being disgusted. Colleen Hoover is the exact opposite of Stephen King: everyone is unlikeable both in-universe and to the reader, their thought processes are those of the obsessively mad, and there’s no clear recognition by the author of how revolting these people actually are.
yeah, true clearly not a competent writer, I emphasized more with the dude from lolita bc he was a well written monster jf Colleen, the guy is a p3do and he was better than your men bc like at least he felt sorry sometimes -_- (THAT IS A LOW BAR COLLEEN THE DEVIL JUST TRIPPED)
Eyeball Chambers from the book The Body & the movie Stand By Me is more sympathetic than Warren. For the sole scene that he didn't want his friend Ace Merill to stab his little brother Chris (movie watcher perspective). This is despite him siding with Ace in stealing Gordie Lachance's sentimental hat & letting him assault Chris with a cigarette earlier on There's also a reason as to why: At home, does Eyeball get abused as badly as Chris? Does he also carry resentment to his family's town reputation knowing it won't get him anywhere? Is he jealous of Chris' superior intelect, maturity & good-naturedness despite the clearly present temperament all Chambers naturally posess? Was he aware Chris would make it out of Castle Rock all along? Is he scared of Ace turning on him like his father did? Like his brother did in a different manner? There is no such thing for Warren's motivations here, it is spelled out: He wanted to sleep with her from the start & he is a control-freak himself
While I haven’t finished the series, I personally don’t consider Roland to be loathsome as a protagonist (though to be fair, that thing he did at the end of the first book did have me going, “What the absolute fuck, Roland?!” I’m just glad he felt rightfully contrite about it.) I admit, maybe it’s just because I like morally ambiguous gunslinger characters, and because I still considered him morally grey compared to the Man in Black (which is a given.) Still, you make a good point.
As someone who has autism and social anxiety, one of my biggest pet peeves in romance books is one of the MCs grabbing the other MCs face and forcing them to look into their eyes. Not only does it feel unrealistic (who does that in real life?), but it’s also weird and uncomfortable. Even books I like sometimes include it, and it just makes me sad.
That's why I, as an autistic romance writer, always write characters who are respectful to each other and don't do shit like that. It seems that autistic writers are just better at writing healthy romance than some NT authors
According to a review I stumbled upon: "In her sexiest book to date, she delivers non-stop humor tumbled together with a whole lot of heart. This wonderful novella is all about falling in love". I am not entirely sure if it's the same book the reviewer was reading.
I genuinely believe books for adults shouldn't operate like morality tales and most adults have ability to discern between what's good irl and what's bad. Depiction does not always equal defense or support. But oh my god, CoHo is the exception to the rule. Her characters are objectionable because of their warped moralities which just feels like mouthpieces for the author's horrible worldview. But they also commit the worst sins in media: be boring and annoying. From what I've seen, she seeks realism in her characters but fails because all her adults feel like a teenager wrote them. I try not to judge people based on their media consumption (lord knows I enjoy garbage from time to time), but CoHo fans are a huge 🚩 for me. I genuinely don't understand why people enjoy this kind of writing. Edit: Just passed the SA section and yeah that's completely vile and reprehensible. CoHo and fans should be ashamed for defending or debating this. It's sickening.
and as Alizee pointed out, it would be ok if you were expecting it. people can enjoy non con fiction, but you know what you're getting and you're in the right headspace. this is marketed as a romance and warren is sold as a normal good guy. im glad i didn't come across that scene believing i was reading a harmless, poorly written romance, because this would have been quite triggering. and the car scene - i was in a dv relationship for 8yrs - being told how i feel and having to walk on eggshells and try to read levels of anger... and having the doors locked because yes, i was going to run. the whole story is watching bridgette get broken down until she can't fight back anymore...
@@julianlaresch6266 It’s been claimed she’s quoted saying trigger warnings would count as spoilers but I don’t know how true this is. That said, even “scenes that some may find disturbing” is vague but gives a rough idea for the audience to proceed with caution
I'm a little on the ace spectrum, and it manifests as that I have no desire to be touched by my partner(s). Like I'm happy to get them off but don't want it reciprocated, and that is a completely enjoyable situation for me. Everybody I've been with have asked afterwards, and I've said no I'm very happy with this being the end of it. And every single one has been happy to accept that. This entire scene really hits me hard as a person who doesn't want anybody to touch me s**ally. Holy crap it's actually so messed up. Like don't get me wrong I read dark romance but this is just marketed as a general romance holy hell
I'm so sorry Alizee, I really love your videos, but I had to skip through huge parts of this one. I swear it made me want to eat my phone, case and all. CoHo has lost it. She's sctually normalising SA. I knew she was fine with toxic and abusive relationships, but god did I hope she'd never stoop so low. Which is stupid of me because of course she did. And now this putrid, pathetic, vile excuse for a book is in the hands of who knows how many teenage girls who'll think the relationships she portrays are perfectly healthy and normal. It's CoHo's own course in trauma and internalised misogyny. EDIT: rage makes me temporarily illiterate, apparently
Hi, hello, work in a bookstore and I have the same problems, along with the question - WHO THE FUCK ALLOWS TO PUBLISH THESE?! I genuinely am revolted(?), disgusted, bamboozled and just flabbergasted at the people who let her publish these books who are actively hurting impressionable people who will end up in bad situations. The only people who are safe are those who are self-aware that these books are trash and can get this shit for free on Wattpad.
@@Dani_77709 Asking the right questions! Like I genuinely think that the person who approved this for publishing is not in their right mind. Let alone the one who thought that any of CoHo's books are YA when they obviously form a dystopian horror novel series about a talentless author traumatising a whole generation of teenage girls via deceptive depiction of abusive relationships. What scares me is that it's so easy to miss that same abuse when you're an inexperienced kid. There's nothing to compare to, no idea of what an actual relationship looks like, or what it should look like for that matter. Like I actually thought that Twilight was good when I was a teenager? Twilight? The story about an underage pick-me girl dating a bloodthirsty stalker who is old enough to be her grandgrandfather? Good? And now I desperately need therapy.
@@Dani_77709 I actually went into a bookstore with the intention of buying another one of her books since many of them were recommended in Booktube videos I watched. I started reading the backs of multiple of her books but was kinda unimpressed, since a lot of them sounded like the typical hetero romance about a girl falling for a mysterious boy with "a dark past," and such romance stories I feel are quite tiresome and unoriginal, stuff supposed to be kept within the confines of Wattpad. Eventually, a young girl probably around my age who worked there approached me and was like "Hey, can I recommend you a book?" I said sure and she gave me a book that I thought actually sounded appealing when reading its back, so I ended up getting that instead. And I absolutely loved it, even going as far as calling it my favourite book yet. So I'm super glad that girl approached, but at the same time looking back, I can't help but wonder if she deliberately did that just to get me away from buying one of CoHo's books lmao. It makes me embarrassed that she even caught me scrolling through them 💀
@@rainbeau6760 Exactly! The problem lies with inexperience and being unable to compare it to really anything. I also remember reading books and all the red flags just flew over my head until I reread them years later. I just stare at the page and question my past self sanity for thinking this was okay. Unfortunately perspective comes with age and experience. Hoover is a threat and I can only hope that the girls reading her books will mature and realize how fucked up the author is.
Really f'd for the main character to accuse previous guys she's slept with of being 'selfish' for listening to her wants and needs in a sexual encounter. He's literally the one being selfish, needing to 'prove' something about his own sexual competency by forcing her into something she has said she isn't comfortable with. If he was genuinely 'concerned' about her reaction, he could have taken the sex element off the table entirely and had a mature conversation with her right there and then about the fact that he noticed she didn't want to orgasm, and ASKED to make SURE that she was done with the encounter.
Look, I read a lot of Dead Dove: Do Not Eat smut. But fanfic writers don't pretend that they're writing anything than what it is. Collen Hoover is vile for promoting this as fluffy romance.
I recently finished a fanfiction about two people being trapped in a toxic sexual codependent relationship that one party sees as bad but doesn't want to quit while the other sees nothing wrong at all. What I do is frame that the entire thing as bad and that this shouldn't be happening (like when I was suffering through addiction) CoHo would look at it and say "Yeah!! This is healthy!!"
As an actual Dom that has been with submissive partners... a submissive partner can very much still give enthusiastic, explicit, clear consent to situations. I really hate when people take it as "dom put this sub in situation they didn't like at first but they enjoyed it in the end so that makes it okay", like... no, my guy, that is not being dominant, that is just pressuring people into shit they didn't want in the first place. A sub that is very much in tune with the Dom and what is happening is one of the hottest things there can be, so I actually can't understand what is alluring about scenes in which the sub has to be forced into something.
Because it's about violating consent not truly respecting boundaries between people. That makes the difference between domination versus abuse of power. People seem to really want to see the violation play out, so depressing
@@magical-soap5359 TW: S*xual Assault Like the "Oral is to pleasure YOU it's not the same!" thing is just... People don't necessarily assault/rape others to feel pleasure. They could do it to feel control. To make their victim feel powerless. We saw it in that passage alone, he got off on the fact that HE'D be the one to make her orgasm, even if she didn't want it.
exactly! even in brat or cnc stuff, the sub is supposed to be PRETENDING not to like it. if they ACTUALLY don't like it, that's not kinky. that's a violation of consent. communication and trust is literally the backbone of kink
Yall remember that episode of iCarly where they were contractually obligated to promote a crappy shoe so they technically met the requirements by being super sarcastic about how great it was? That's what the sponsorship is giving 😅
how is it controlling to not want to receive S3xual pleasure back? maybe she’s just not up to it?? like idk, sometimes ppl just wanna give the pleasure and are ok not getting anything in return 💀 that was one of the ( many ) parts that really bothered me. this perception that when two people are intimate, they BOTH need to get off. sometimes one partner might be interested in getting their partner off more than themself. sometimes both partners want to get off. it’s okay to ask questions but to keep harassing/bothering her as if she owes an explanation about it is gross. like,, just take the No, Warren and leave her alone 🥴
That really annoyed me. Some peoples have extremely low sex drive, sometimes they just don’t care about getting off and just want to give. There’s nothing wrong with that.
@@smolexfundie6458 yes, exactly! that’s something that’s always frustrated me with CoHo books, there’s this expectation that if you’re not up to s3x then you’re somehow broken and need to be “fixed” by being forced into a sexual situation. 😐
Colleen babe: I’m begging you to seek therapy instead of romanticizing abuse and SA for millions of people. Please. You’re in the privileged tier of Americans who can afford therapy out of pocket. I say this as someone who is a victim of relationship abuse/SA. Being in a relationship with a person like this is not worth it. It never is. Its not romantic. It’s infuriating that she’s normalizing it for her mostly young female demographic.
For some reason my brain really fixates on the 50 cups thing. Like... It's *a lot* of cups??? I doubt my household has 30, and that would include every single cup/glass-like object in the house, including the one where the toothbrushes are. Like bro went out of his way to collect every vessel in their flat and dedicate it to an unfunny prank. What a loser
Holy shit I think this novella made me even more asexual. Edited to add: I’m working my way through _Lolita,_ and oh my god, everything in this novella was giving me Humbert Humbert flashbacks and I wanted to claw my skin off.
My coworker literally was just talking to me about how she was reading a Colleen Hoover book and was SO into it, and I was smiling very kindly at her on the outside But on the inside, I was fully vibrating out of my own skin
Ikr? I was at a book shop the other day, and all of her books were sold out. The worst part was, the reviews were so good. PEOPLE LIKE THESE TRAUMA INDUCING BOOKS?
@@TaemtiddiesEither they're aware of CoHo's reputation and likes reading books like these (Not necessarily as romances. I'm not gonna judge them unless they truly feel this shit is normal.) Or they're people (teens and adults alike) who think this stuff is romantic. If that's the case, I'm genuinely worried about that. I remember being young and not seeing certain things as wrong until I gained more awareness. It takes time. I'm just worried these people will end up in horrible relationships, I don't wish that on anyone. I'd like CoHo to just... Stop writing or label her books appropriately, that's all I want.
I also wonder if Colleen didn't hear from her sons about anime and she just threw in some thropes from harem/isekai power fantasy light novel/manga adaptations such as 'the guy sees the girl naked by accident in a completely unrealistic scenario' and made Bridget into a tsundere who 'has a violent, over-the-top reactions to him and won't admit her obvious feelings for him'. Like, I almost expected their second meeting to be him tripping over a carpet and landing on top of her and accidently touching her boobs.
Genuinely that car scene was terrifying ‘I lock the doors so she cant run’ excuse me?! And the way he endangers their lives and then tells her its her fault? Genuinely if anyone enjoys this and thinks its romantic, they need therapy, lots of therapy.
My sister who has a really troublesome love life started reading Colleen Hoover and I found myself invested in hearing her updates on the book so I knew whether or not to schedule an intervention. As I worry she will fall victim to further normalizing these abusive attributes. BOOKS DO REAL HARM. It’s not a matter of “don’t like it, don’t read it”.
You know, I don't endorse playing head games with people and "testing" your romantic partner, but I do agree with the advice that early in a relationship you should find something to say no to your partner about. A trivial request that you would normally agree to, or something you have done in the past. Say no, for no reason, and if they get mad, or push your boundary, or try to talk you into changing your mind, that tells you everything you need to know about how they will react to being told no when it's something more serious. Warren failed that test on a criminal level. Girl should be pressing charges. Can I press charges against this book??
I put Warren in the same tier as Ramsay Bolton. Irredeemably evil. Hell, I even think Ramsay is more likable because at least he’s very competent at his job.
Such a random collab. I haven’t had her videos in my homepage in a long time but has she ever done a video on videogames? I’m just glad she’s getting that bag
As you were reading that scene I was really thinking 'maybe CoHo is just a bad writer and she meant to say something else? Like instead of saying 'afraid' she meant 'nervous anticipation' or something?' but as it progressed... No she really thinks rape is ok if the woman has an orgasm. There's no two ways about it. Ok then.
As a prevention/consent educator, I appreciate this video and your comments on the lack of consent in this book so much! Like this shit is so 101 assault - her saying no and him refusing, her body language making it clear she's uncomfortable, his main motivation being his own ego and entitlement. It's shocking to me that this is a famously published author writing sexual assault scenes where the main character literally brags about it and mocks her afterwards, and it's supposed to be romantic. In the queer community, we have a concept called "stone" - a person who does not like to receive sexual touch and prefers to give sexual touch to others. Even if Bridgette didn't have trauma in her backstory, she could have been an example of someone like this, or just someone who doesn't enjoy the feeling of orgasms. But nope, apparently every women likes the exact same things and needs a man to prove it to her (sarcasm). Thank you for being so clear about how dangerous this book is!
these men are so similarly written like the protagonist of lolita but he was supposed to be a sick weirdo and it was actually self aware but all of these guys are supposed to be desirable i can‘t w this shit
This is beyond disgusting. The hand-holding scene was already crossing the line for me, as someone who likes enemies-to-lovers and trashy YA books that sometimes have questionable relationships. I have never read a CoHo book and never will. I am extremely concerned that my 15-16-year-old classmates have been reading her books for years.
This book is so genuinely abhorrent I am SHOCKED that this exists, let alone that anyone would read this & take it seriously… I guess I shouldn’t be surprised given her other books. Coho’s writing is truly beyond parody
This reminds me so much of what one of my female friends has been through with her ex. He was very manipulative, possesive and just completely delulu. She tried to break up with him multiple times but every time he would tell her that he could "read it in her face what she really wanted" and that she was just "scared of being loved". This shit went so far that in the end she was so desperate and scared that she just went to work one morning and never came back, abandoning all her stuff that she still had in his appartment. Because that was literaly all she could do to get away from him. He still didn't get it tho. I was still good friends with him back then because I never knew what a piece of shit he was until I wittnessed all his awful behavior after the break up and all the stuff she told me later. I remember hours and hours of him screaming and crying on the phone and me trying to calm him down. He insited of knowing that her friends manipulated her into breaking up and that he is the one and only person who could "save" her and who really loved her and that everyone else was just a bad influence and that she "owed" him her love or at least an "explanation". Like, dude... she tried to explain it to you a 1000 times and you just gaslit the shit out of her in response. Running away and blocking your number was her only option left. He went full stalker mode, writing her cheesy letters, threatening her friends, trying to get me to coerce her to get back together with him etc. It was he mess. Guys like that are actually out there and it's disturbing.
This character Warren is a good forray into the POV of an abusive character always ignoring their SOs boundaries, convincing themselves that their SO don’t have boundaries due to trauma they're just 'playing difficult to keep the control'. And they think that insisting until you get your way is the right thing to do with their SO, and that like this they're 'figuring them out'. Tbh that'd really fit right with the pov of an emotionally abusive character I have. Every time her boyfriend sets boundaries she doesn't like dhe thinks it's him just being stubborn and contrarian.
I was trying to figure out what could cause such anger from alizee when she's already gotten through so many CoHo books, but after the reading of those scenes I'm surprised she wasn't angrier. This is disgusting
Part of me is morbidly curious how bad the male love interest in book three would be She had a cheater in book one, a sex offender in book two, murderers in Verity and Layla, groomers in Slammed and It Ends With Us, incest in pretty much every book, and an arsonist in November 9. I think the only thing left to romanticise is a terrorist
Too Late had a love triangle between a drug dealer boyfriend who jumps on the female lead as she sleeps every night and glued her engagement ring on, and the police officer trying to catch said boyfriend
I posted a book review about a really great one portraying addiction and the things we have to do to keep up with it and someone commented saying they thought I would love colleen hoover and I just about cried
I seriously cannot go onto book sites like goodreads, reddit, tiktok, yt etc. sometimes because I see somewhere someone talking about how much they love CoHo's books, and out of curiosity, I looked at reviews and videos about why people liked Nov 9 so much, and it was certainly an experience. I do not recommend btw, it was infuriating and I was shocked and the sheer stupidity of people and also the replies to people who hated it. I kid you not, someone said "I love Ben I wish there were more men like him in the world" I could not believe it. So I stay away from any sort of conversation about her books, because they make me mad.
I've watched a lot of reiveiw of the l unhealthy relationship portrayals in novels and I've NEVER seen anything like this book. I'm a woman and my blood ran cold at some of these passages. Warren was genuinely terrifying. He is an abusive rapist. I was so uncomfortable hearing so many of these passages.
Seriously. How do you read that and not realize you’re writing a fucking horror novel? I’d be scared for my life in that car, much less any of the other scenarios.
Jfc, that whole scene had “SA TRAUMA” in bright neon, alarms screeching, all over it. Her wanting to be in control (she doesn’t feel safe otherwise?), her not wanting him to touch her (flashbacks to other hands on her?), her suddenly locking the door (fears he might corner her in the bathroom?)
CoHo books suffer from an extreme lack of self awareness. Like you said, the problem is not that it's a book with a rapist in it, but that it's a book where all the decisions the rapist made were not only perfect, but in fact very romantic. (Also yes I agree that JK was just making stuff up when she decided Dumbledore was gay)
idk what alizee puts in her videos but i need it to be bottled and sold as an antidepressant. also as someone who lives with two men decent men do not act like warren. like we all coexist and no one does objectively shitty things like watch porn in public and walk in on each other in the bathroom??? real people don't act like this???
A few years ago, I bought a used copy of "Writing Romance for Dummies" (I think was the title, I don't respect it enough to look it up.). In the introduction, the author, a published romance writer, a) only spoke about male/female romance couples, not even acknowledging other possibilities. I assume one tagged on "or w/w, m/m, or a dominating woman with a submissive man, but for the simplicity of things, I'll go with m/f" would have killed her. and b) wanted to make it very clear to us naive little writer babies that women want to have their "no" ignored, they want to be hunted, chased, and pursued, that's the foundation of all good romance novels. Any other dynamic is wrong and not something people want to read. I tossed the book into the trash without even finishing the introduction. I refused to resell it because every copy of that junk that gets turned into shreds in the recycling facility to find a second life as the cheap, itchy toilet paper you find in public restrooms is a win for humanity. It's frustrating how people like to bash dark romance and dark erotica writers and their work. At least, the moment someone self-publishes their problematic, bile-green toxic hardcore bondage fuckery manifesto as dark romance or dark erotica, they are self-aware of what they're writing and at large, the target group also knows they're not picking up a relationship advice book cosplaying as Cinderella re-telling no. 29.427. I have much more respect for that niche genre and its contributors than the Colleen Hoovers of the romance genre and their pretentious "Oh, no, no, it's not smut, it's not a naughty fantasy that better stays a fantasy but gets heats you up further when you're already horny on a lonely Sunday afternoon, we don't do such nasty things, we do cutesy, feminine romance that even cute guys would secretly love~" attitude. At least, someone who writes a kinky beastiality centaur/werewolf dark erotica novel knows that it's not a good idea to roll naked and butt-up under a horse or a German shepherd (unless the name's "Claudia" but that's just one inside joke for any other Germans who might end up in this comment section). If Hoover wrote something like that, she'd still call it "romance~~" and sell it as the normal way love just happens to go.
Damn people really want to pass abuse and violating consent as "romantic" so badly?? Like another comment said those themes are popular in horror writing so what is it about making up a "romantic" r*pe that gets folks looking??? I'm so lost
So proud of you for taking your A-levels! ❤❤❤ Getting back to education as an adult is a pain, so huge huge huge kudos for that! Love you, thank you for all the content!
that hand holding scene is actually terrifying. Let's not forget she hears none of what he's thinking so she's just locked in a car with this maniac who risks both their lives to forcefully hold her hand
CNC is a kink of its own, but this book doesn't read like that to me. She pushes him away repeatedly and there's no indication they have anything to indicate they like each other. Bridget, as she is written, doesn't need Warren or sex, she needs therapy and people who respect her boundaries. It's deeply concerning.
I was told by two separate friends to read It Ends With Us. They had both read and hated it. And heard it’d be in theaters sometime. I said I would. Read it. I have a lot of trauma and had no idea it had any in it. It took me three weeks to read it, and it would significantly hurt my mental health when I did. Gave me at least three panic attacks. I wish she never learned how to even write ✍️ 😅. I’m not joking.
It's the fact that if you gave this book to someone saying "Hey, read this, it's about an abusive relationship from the pov of the abuser"(like Lolita) it would be entirely believable. Hell, it could have even been considered good or at least interesting! It scares me that so many people actually find this romantic :/
As someone that was assaulted in the same way in the book thank you so much for talking about this. I felt a lot of guilt because technically he didn’t force me to do anything, but he did. It’s a form of assault that isn’t talked about enough because it’s not considered that bad.
oh god. i'm watching/listening while doing a puzzle so when you read "i fuck like i'm thor" i misheard it as "i fuck like i'm four" and my head whipped to the screen like EXCUSE ME????
her writing baffles me because like. i get the appeal for dark romance, of characters doing taboo things and enjoying it, plenty of people irl have these fantasies that are best explored in fiction but like. Colleen Hoover is just so ungodly awful at it. she’s not writing a dark romance she’s writing a a poor woman getting abused for some hundred pages then dating her abuser. the appeal of dark romance comes from the characters Knowing they’re doing something taboo, but Hoover’s characters just think this is what romance is because they’re all too stupid to realise they’re all sex offenders or getting abused
oh my god I really didnt expect this. as an SA survivor who is still suffering from PTSD due to the incident I really couldn't stomach the SA part. thank you for the content warning, I really didnt expect it to be this graphic in detail my god.
I just wanna say your rant in the beginning of this video is spot on and why it bothers me when people tolerate shitty books. There is also an audience for books that are just about abuse, and in balance of power, and toxic relationships, but those are all horror based stories. There is "way more" money in romance, and unfortunately most ciswomen, who end up liking these books, don't realize because the men that they deal with are no different than the main character.
CoHo was useful for one single day of my life. Target language test, I mentioned that I like to read. Lady asks what authors. I panicked and listed off the first ones that came to mind. CoHo was one of them. Lady accepted my answer and moved on. Never read her in my life, but at least her name came in handy 😂
I used to work at a famous London Horror attraction, plus I was as Goth af. And I learned to not fuck up my makeup by simply placing my pinky over my nostril or both nostrils and breathing upwards. Although I'm 6ft and was 6'3 in my huge New Rocks I've found that not many people look up your nose and notice a tiny circle around your nose holes. Also if you have and itch and don't want to fuck your makeup... up just gently press in or slightly itch the spot with the tip of your fingernail.
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00:00 Book Review
34:10 Content Warning - S.A
48:10 Content Warning End
you fr appeared in my dream last night and offered me soup at the olive garden
No matter what you think of RAID Shadow legends, I have to admit that it is cool how they sponsor content creators not even remotely related to gaming. TFW you see them sponsor book review channels, makeup channels and quilting channels 😂
that was truly an amazing ad
That Raid continues to sponsor Alizee despite her spectacularly deadpan, sarcastic delivery is hilarious. Props to them.
@@lunar-1340 i was so confused about the sponsorship, I'm assuming she doesn't actually like/play the game and is just doing the ad read tongue-in-cheek, especially considering Raid's reputation. Have they just leaned into it? Is this really advantageous for the company?? I mean it's kind of funny but I'm surprised they're ok with it.
It’s amazing how Colleen Hoover hasn’t written a single likeable character-just from mathematical probability you’d expect she’d write one out of dumb luck
they're all more or less the same and she also provides barely any detail other than them being angry constantly
Honestly, at this point, she must be doing this on purpose
I mean, the female lead in this book, Bridgette, doesn't feel that bad. Not like I'd go out of my way to hang out with her or anything of the sort, but I don't actively hate her. Warren, on the other hand, is revolting, and I can't stand him.
@@Dominic-he7sg
“I don’t actively hate her”
Somehow the best character in the Hooverse
colleen hoover singlehandedly disproves the infinite monkey theorem
Colleen thinks if you traumatise an already traumatised woman it’s a double negative and you get an un-traumatised woman. Colleen is wrong.
Wow this is so accurate
This is the same logic of a lot of slashers. The leading character has lost their parent / sibling / best friend in an accident years ago, and is traumatized by it. Then they go on a trip to a remote location with the whole group of their friends and face their fear in the form of a monster who kills for fun. Most or all of their other friends also get killed, and the main character barely survives, but as they ''mastered their fear'', it's implied that they somehow grew from this experience, and aren't as traumatized by the end. This whole logic is as flawed as a Swiss cheese!
Its like a concussion, you just need to hit bugs bunny an even number of times...
@@Dominic-he7sgWell, that only applies to some horror movies or psychological movies. There are plenty where the main fails and gets dragged into some type of evil by the monster and others where the main dies too. The Ring and The Grudge are examples of these. And then there are movies like The Shining where it isn't really implied they recover, they just survive. And then there are the ones where the main keeps getting dragged in to deal with the monsters as they get obviously mentally damaged like Alien. All of these are kind of old, but I haven't watched horror in awhile. I just remember it being incredibly varied in how the main gets through. Or not.
Sorry if you don't know math!! This is Hoover Math! 😆
Wtf how can Colleen Hoover write straight out sexual assault and still get marketed as fluffy dreamy romance goals?
My guess Coho was SA-ed when she was younger and now has a very twisted view of SA.
Systemic misogyny unfortunately. If someone asks why you are a feminist you can point to CoHo books and their popularity. There are fantasies and then there is CoHo books that should be classified as horror/psychological thrillers NOT ROMANCE.
@@azureascendant994 I would not make assumptions about any experiences she might have had but she definitely does not care about the negative effects her word vomit has on young women which is sad since she used to be a social worker.
At least she was held accountable for the SA scene in "November 9" but her publishers and fans seem to happily accept any harmful crap she wrote ever since...
@@spOOkytimes YES! The way her books get depicted as harmless romances reminds me of the covert misogyny of the "divine femininity" movement.
The funny thing is CoHo actually wrote a "psychological suspense" novel called 'Too Late' in which the protagonist gets SA'd over and over again by her boyfriend using the same scene set up as in 'Maybe Not' but it's actually somewhat acknowledged as violent behavior...
she did block a girl who told her that her son was sexting teenagers so
even a forced kiss is an assault, why are people debating if nonconsensual oral sex is? jfc, jail to all of them.
Colleen Hoover is the next president of the Spanish soccer league
@@warlordofbritanniaI’m crying 😂
@@warlordofbritannia pls 💀
@@warlordofbritannia just like that ijdiwjdwdo
it's genuinely so horrifying... Back when I was in an overall abusive relationship, I was assaulted several times with oral sex. Even after a year of therapy now, I still sometimes feel ashamed for not liking oral bc it's triggering af for me. ANY form of SA can genuinely destroy not only your sex life but your overall self image, the relationship to your body and mind etc., and I'm so very fed up with people not taking it serious
Bridgette: I get harassed and dehumanised every night, I only work there because it pays well and I need money to live
Warren: ugh she’s impossible to talk to she’s so inconsiderate
And then him after she tells him about her dehumanising experiences when she returns to the house: "I don't bother to ask what she's angry about this time. Probably something trivial like a light turning red." Like, Colleen honey, you really outdid yourself with the level of unlikability you achieved in this one.
Every male lead in CoHo books are evil psychopaths
@@GoldenWreckhis entire POV is just so infuriating and horrifying. knowing people genuinely think that way makes me sick.
@@perpetualsick Right? Let alone having a woman promote that way of thinking and marketing it as a romance. Despicable.
@@GoldenWreck And then when she tells him about her trauma about being MOLESTED, he's like "damn, she can't be this broken can she? is it possible for a person to have THIS MUCH BAGGAGE?" like I don't usually think there are many people in this world that deserve to die (outside of child molesters) but I think Warren (and anyone else who thinks the way he does) is on that list.
"Atleast Hoover is getting ppl to read again" is like saying "Atleast those bar fights are getting people active again..."🤦🤦♀️
I would have all forms of literature be extracted from this earth if it means Colleen Hoover books won't exist.
"this time i really mean it, we should go back to Egypt! don't ya remember? snorkeling in the Nile (they drowned our children) three square meals a day (we were forced into Egypt because of famine) plenty of exercise (they worked us to death) oh it was paradise!"
"...we were in slavery!"
"nothing is poifect"
-veggietales
@@kai_maceration I didn't see the Vegietales credit at first and was very confused and concerned as to where you were going with this
@@aries08Same here, I was so confused
@@kai_maceration IM CRYING OF COURSE THIS IS FROM VEGGIETALES ILY 😭🤚
I genuinely don’t think Colleen Hoover deserves a platform, the things she writes and how she writes them, it’s so disturbing. How can she write sexual assault so nonchalantly? Framing it as ‘playing hard to get’ makes me ill, she knows exactly what she’s doing and refuses to acknowledge it. Boggles my mind the lengths people go through to defend her.
ABSOLUTELY, is everyone who supports her on crack!? Did they get knocked on the head with the remnants of her first drafts!? AM I TAKING CRAZY PILLS!?
It doesn’t even surprise me that her son has sexual assault allegations against him and she defended him
@@billiep1603oooof. That's effed up.
I feel like Alizee and everyone else that read that scene need financial compensation, that was actually really sickening.
It's one thing to write it, but the fact she thinks its totally ok and normal. Like does she even put warnings in her books?
If coho would just embrace her ability to write the scariest creepiest men and wrote horror novels, she’d be so good at it.
this is why verity was her best book imo
@@marlaacoleeThat’s saying a lot then because Verity wasn’t even that different from the other books she wrote, the only difference is that there’s murder
@@daisymae6it would be better if she took the romance aspect out of it. Not good, but better.
@@marlaacolee verity is her best book bc it's an erotic mesh of two already successful stories, rebecca and gone girl
This is why Verity will be the only book of hers that I'll read.
She defends her son and thinks what he did wasn’t a big deal. That should tell you how much she thinks sexual offenses are okay, even against kids.
Wait what???
@@KreeZafi Colleen's son was sending sexual messages to a 16 year old girl when he was 21. The girl messaged about it Colleen and Colleen blocked her.
@@aprilfarley4455wow, I mean I wouldnt expect her to be the pinnacle of morality but that's low
@@aprilfarley4455 had the girl read any of her books she would know that's how that woman sees 'romance'.
And she was a social worker like ohmygod
can't get over him watching porn in their shared space if my roommate did that I'd move out immediately. I'd move countries just to get away. absolutely insane behaviour
I lived with an abusive man as my roommate for around two years and he would watch porn in the living room loudly while i was stuck in my room. Also would bring women home and hook up with them in the living room and it felt like he was trying to make me feel uncomfortable and small
As a sex repulsed individual I would just die lmao
My problem with Hoover's books is watching my 14 year old students read them, and then accept or expect that type of treatment from often their first "real" relationship
@mollypop6887 These relationships are being normalized even for adults again now.
I'm in grade 10 and a bunch of girls have been reading CoHo obsessively for a few years 🤮cringe romance is fine, i enjoy trashy YA books, but her books are just inexcusable.
we had to present books in english class last year and seeing a bunch of 15/16 year old girls talking about coho books as if they're romantic light hearted fun was truly concerning
That's the most dangerous part of this. Children haven't got the maturity, critical thinking skills, or experience to fully understand how wrong everything in CoHo's books are. Like, I remember being that age myself and reading the House of Night book (I think I only read the first one) and I can't remember thinking anything was weird about it. Hearing Alizee review it now as an adult makes me kinda horrified at the thought of how I as a young teen didn't bat an eye at all the blatantly awful things. Same thing could happen with any other book as well.
@mollypop6887 I agree to an extent, and unfortunately, abusive relationships have existed as long as people so you cant blame her books. The particular student I am thinking of purposely looked for those relationships though. She made those choices, and unfortunately had no one at home to help her navigate that at all
I'm so scared by the title. Alizee is our last line of defense against CoHo, yet she has fallen... We're doomed...
Colleen is now going to be free to write a book worse than all her other books combined because of this. There is no one left to keep her humble.
@@ettaetta439 She already has. It’s called Too Late 😞
@@d_alistair-years omg what's it about
So this is how it ends…
Don't worry, we still have Rachel Oates. 😂
the fact that coho is presenting what Warren and all the other men in her books do as normal is fucking wild. Especially when "it ends with us" was supposed to be ABOUT abuse and yet the only difference is that in the end the girl leaves
Exactly and even in that book, atlas is kinda creep (a 18-19 year old doing the thing with a 15 year old girl who just turned 16) yet he's framed as her true lover here. I think the only reason why he's seen as bad for sa than Warren isn't when saying Bridget is that he physically abuses lily and Warren didn't, even if that still wouldn't make a difference that he still sa her.
Ikr? I swear I was disgusted reading that book; just to find out that's how all her books go.
I think her work combined with the fact she says she remained close to her father and still thinks he was a great dad even after he abused her mum so badly she went and wrote a book about it when she grew up (in which the abuser is portrayed as sympathetic and romantic and it's oh such a shame that he really couldn't help himself because he really is such a good person, honest) says she just has literally no idea where the line is with abuse or what a good man, father or male lover looks like. She probably internalised all the moments where her dad wasn't as blatantly abusing her mum as being what a couple looks like when they're "happy and in love" by contrast to what it was like the rest of the time or something.
@@Lemoncakelover678this !!!!? atlas was just as creepy, I can't believe people find him dreamy when he was also a creep and was just doing the bare minimum
@@thatveryvvitch7225exactly! He wouldve been okay had he been the same age as lily but he met her as an adult and waited till she turned two years older than him to sleep with her. It just makes him another bad love interest for the protagonist (which isnt helping when shes with an abuser)
Honestly as bad as the assault was, the car scene is what's really fucking terrifying/triggering to me. It's such a vivid description of conflict in an abusive relationship. It hits EVERY POINT of tension when an abuser is escalating to exploding point, to the extent that it would be great writing in another context. I genuinely don't understand how someone can write that, write it the *way* she does, and not intend it in any other way than to inflict a feeling of anxiety and terror in the reader... baffling...
Ikr?!? Like It's almost incomprehensible to me that Colleen intended such behaviour to be romantic. There's just no way someone who has it together in the head would think that.
it feels like she's trying to present it as teehee enemies to lovers so quirky XD which. like. you can insert scenes where characters are arguing over something stupid with a straight face, and in the hands of an author who isn't secretly a goblin cosplaying as a human being it'd be funny, but all the preexisting context combined with the fact you're supposed to eat hoover's word slop uncritically just makes it fucking bleak.
And blaming the victim for “being difficult,” PEAK abusive behavior oh my god
@@b.collins2656 Enemies to lovers only really works to me when the reason they are enemies is over something trivial & then they chose eachother as behated. Then they have to work together & go: "hmm there's more to you than I thought/we have more in common than I thought". After that slowly they fall in love
Not whatever the hell this book was doing
This is the exact feeling I have with these books. The fact that she's acting like a rape victim and he's acting like a rapist. The behavior is uncanny in its accuracy but then she pulls the rug out from under you and pretends it's normal and romantic.
This book would work perfectly as a thriller with an unreliable narrator, but it's literally marketed as romance.
My greatest worry is that young male readers will consume this content in hopes of trying to understand women and they'll fall into the trap of thinking all women want to be assaulted deep down.
Colleen is an actual threat to the minds of her readers.
I am baffled by how casually some authors (CoHo, EL James, etc) write sexual assault while failing to realize what they have written. Like that forced pleasuring scene? Couldn't have made that much more rapey if you actively tried
And Stephenie Meyer
Don't forget Anna Todd and Blanka Lipinska
And Sarah J Maas
The fact that Bridgette's actions afterwards are consistent with those of an assault victim is just an extra level of vile. Like Colleen writes from the POV of a delusional rapist.
I feel like Hoover is on a different level because most of the others write scenes where the behavior is abusive but it's perceived by other characters (including the victims) as romantic or sexy. But Hoover's scenes are written like they're from a thriller. It doesn't feel in the moment like you're supposed to find it appealing, but then everyone goes on like it wasn't a terrifying thing to do to someone.
I do wonder on some level if her own personal experience has skewed her perception of abuse. But even if that's the case, I feel like enough people have called her out that she should be more aware of how her writing is perceived by now.
that scene in the car just solidified for me- there’s no way this woman doesn’t know that what she’s writing is abusive. there’s just no way
Colleen Hoover has an obsession with writing brat play without any of the preceding dialogue or negotiation that would actually make it consensual, and that just bothers the hell out of me.
that's what i was thinking!! breaking out the "i'm going to tell you what to do and you're going to like it" thing the first time you have sex?! no discussion beforehand???? no safe word ⁉️
There is ppl how dont like that!!! That Is why you are suposed to talk about It with your partner and that grown adult woman doesnt get that😭
Wow, didn't even know there was a subset in kink about being a silly goober.
..Or are you talking about the sub being a "brat" by not relenting/playing "hard to get"...?
@@trucevideos I've seen it in many AO3 fics, the "brat" in the majority of them needs to repeat to the I guess "tamer" what their safe word of choice is. Popularly the traffic light system is the one authors go for & they have to talk through what it means. Then they are asked when intensity goes up a little "what's your colour?".
They also do aftercare a lot
It's weird to say but in that regard, fanfiction can be educational. It's not perfect, but it does help form an idea of how that works
@@Nathi98 (sorry in advance for the censorship but you know how youtube is lol) exploring fanfiction when i was pubescent and just discovering the internet legitimately taught me WAY more than s3x ed did. it taught me what a cl1toris is and what it does, what safewords and consent really meant and how they should be explored, how to treat a s3xual partner with respect, dignity, and safety, and made me a lot less ashamed of my own sexuality. as well as teaching things that my school NEVER would have even considered, like how s3x works for trans people, gay people, lesbians, etc. im not even joking, fanfiction genuinely gave me a greater awareness than any of the stuff they taught at school. and i was actually invested in it, instead of trying to make time pass faster in a boring class
“If you dont like dont read it” is such anti-intellectualism I can’t. It literally keeps companies/authors/writers/whatever what from taking accountability for the damage or exploitation that they do.
My deepest condolences to anyone normal named Colleen.
I'm starting to think that's not possible
@@SabertoothedTiger69i cackled at this 😂
*brings out ukulele*
@@cupid3890I totally forgot about other Coleen
Thank you 🥲 it’s been a rough few weeks being a Colleen
I usually skip through sponsor segments but that entire raid shadow legends ad was infinitely more engaging than anything colleen has ever written
People who think that nonconsensual oral doesn't count as assault makes my blood boil. Thank you for talking about your experiences Alizee, as hard as that might have been. I have experienced assault in this manner too and I can confirm that you feel absolutely _disgusting_ after it happens. I remember going to take a shower afterwards and almost throwing up as the sensation lingered.
Gosh, I'm so devastated and furious for you. Fuck that person straight to hell for doing that to you. You're absolutely right. Unwanted oral is assault. Hell, unwanted anything that's to do with physical touch is assault, forcing someone to hold hands or to hug you when you've already expressed you don't want to, is assault. I just hope you've been able to find peace and a sense of freedom from your past experience. It doesn't by any means define you as a person, and has everything to do with the disgusting perpetrator. You have no fault at all.
I wouldn't give her the benefit of the doubt and say she didn't realise she was writing a SA scene when this was written and published years after November 9 - a book in which she got into trouble for writing a SA scene (the one in the nightclub) where the female main character clearly says no and stop and the love interest carries on anyway. She got into trouble for writing and publishing that scene and had to change it - her idea of changing that scene was to just take out the part where the woman says no, the rest of the scene is exactly the same so it still has the same coercion vibe. The woman in this scene says no and stop several times and the guy carries on anyway - so clearly she didn't learn her lesson. She understood to some extent what was wrong with the November 9 scene because she understood enough to remove the one line that made it a clear cut SA and made an apology, so there is no way that she was ignorant to the commonalities between the scene in this book and the one in November 9. She is vile. She actively and knowingly perpetuates the harmful romanticisation and glorification of abuse and SA, wraps it in a bow labeled 'romance' and shoves it down the throats of young women and teenagers, the majority of which do not have the emotional maturity or life experience to understand that what they are reading is toxic and harmful and could be influenced by the books she writes and take onboard the very clear message she perpetuates that this is romance and something they would be lucky to emulate in real life. Her books are dangerous and harmful and it makes me unbelievably angry.
I mean, that makes it pretty clear cut that she just wants to write r'pe. She was waiting for enough people to forget about it so she could write it again.
What's weird is that dubious consent (dub con) and depictions of SA are in adult/smut manga, but the community surrounding it gives trigger warnings at the beginning of the chapter and rarely roots for the person perpetrating it. It's also tagged accordingly (dub con, thriller, etc.) fully embracing what you will be reading. You know when you are reading it that it's fucked up, but it's part of the scary. CoHo is trying to play this off as fluffy romance and its just so weird thinking the wild west that can be manga is far more responsible than a very popular author and publisher.
My most charitable take is that she’s a victim herself and this is her way of metaphorically taking back control of the situation and imagining an alternate version in which the female character enjoyed it. Or maybe she doesn’t want to believe it was assault and these stories are supporting her denial. Absolutely does not excuse it but it’s at least better than her just thinking SA is ok
@spOOkytimes
I've came across fanfics tagged as dubcon in which both parties wanted smex but couldn't give straight consent. Like they both were hit with smex pollen or something. It's questionable but far away from what she writes and yet it's still tagged
Honestly tagging is great when you want to avoid certain topics. I see "dead dove do not eat" and I understand that the writer is probably not in the best state of mind but need a place to explore their dark thoughts. They're not pretenting they're writing a romcom and I can respect that
@@angelikaskoroszyn8495what does that mean?
This whole book is abuse. Not one scene is romantic or cute or funny. He starts off ignoring the very smallest parts of consent and escalates to actual assault. This is how it tends to happen in real life and it's disgusting that this woman can make money off of the very real pain of us victims. This made me feel sick and usually these videos don't bother me. I think it's because this specific story reminds me of my own, down to small details.
i love how he criticizes her temper and how she gets “set off by stupid little things” when he threw a tantrum because *checks notes* a woman was using the shower??
So TMI but I actually cannot get off either with a partner or alone due to lots of things like the fear of loss of control, fear of the unknown and other trauma stuffs. I’m 36 years old, had 3 children but never an orgasm. I would seriously be traumatized and so freaked out if some guy tried to force it on me like that. No one ever talks about it but it’s a thing people struggle with and it’s shameful and embarrassing but it doesn’t give you permission to assault someone.
It's not shameful at all and I'm sorry you've been made to feel that way. 💙 Sex and sexuality are very complicated and so no one should be shamed or embarrassed for trying to feel safe and comfortable with something that can be so intimate and personal.
You're so right about the characters though! He didn't even stop to consider what might make her not want to orgasm. She might not even like it, some people don't! He literally just forced her to experiencing something and assumed she secretly wanted it. How can CoHo not see that as assault?
i also experience this, i just physically don't feel aaanything... not because of trauma luckily, i think it's more to do with me being asexual, having an almost non-existent libido, and being a recent side effect from my anti depressants. it kinda sucks but i really don't mind too much.
so yeah i was really personally fucking horrified by this, i couldn't stop thinking how i would react to having this happen to me, and again i don't even have sexual trauma so i cant imagine how victims feel
i'm with you there. the trauma is a horrible thing to live with every single day. it affects nearly every part of my life, my relationships, and my self-image. it's especially been a struggle as of late, so this video hit a little harder than usual. my heart goes out to you and others who feel this 🤍 i cannot imagine how an established author can get away with this over and over, somehow managing to get worse than last time!! coho can use all the money she earned from selling SA torture stories to teens to pay for a fkin writing class and actually make something worth reading.
@@kai_maceration this is a tiny thing but I'm a sapphic ace that feels the same way, it's nice to see I'm not really alone in that respect, also much love to OP, they have nothing to be ashamed of
@@merediths.693 omg im happy to hear that! it's not tiny, believe me i know how important it is to know you're not alone in your feelings and experiences.
Colleen Hoover would read Misery and think it was a romance
OMG STOPPPPPPP😂😂😂😭😭😭
One of the most uncomfortable books I’ve ever read, just putting that out there.
The next time I visit Barnes and Noble I'm literally doing them a favor, finding her books and placing them where they belong in the horror section.
Horror section: "We don't want them here, either!"
i'm not usually that sort of person but gosh I'd consider doing that too
I want to do that every time I'm in a bookstore but I hate getting attention and putting Coho books in the horror section will definitely make at least a few teenagers and women with no happiness in their lives come after me
honestly I would even consider putting them in the true crime section considering most of her content premises coz... yikes
I work in a bookstore and it's so depressing to see how many of her books we get, what I've heard young teen girls say about them and then actually buy them with their parents who have 0 interest or understanding about them.
I internally cry every single time.
This is literally Joe from You looking at a stranger and deciding that she wears a bunch of bracelets because she wants attention and that everything she does is a secret message to him, personally. And he gets to be right. The desire to vomit is stronger than normal for this one. 🤢
58:35 ain't no way Coho just implied that a person who's been sexually assaulted is broken. I've seen a lot of shit Coho's written, watched her achieve new lows, and that STILL takes me off guard. I can't imagine reading this when I was younger, as someone that HAS been abused in that way. I was a very naïve kid, I probably would've believed it.
It makes me hate that mentally as well thinking of Spanish footballer Jenni Hermoso who partied because she achieved her biggest dream in becoming World Champion after also getting assaulted on the same day by her boss' boss' boss
She didn't act like the "typical" victim, which in my opinion doesn't even exist. Assault is liniar, victims' behaviour is not
for all the moments Bridgette gets called a bitch, you’d think that she’d have done….. one singular thing to even vaguely deserve that insult
I’m not even gonna pretend anymore, I get a big head and feel intellectually superior that I can’t stand CoHo and her books and can point out all of the horrific things she writes
I just don't understand why she's so popular, her books seem so boring!!
@@FrumiousMing8and whenever they're not boring, they're genuinely stomach churning!
Colleen Hoover seems like the Andrew Tate of women. I mean she’s not spurring violence or committing crimes that we know of, but it’s genuinely alarming how many women are reading these books unironically 😨
Ever come across Just Pearly Things? She probably eats this shit up. Even though Colleen Hoover is a woman who misrepresents women, let's be real, there are women who are horribly indoctrinated by toxic masculinity, and there are women who just suck as much as some men do. I'm not sure which of the two she is.
it’s v v v scary
'that we know of'
omg andrea tate 😍 /s
She’s like the only example of toxic femininity
Literally, watching this made me think about all of the toxic and “rape culture-y” stuff that I learned as a teenager that was passed off as romance and it ended up hurting me and people I was in relationships with. Language like this and storytelling like this is so damaging and dangerous and I’m so angry now
I think Coleen's big fantasy is like. Punishing women she doesn't like into submitting to her worldview. I think this is what gets her off.
The fact that they have sex every night for 3 weeks but don't talk makes me question how consensual that 'sex' is. Honestly, I couldn't imagine how horrifying that would be
That’s like a one night thing gone wrong. Plus the whole rape aspect. Ugh. Made me nauseous to hear this.
Without getting too personal, this is SA, and something I dealt with myself after being in a situation of childhood abuse similar to the main female character. It took years for me to realize I'd been assaulted, and many more years to relieve myself of the shame situations like Chapter 5 gave me. This can't be fixed by sexual domination. What a disgusting thing to put in a book. You're clueless, insulting and harmful Coleen. 😞
Yeah I hate the idea that women all need to be dominated to be whole and happy, some women don't like sex, don't like bottoming, don't like being submissive etc. but Coho subscribes to the sexist idea that all women need to be sexually dominated by men to be complete
Steven King is great at writing characters, at getting you into their headspace. The gunslinger from the Dark Tower series is particularly awful (at the start) but King is able to simultaneously make you empathize with him while being disgusted.
Colleen Hoover is the exact opposite of Stephen King: everyone is unlikeable both in-universe and to the reader, their thought processes are those of the obsessively mad, and there’s no clear recognition by the author of how revolting these people actually are.
yeah, true
clearly not a competent writer, I emphasized more with the dude from lolita bc he was a well written monster
jf Colleen, the guy is a p3do and he was better than your men bc like at least he felt sorry sometimes -_- (THAT IS A LOW BAR COLLEEN THE DEVIL JUST TRIPPED)
Eyeball Chambers from the book The Body & the movie Stand By Me is more sympathetic than Warren. For the sole scene that he didn't want his friend Ace Merill to stab his little brother Chris (movie watcher perspective). This is despite him siding with Ace in stealing Gordie Lachance's sentimental hat & letting him assault Chris with a cigarette earlier on
There's also a reason as to why: At home, does Eyeball get abused as badly as Chris? Does he also carry resentment to his family's town reputation knowing it won't get him anywhere? Is he jealous of Chris' superior intelect, maturity & good-naturedness despite the clearly present temperament all Chambers naturally posess? Was he aware Chris would make it out of Castle Rock all along? Is he scared of Ace turning on him like his father did? Like his brother did in a different manner?
There is no such thing for Warren's motivations here, it is spelled out: He wanted to sleep with her from the start & he is a control-freak himself
@@mer_acle8101bro when your characters are less likable than fucking HUMBERT HUMBERT it really is time to put the pen down 😭😭😭😭
While I haven’t finished the series, I personally don’t consider Roland to be loathsome as a protagonist (though to be fair, that thing he did at the end of the first book did have me going, “What the absolute fuck, Roland?!” I’m just glad he felt rightfully contrite about it.) I admit, maybe it’s just because I like morally ambiguous gunslinger characters, and because I still considered him morally grey compared to the Man in Black (which is a given.) Still, you make a good point.
@@mer_acle8101
Never read Lolita, but I don't think I want to. The idea of entering the headspace of a pedo is pretty repugnant.
As someone who has autism and social anxiety, one of my biggest pet peeves in romance books is one of the MCs grabbing the other MCs face and forcing them to look into their eyes. Not only does it feel unrealistic (who does that in real life?), but it’s also weird and uncomfortable. Even books I like sometimes include it, and it just makes me sad.
I would projectile vomit from either fear or anxiety if someone forced me to look into their eyes like that.
i'm autistic too and i can confirm that unfortunately, people _do_ do this in real life
@@unpreparedwithacapitalf that’s awful. Glad no one around me has ever done that. It might literally give me a panic attack if someone did that.
That's why I, as an autistic romance writer, always write characters who are respectful to each other and don't do shit like that. It seems that autistic writers are just better at writing healthy romance than some NT authors
According to a review I stumbled upon: "In her sexiest book to date, she delivers non-stop humor tumbled together with a whole lot of heart. This wonderful novella is all about falling in love".
I am not entirely sure if it's the same book the reviewer was reading.
I genuinely believe books for adults shouldn't operate like morality tales and most adults have ability to discern between what's good irl and what's bad. Depiction does not always equal defense or support.
But oh my god, CoHo is the exception to the rule. Her characters are objectionable because of their warped moralities which just feels like mouthpieces for the author's horrible worldview. But they also commit the worst sins in media: be boring and annoying.
From what I've seen, she seeks realism in her characters but fails because all her adults feel like a teenager wrote them.
I try not to judge people based on their media consumption (lord knows I enjoy garbage from time to time), but CoHo fans are a huge 🚩 for me. I genuinely don't understand why people enjoy this kind of writing.
Edit: Just passed the SA section and yeah that's completely vile and reprehensible. CoHo and fans should be ashamed for defending or debating this. It's sickening.
same, reading any of the ones alizee discuss and see it as romantic, massive red flag, SUE ME
and as Alizee pointed out, it would be ok if you were expecting it. people can enjoy non con fiction, but you know what you're getting and you're in the right headspace. this is marketed as a romance and warren is sold as a normal good guy. im glad i didn't come across that scene believing i was reading a harmless, poorly written romance, because this would have been quite triggering. and the car scene - i was in a dv relationship for 8yrs - being told how i feel and having to walk on eggshells and try to read levels of anger... and having the doors locked because yes, i was going to run. the whole story is watching bridgette get broken down until she can't fight back anymore...
The book should come with a trigger warning, but she either doesn't know what she's writing or doesn't care enough to add it
Come on now, we all know Colleen Hoover's core audience is not adults. It's impressionable teen girls.
@@julianlaresch6266 It’s been claimed she’s quoted saying trigger warnings would count as spoilers but I don’t know how true this is. That said, even “scenes that some may find disturbing” is vague but gives a rough idea for the audience to proceed with caution
I'm a little on the ace spectrum, and it manifests as that I have no desire to be touched by my partner(s). Like I'm happy to get them off but don't want it reciprocated, and that is a completely enjoyable situation for me.
Everybody I've been with have asked afterwards, and I've said no I'm very happy with this being the end of it. And every single one has been happy to accept that.
This entire scene really hits me hard as a person who doesn't want anybody to touch me s**ally. Holy crap it's actually so messed up. Like don't get me wrong I read dark romance but this is just marketed as a general romance holy hell
"i would rather people didn't read at all than read rubbish that normalizes rape culture." fucking well said.
I'm so sorry Alizee, I really love your videos, but I had to skip through huge parts of this one. I swear it made me want to eat my phone, case and all. CoHo has lost it. She's sctually normalising SA. I knew she was fine with toxic and abusive relationships, but god did I hope she'd never stoop so low. Which is stupid of me because of course she did. And now this putrid, pathetic, vile excuse for a book is in the hands of who knows how many teenage girls who'll think the relationships she portrays are perfectly healthy and normal. It's CoHo's own course in trauma and internalised misogyny.
EDIT: rage makes me temporarily illiterate, apparently
Hi, hello, work in a bookstore and I have the same problems, along with the question - WHO THE FUCK ALLOWS TO PUBLISH THESE?!
I genuinely am revolted(?), disgusted, bamboozled and just flabbergasted at the people who let her publish these books who are actively hurting impressionable people who will end up in bad situations.
The only people who are safe are those who are self-aware that these books are trash and can get this shit for free on Wattpad.
@@Dani_77709
Asking the right questions! Like I genuinely think that the person who approved this for publishing is not in their right mind. Let alone the one who thought that any of CoHo's books are YA when they obviously form a dystopian horror novel series about a talentless author traumatising a whole generation of teenage girls via deceptive depiction of abusive relationships.
What scares me is that it's so easy to miss that same abuse when you're an inexperienced kid. There's nothing to compare to, no idea of what an actual relationship looks like, or what it should look like for that matter. Like I actually thought that Twilight was good when I was a teenager? Twilight? The story about an underage pick-me girl dating a bloodthirsty stalker who is old enough to be her grandgrandfather? Good?
And now I desperately need therapy.
@@Dani_77709 I actually went into a bookstore with the intention of buying another one of her books since many of them were recommended in Booktube videos I watched. I started reading the backs of multiple of her books but was kinda unimpressed, since a lot of them sounded like the typical hetero romance about a girl falling for a mysterious boy with "a dark past," and such romance stories I feel are quite tiresome and unoriginal, stuff supposed to be kept within the confines of Wattpad.
Eventually, a young girl probably around my age who worked there approached me and was like "Hey, can I recommend you a book?" I said sure and she gave me a book that I thought actually sounded appealing when reading its back, so I ended up getting that instead. And I absolutely loved it, even going as far as calling it my favourite book yet.
So I'm super glad that girl approached, but at the same time looking back, I can't help but wonder if she deliberately did that just to get me away from buying one of CoHo's books lmao. It makes me embarrassed that she even caught me scrolling through them 💀
@@rainbeau6760 Exactly! The problem lies with inexperience and being unable to compare it to really anything. I also remember reading books and all the red flags just flew over my head until I reread them years later.
I just stare at the page and question my past self sanity for thinking this was okay. Unfortunately perspective comes with age and experience.
Hoover is a threat and I can only hope that the girls reading her books will mature and realize how fucked up the author is.
"Kink shaming is absolutely allowed if your kink is CoHo books." LOL I'm going to start quoting this everywhere.
Really f'd for the main character to accuse previous guys she's slept with of being 'selfish' for listening to her wants and needs in a sexual encounter. He's literally the one being selfish, needing to 'prove' something about his own sexual competency by forcing her into something she has said she isn't comfortable with. If he was genuinely 'concerned' about her reaction, he could have taken the sex element off the table entirely and had a mature conversation with her right there and then about the fact that he noticed she didn't want to orgasm, and ASKED to make SURE that she was done with the encounter.
Look, I read a lot of Dead Dove: Do Not Eat smut. But fanfic writers don't pretend that they're writing anything than what it is. Collen Hoover is vile for promoting this as fluffy romance.
I recently finished a fanfiction about two people being trapped in a toxic sexual codependent relationship that one party sees as bad but doesn't want to quit while the other sees nothing wrong at all. What I do is frame that the entire thing as bad and that this shouldn't be happening (like when I was suffering through addiction) CoHo would look at it and say "Yeah!! This is healthy!!"
She did that with ugly love lol
@@Stonedandbookish She also did it with November 9 lol
That's actually sounds like one of 'A fanfiction that should've been published somewhere'
I geniunely believe there's something mentally wrong with Coho, no adult writes stuff like this and geniunely thinks it's okay
ok off topic but your fic sounds really cool tho, op
As an actual Dom that has been with submissive partners... a submissive partner can very much still give enthusiastic, explicit, clear consent to situations. I really hate when people take it as "dom put this sub in situation they didn't like at first but they enjoyed it in the end so that makes it okay", like... no, my guy, that is not being dominant, that is just pressuring people into shit they didn't want in the first place. A sub that is very much in tune with the Dom and what is happening is one of the hottest things there can be, so I actually can't understand what is alluring about scenes in which the sub has to be forced into something.
Because it's about violating consent not truly respecting boundaries between people. That makes the difference between domination versus abuse of power.
People seem to really want to see the violation play out, so depressing
@@magical-soap5359
TW: S*xual Assault
Like the "Oral is to pleasure YOU it's not the same!" thing is just...
People don't necessarily assault/rape others to feel pleasure. They could do it to feel control. To make their victim feel powerless. We saw it in that passage alone, he got off on the fact that HE'D be the one to make her orgasm, even if she didn't want it.
exactly! even in brat or cnc stuff, the sub is supposed to be PRETENDING not to like it. if they ACTUALLY don't like it, that's not kinky. that's a violation of consent. communication and trust is literally the backbone of kink
Yall remember that episode of iCarly where they were contractually obligated to promote a crappy shoe so they technically met the requirements by being super sarcastic about how great it was? That's what the sponsorship is giving 😅
how is it controlling to not want to receive S3xual pleasure back? maybe she’s just not up to it?? like idk, sometimes ppl just wanna give the pleasure and are ok not getting anything in return 💀 that was one of the ( many ) parts that really bothered me. this perception that when two people are intimate, they BOTH need to get off. sometimes one partner might be interested in getting their partner off more than themself. sometimes both partners want to get off. it’s okay to ask questions but to keep harassing/bothering her as if she owes an explanation about it is gross. like,, just take the No, Warren and leave her alone 🥴
That really annoyed me. Some peoples have extremely low sex drive, sometimes they just don’t care about getting off and just want to give. There’s nothing wrong with that.
@@smolexfundie6458 yes, exactly! that’s something that’s always frustrated me with CoHo books, there’s this expectation that if you’re not up to s3x then you’re somehow broken and need to be “fixed” by being forced into a sexual situation. 😐
Colleen babe: I’m begging you to seek therapy instead of romanticizing abuse and SA for millions of people. Please. You’re in the privileged tier of Americans who can afford therapy out of pocket.
I say this as someone who is a victim of relationship abuse/SA. Being in a relationship with a person like this is not worth it. It never is. Its not romantic. It’s infuriating that she’s normalizing it for her mostly young female demographic.
That’s the most disturbing part imo. The books are read by young girls and women.
For some reason my brain really fixates on the 50 cups thing. Like... It's *a lot* of cups??? I doubt my household has 30, and that would include every single cup/glass-like object in the house, including the one where the toothbrushes are. Like bro went out of his way to collect every vessel in their flat and dedicate it to an unfunny prank. What a loser
I'm assuming they had a pack of solo cups or something but still. She should have made that clear 😭
@@seraphina1724ah, yeah, that makes much more sense 😅
Such jobless behaviour
Holy shit I think this novella made me even more asexual.
Edited to add: I’m working my way through _Lolita,_ and oh my god, everything in this novella was giving me Humbert Humbert flashbacks and I wanted to claw my skin off.
At least in Lolita you’re meant to think Humbert is in the wrong
My coworker literally was just talking to me about how she was reading a Colleen Hoover book and was SO into it, and I was smiling very kindly at her on the outside
But on the inside, I was fully vibrating out of my own skin
Ikr? I was at a book shop the other day, and all of her books were sold out. The worst part was, the reviews were so good. PEOPLE LIKE THESE TRAUMA INDUCING BOOKS?
@@Taemtiddies Yeah, I'm just kinda like... are you all okay?
@@TaemtiddiesEither they're aware of CoHo's reputation and likes reading books like these (Not necessarily as romances. I'm not gonna judge them unless they truly feel this shit is normal.) Or they're people (teens and adults alike) who think this stuff is romantic. If that's the case, I'm genuinely worried about that. I remember being young and not seeing certain things as wrong until I gained more awareness. It takes time. I'm just worried these people will end up in horrible relationships, I don't wish that on anyone.
I'd like CoHo to just... Stop writing or label her books appropriately, that's all I want.
I also wonder if Colleen didn't hear from her sons about anime and she just threw in some thropes from harem/isekai power fantasy light novel/manga adaptations such as 'the guy sees the girl naked by accident in a completely unrealistic scenario' and made Bridget into a tsundere who 'has a violent, over-the-top reactions to him and won't admit her obvious feelings for him'. Like, I almost expected their second meeting to be him tripping over a carpet and landing on top of her and accidently touching her boobs.
They're normal romcom tropes. It's not just anime.
@@yukikanegawa7470much more exmplified in anims
Genuinely that car scene was terrifying ‘I lock the doors so she cant run’ excuse me?! And the way he endangers their lives and then tells her its her fault? Genuinely if anyone enjoys this and thinks its romantic, they need therapy, lots of therapy.
Jfc. That "sex scene" sounds like a "freeze" trauma response followed by SA. CoHo really is the absolute worst.
My sister who has a really troublesome love life started reading Colleen Hoover and I found myself invested in hearing her updates on the book so I knew whether or not to schedule an intervention. As I worry she will fall victim to further normalizing these abusive attributes. BOOKS DO REAL HARM.
It’s not a matter of “don’t like it, don’t read it”.
These videos are more helpful to my mental health than my anti depressants
@@sherlockholmes891
So now you’re only polar?
same here I just don't wanna go to a clinic again to adjust them so alizee it's gotta be
@@warlordofbritanniaperhaps bow theyre heteropolar?
@@zorro......
Multipolar is the term nowadays, I think…
@@warlordofbritannia If they're hairy enough they can even be a polar bear :)
You know, I don't endorse playing head games with people and "testing" your romantic partner, but I do agree with the advice that early in a relationship you should find something to say no to your partner about. A trivial request that you would normally agree to, or something you have done in the past. Say no, for no reason, and if they get mad, or push your boundary, or try to talk you into changing your mind, that tells you everything you need to know about how they will react to being told no when it's something more serious. Warren failed that test on a criminal level. Girl should be pressing charges. Can I press charges against this book??
That's one really good test! People will push boundaries at the worst moment 😬
You know.. this sounds a bit like what my mother does…
Everything in Warren triggers my fight instinct. It is really hard to listen this, can't imagine reading this.
I was so scared and angry too
Everything from the stupid pranks to the porn watching to the forced intimacy. I hate him and I wish I could punch him in the face.
He genuinely makes me so mad like imagine creating such a shit character yet STILL expect us to root for them
I put Warren in the same tier as Ramsay Bolton. Irredeemably evil. Hell, I even think Ramsay is more likable because at least he’s very competent at his job.
@@nont18411 I agree. And Ramsay at least has some kind of motive to do what he does and is written as villain not love interest.
Thank our lizard overlords for the Raid x Alizee relationship being restored, everything feels right with the world again
Such a random collab. I haven’t had her videos in my homepage in a long time but has she ever done a video on videogames? I’m just glad she’s getting that bag
As you were reading that scene I was really thinking 'maybe CoHo is just a bad writer and she meant to say something else? Like instead of saying 'afraid' she meant 'nervous anticipation' or something?' but as it progressed... No she really thinks rape is ok if the woman has an orgasm. There's no two ways about it. Ok then.
As a prevention/consent educator, I appreciate this video and your comments on the lack of consent in this book so much! Like this shit is so 101 assault - her saying no and him refusing, her body language making it clear she's uncomfortable, his main motivation being his own ego and entitlement. It's shocking to me that this is a famously published author writing sexual assault scenes where the main character literally brags about it and mocks her afterwards, and it's supposed to be romantic.
In the queer community, we have a concept called "stone" - a person who does not like to receive sexual touch and prefers to give sexual touch to others. Even if Bridgette didn't have trauma in her backstory, she could have been an example of someone like this, or just someone who doesn't enjoy the feeling of orgasms. But nope, apparently every women likes the exact same things and needs a man to prove it to her (sarcasm).
Thank you for being so clear about how dangerous this book is!
these men are so similarly written like the protagonist of lolita but he was supposed to be a sick weirdo and it was actually self aware but all of these guys are supposed to be desirable i can‘t w this shit
This is beyond disgusting. The hand-holding scene was already crossing the line for me, as someone who likes enemies-to-lovers and trashy YA books that sometimes have questionable relationships. I have never read a CoHo book and never will. I am extremely concerned that my 15-16-year-old classmates have been reading her books for years.
This book is so genuinely abhorrent I am SHOCKED that this exists, let alone that anyone would read this & take it seriously… I guess I shouldn’t be surprised given her other books. Coho’s writing is truly beyond parody
This reminds me so much of what one of my female friends has been through with her ex. He was very manipulative, possesive and just completely delulu. She tried to break up with him multiple times but every time he would tell her that he could "read it in her face what she really wanted" and that she was just "scared of being loved". This shit went so far that in the end she was so desperate and scared that she just went to work one morning and never came back, abandoning all her stuff that she still had in his appartment. Because that was literaly all she could do to get away from him. He still didn't get it tho. I was still good friends with him back then because I never knew what a piece of shit he was until I wittnessed all his awful behavior after the break up and all the stuff she told me later. I remember hours and hours of him screaming and crying on the phone and me trying to calm him down. He insited of knowing that her friends manipulated her into breaking up and that he is the one and only person who could "save" her and who really loved her and that everyone else was just a bad influence and that she "owed" him her love or at least an "explanation". Like, dude... she tried to explain it to you a 1000 times and you just gaslit the shit out of her in response. Running away and blocking your number was her only option left. He went full stalker mode, writing her cheesy letters, threatening her friends, trying to get me to coerce her to get back together with him etc. It was he mess. Guys like that are actually out there and it's disturbing.
This character Warren is a good forray into the POV of an abusive character always ignoring their SOs boundaries, convincing themselves that their SO don’t have boundaries due to trauma they're just 'playing difficult to keep the control'. And they think that insisting until you get your way is the right thing to do with their SO, and that like this they're 'figuring them out'.
Tbh that'd really fit right with the pov of an emotionally abusive character I have. Every time her boyfriend sets boundaries she doesn't like dhe thinks it's him just being stubborn and contrarian.
I was trying to figure out what could cause such anger from alizee when she's already gotten through so many CoHo books, but after the reading of those scenes I'm surprised she wasn't angrier. This is disgusting
Part of me is morbidly curious how bad the male love interest in book three would be
She had a cheater in book one, a sex offender in book two, murderers in Verity and Layla, groomers in Slammed and It Ends With Us, incest in pretty much every book, and an arsonist in November 9. I think the only thing left to romanticise is a terrorist
Nope. Nazi.
Too Late had a love triangle between a drug dealer boyfriend who jumps on the female lead as she sleeps every night and glued her engagement ring on, and the police officer trying to catch said boyfriend
Thanks for saying something that experts have said for years: "men and women can have an orgasm during a sexual assault and it is still rape."
I posted a book review about a really great one portraying addiction and the things we have to do to keep up with it and someone commented saying they thought I would love colleen hoover and I just about cried
C'mon, what the title?
@@SilentProti Cherry - Nico Walker!
telling someone that they seem like they’d like colleen hoover is the highest form of insult, so sorry you had to be subjected to that😔 I’d cry too
I have never liked colleen Hoover love stories but I’m actually horrified by this one😳
46:42 "Gross and weird" is the best description of how the subtler forms of assault, like coercion, leave you feeling. Gross, weird, and violated
I seriously cannot go onto book sites like goodreads, reddit, tiktok, yt etc. sometimes because I see somewhere someone talking about how much they love CoHo's books, and out of curiosity, I looked at reviews and videos about why people liked Nov 9 so much, and it was certainly an experience. I do not recommend btw, it was infuriating and I was shocked and the sheer stupidity of people and also the replies to people who hated it. I kid you not, someone said "I love Ben I wish there were more men like him in the world" I could not believe it. So I stay away from any sort of conversation about her books, because they make me mad.
I've watched a lot of reiveiw of the l unhealthy relationship portrayals in novels and I've NEVER seen anything like this book. I'm a woman and my blood ran cold at some of these passages. Warren was genuinely terrifying. He is an abusive rapist. I was so uncomfortable hearing so many of these passages.
How someone can write something like that hand-holding scene and not see how terrifying it is is beyond me.
Seriously. How do you read that and not realize you’re writing a fucking
horror novel? I’d be scared for my life in that car, much less any of the other scenarios.
Jfc, that whole scene had “SA TRAUMA” in bright neon, alarms screeching, all over it. Her wanting to be in control (she doesn’t feel safe otherwise?), her not wanting him to touch her (flashbacks to other hands on her?), her suddenly locking the door (fears he might corner her in the bathroom?)
The "staying completely still and putting her face in a pillow" thing was so upsetting to me. Oh my god.
CoHo books suffer from an extreme lack of self awareness. Like you said, the problem is not that it's a book with a rapist in it, but that it's a book where all the decisions the rapist made were not only perfect, but in fact very romantic. (Also yes I agree that JK was just making stuff up when she decided Dumbledore was gay)
idk what alizee puts in her videos but i need it to be bottled and sold as an antidepressant. also as someone who lives with two men decent men do not act like warren. like we all coexist and no one does objectively shitty things like watch porn in public and walk in on each other in the bathroom??? real people don't act like this???
A few years ago, I bought a used copy of "Writing Romance for Dummies" (I think was the title, I don't respect it enough to look it up.). In the introduction, the author, a published romance writer, a) only spoke about male/female romance couples, not even acknowledging other possibilities. I assume one tagged on "or w/w, m/m, or a dominating woman with a submissive man, but for the simplicity of things, I'll go with m/f" would have killed her.
and
b) wanted to make it very clear to us naive little writer babies that women want to have their "no" ignored, they want to be hunted, chased, and pursued, that's the foundation of all good romance novels. Any other dynamic is wrong and not something people want to read.
I tossed the book into the trash without even finishing the introduction. I refused to resell it because every copy of that junk that gets turned into shreds in the recycling facility to find a second life as the cheap, itchy toilet paper you find in public restrooms is a win for humanity.
It's frustrating how people like to bash dark romance and dark erotica writers and their work. At least, the moment someone self-publishes their problematic, bile-green toxic hardcore bondage fuckery manifesto as dark romance or dark erotica, they are self-aware of what they're writing and at large, the target group also knows they're not picking up a relationship advice book cosplaying as Cinderella re-telling no. 29.427.
I have much more respect for that niche genre and its contributors than the Colleen Hoovers of the romance genre and their pretentious "Oh, no, no, it's not smut, it's not a naughty fantasy that better stays a fantasy but gets heats you up further when you're already horny on a lonely Sunday afternoon, we don't do such nasty things, we do cutesy, feminine romance that even cute guys would secretly love~" attitude.
At least, someone who writes a kinky beastiality centaur/werewolf dark erotica novel knows that it's not a good idea to roll naked and butt-up under a horse or a German shepherd (unless the name's "Claudia" but that's just one inside joke for any other Germans who might end up in this comment section). If Hoover wrote something like that, she'd still call it "romance~~" and sell it as the normal way love just happens to go.
Damn people really want to pass abuse and violating consent as "romantic" so badly?? Like another comment said those themes are popular in horror writing so what is it about making up a "romantic" r*pe that gets folks looking??? I'm so lost
So proud of you for taking your A-levels! ❤❤❤ Getting back to education as an adult is a pain, so huge huge huge kudos for that! Love you, thank you for all the content!
that hand holding scene is actually terrifying. Let's not forget she hears none of what he's thinking so she's just locked in a car with this maniac who risks both their lives to forcefully hold her hand
CNC is a kink of its own, but this book doesn't read like that to me. She pushes him away repeatedly and there's no indication they have anything to indicate they like each other. Bridget, as she is written, doesn't need Warren or sex, she needs therapy and people who respect her boundaries. It's deeply concerning.
I was told by two separate friends to read It Ends With Us. They had both read and hated it. And heard it’d be in theaters sometime. I said I would. Read it. I have a lot of trauma and had no idea it had any in it. It took me three weeks to read it, and it would significantly hurt my mental health when I did. Gave me at least three panic attacks. I wish she never learned how to even write ✍️ 😅. I’m not joking.
i didn’t think she could get worse i think this book takes the cake 🚘🏃🏽
it's colleen unfortunately I don't have this kind of hope
It's the fact that if you gave this book to someone saying "Hey, read this, it's about an abusive relationship from the pov of the abuser"(like Lolita) it would be entirely believable. Hell, it could have even been considered good or at least interesting!
It scares me that so many people actually find this romantic :/
As someone that was assaulted in the same way in the book thank you so much for talking about this. I felt a lot of guilt because technically he didn’t force me to do anything, but he did. It’s a form of assault that isn’t talked about enough because it’s not considered that bad.
oh god. i'm watching/listening while doing a puzzle so when you read "i fuck like i'm thor" i misheard it as "i fuck like i'm four" and my head whipped to the screen like EXCUSE ME????
I was listening while drawing and heard exactly the same thing. Did a complete double take before my brain registered what the line actually was!
her writing baffles me because like. i get the appeal for dark romance, of characters doing taboo things and enjoying it, plenty of people irl have these fantasies that are best explored in fiction but like. Colleen Hoover is just so ungodly awful at it. she’s not writing a dark romance she’s writing a a poor woman getting abused for some hundred pages then dating her abuser. the appeal of dark romance comes from the characters Knowing they’re doing something taboo, but Hoover’s characters just think this is what romance is because they’re all too stupid to realise they’re all sex offenders or getting abused
oh my god I really didnt expect this. as an SA survivor who is still suffering from PTSD due to the incident I really couldn't stomach the SA part. thank you for the content warning, I really didnt expect it to be this graphic in detail my god.
I just wanna say your rant in the beginning of this video is spot on and why it bothers me when people tolerate shitty books. There is also an audience for books that are just about abuse, and in balance of power, and toxic relationships, but those are all horror based stories. There is "way more" money in romance, and unfortunately most ciswomen, who end up liking these books, don't realize because the men that they deal with are no different than the main character.
Could you imagine if they got pulled over for erratic driving and he says, “Officer, she wouldn’t let me hold her hand on the road.”
CoHo was useful for one single day of my life. Target language test, I mentioned that I like to read. Lady asks what authors. I panicked and listed off the first ones that came to mind. CoHo was one of them. Lady accepted my answer and moved on. Never read her in my life, but at least her name came in handy 😂
That was a ride. This book is a good reminder that there are some story ideas that should stay drafts.
This shouldn't have even been written in the first place
@@TaemtiddiesThis shouldn't have been a thought in someone's head
Imagine writing a "romantic novel" where the main character readers are meant to sympathise with sounds more psychopathic than Patrick Bateman.
I used to work at a famous London Horror attraction, plus I was as Goth af. And I learned to not fuck up my makeup by simply placing my pinky over my nostril or both nostrils and breathing upwards. Although I'm 6ft and was 6'3 in my huge New Rocks I've found that not many people look up your nose and notice a tiny circle around your nose holes. Also if you have and itch and don't want to fuck your makeup... up just gently press in or slightly itch the spot with the tip of your fingernail.