No but thats an insult to fanfics bc fanfic are actually really good written and the romance often goes in depth (not all but there are rlly good ones out there) but the romance in colleens books are so dry and uninteresting like I never ship any of her characters and I care less if they end up together XD
@@BangtanFF fair, but I say this as a fanfiction writer. Also I was a wattpad user so a lot of stuff on there wasn’t good. Didn’t discover ao3 until I’d been a fanfic reader and writer for a few years
@@WishGender Oh cool! I'm a fanfic writer too, my channel is full of my fanfics and I've writtrn some on wattpad, so Ive seen quite a lot of FF's too and ao3 does have the better ones than wattpad, but ff writets are in my opinion much more creative
Hahaha love this! I read fics for more than 10 years and, even if some fanfics are masterpieces, I understand what you mean. I feel like when you first start with fics you just consume the first sht you see and then start getting picky. So yes, best comment ever hahaha
Also the irony of Lowen shaming her ex for having consensual choking kink into being fine with her new man trying to choke his wife to death is just something else. God forbid a younger person has a kink, so shameful, but murder.... sure!
@@lesliebohn627 there’s a lot of things that seemed to be carefully planned but I think Coleen just wrote , she didn’t seem to have a grasp on her characters by what she has said in the interviews
It messes me up that so much of Varity's dysphoria about her pregnancy revolves around her need to be desirable for her husband, how convinced she is that he'll throw her away if her body isn't perfect, while also fearing that if she isn't the perfect mother he'll reject her as well... and honestly, I think she had plenty of grounds to think that he is that controlling, demanding, and shallow. The lingering stink of ableism in this book doesn't make it any better.
One of my best friends felt very similar after having her first baby. Her boyfriend was awful to her and she felt so pressured to get back in shape and he even tried to pay for surgery to remove her stretch marks (which ??? that doesn't exist). BUT everyone around her knew it was fatphobia, misogynistic and abusive. I know my example is rooted in reality, but still. I think Coleen could have still used that pointline but make it so much more nuance by making the other characters acknowledge how fucked it is. Or have another scene or something where Varity has a revelation. IDK, I'm not a writer but I feel she's done a massive disservice by making it seem 'normal'.
I think you mean dysmorphia? since dysphoria relates to being trans, not simply being distressingly concerned with one’s own appearance. but I completely agree with you. The way Verity is treated both within and BY the narrative is just disgusting.
@@thesleepydot Dysphoria refers to a general state of unhappiness or dissatisfaction. Gender dysphoria is what some trans people deal with, ie. A state of dissatisfaction caused by an incongruence with a persons gender and their assigned sex at birth, but dysphoria in and of itself is not exclusive to trans people. For example the more serious version of PMS is called PMDD, or pre-menstrual dysphoric disorder, and dysphoria as a general symptom can often be caused by addiction/substance abuse, depression, anxiety and some personality disorders.
Just in here to enjoy the chat. I think dsymorphia involves seeing things that aren't there in your body because self view got super distorted. Like when folks will insist they have too much fat because they can grab a bit of it on their stomach when they're seated ... which is just a pretty normal body being a body. Or getting super concerned about your body retaining a normal amount of water as being monstrously bloated. Dysphoria I think is an aspect of your body just seeming wrong or off? I recall Savvy Writes Books RUclipsr working out whether she had gender or body dysphoria and it was just the boobs causing the dysphoria because they were too big, not because the boobs were female or a desire for boobs to be pecs instead. It's a good distinction to sort out though. Assuming my understanding is correct, which it could totally be dodgy ngl.
What always gets me is how people shame women who say they don't want to be mothers by saying they'd be bad mothers. Like... okay? And you want them to have a baby even though you think they'd be a bad one? What does that say about you? It's stupid. Motherhood is a huge responsibility and nobody should be forced into it. That's not fair to the mother or to the baby.
Woman doesn't want kids: doesn't have kids Asshole: ur a bad woman Alternate universe... Same woman who doesn't want kids still has them: I'm unhappy being a parent Same asshole: then why did u have a child? 😒 ure a bad woman With these people, women who don't want to be parents just can't win 😩
2/3 of the way through the video, I thought the twist was going to be that Jeremy was the villain. When he decided Verity was no longer the "perfect" wife and mother, he faked the car crash and now keeps her sedated (which is why she can still speak and walk around). He lured Lowen to the mansion as a replacement for Verity. He even faked her diary entries to make her look evil. When Lowen finds out the truth, she has to wake up Verity and together they have to escape from Jeremy.
that would have been good writing though and it would have actually made a good book about women bonding together and working together to escape abusive men except this is a colleen hoover book, so I think we all need to lower our expectations by like. 100%.
This book terrifies me.. not because of the ‘horror’ it attempted, but because of the amount of people it makes believe that verity is the evil manipulator and root for the real evil couple. I tried reading and watching other’s reviews (pro and not) and still came to the same conclusion. It saddens me to see so many people having no understanding and sympathy for women dealing with unwanted pregnancy and mentally ill people, their understanding seem so shallow that not only could they not recognize it, they villainized it.
@@sakurablossoms94 That means nothing. A lot of mental health counselors, psychologists and paychiatrists are some of the worst people in terms of respecting the humanity of mentally ill people. Some even go into the field to abuse a vulnerable group of people, especially in closed institutions. Nurse Ratched type beat...
@@sakurablossoms94 Second hand anecdotal evidence of one person's opinion does not negate the harmful tropes and stereotypes that perpetuate ableism and misogyny. Nor does second hand anecdotal evidence excuse the ableism and misogyny. That is clear and documented.
Colleen seems to have a lot of issues with sexuality and the fact that sex... is enjoyable, for both parties involved. It's not just a "baby making" process. Her Kink shaming just screams of: Missionary position... or DEATH. Also the point that she makes of the main character trying to, and wishing for an abortion/miscarriage is somehow supposed to make the MC irredeemable is just peak "pro-life" dogma.
Without having read the book, I thought the twist was going to be that Jeremy wrote the autobiography for Lowen to find / as an excuse for trying to kill his wife. Could have been more educational to reveal that Jeremy purposely selected Lowen and lured her into his live with the intention to trick her into bare more children for him after being fed up with his wife for defying him. Maybe she was done being a breeding machine and needed to be replaced?
REUPLOAD because RUclips decided to demonetise the whole video because I quoted a swear word at 2:15:00. Seriously. I even removed the clip and spoke directly to RUclips support and they still wouldn't do anything and sadly, I have rent to pay so I'm having to re-upload. Ugh. RUclips. Why do you hate us so much? EDIT: THANK YOU all so much for all your support! ♥♥♥
So you broke the rules, got demonetized and somehow you blame youtube? Given you basically pay rent by trashing other peoples artistic endeavors and trying to kill other peoples income so they can't pay rent maybe you should be demonetized more often.
At this point I’m not far enough into the video to know whether the twist has to do with Verity’s condition but treating Verity like she’s less than human because of her being disabled makes me feel sick. No his wedding vows aren’t undone just because she can’t serve the roles of wife and mother anymore.
Exactly, in sickness and health and so on. Why on earth would someone's SO becoming disabled/ill mean that their marriage isn't legitimate anymore? It's so stupid and I hated that whole train of thought being presented as normal and even somewhat true when it blatantly isnt
@@_random_o.o2302 as a disabled person i frankly wasnt that surprised. its extremely common that when women are disabled (and yes, i specify *women* because while this does happen in cases where the man is disabled it doesnt happen to *nearly* the same degree and is thought of far more harshly bc of the way gender roles shake out in our society) the man just leaves her, or.. in some cases just kills her. and it's treated by a significant amount of the abled-bodied public as logical for that to happen because "they're suffering" and "its hard to be there for someone during this" and "he didnt sign up for this". i've seen stories of men ending the lives of their disabled wives (and then their own) get passed aroudn online and have the response to the story be "it's so sad he felt this was his only way out :(" or "well can we really blame him??" people do not see disabled lives as beign worth living. they do not understand how someone can suffer daily and still want to live. its disturbing being told that it's only logical that someoen like me should want to die. but i'm hardly surprised by it anymore. with disabled women specifically though, the inability to fulfill their "purpose" as a wife and mother is seen as akin to death anyway, they're empty and purposeless shells because in their minds the point of a woman is to serve a man.
I had a boss tell me I had to take care of my health because women stay forever, but men don't, so my boyfriend would eventually get tired of me and leave. She asked "do you really think he wants somebody sick like that?" I am disabled, don't need to or want to get fixed. And yes, that boss was a woman. It's very common for able-bodied and neurotypical people to think that kind of stupid shit and it's totally normalized, unless it's the woman leaving the disabled husband, even if it's because he's an asshole.
There's a very specific type of voice I'm imagining and it sounds goofy as fuck 😅 like... Alan Rickman but he has a REALLY THICK layer of phlegm in his throat
My boyfriend snores sometimes and it scares me too. Sometimes he also mumbles in his sleep, it's a bit creepy but I can live with his demonic sleep self because when awake, he's an absolute cinnamon roll of a person.
As someone that has ADHD who struggles with focusing on long-format talking content (video essays, podcasts, etc) it was SUPER distracting and, like, disturbing... I'm not used to sounds like that.
I love how Rachel shows examples of good writing instead of just criticizing bad writing. And instead of over explaining it, she gives the audience a chance to think abt what makes the good writing good.
Good writing vs bad writing is always a valid discussion. what I find disturbing is the amount of ppl who have decided that bc a writer wrote something they didn't like, the author is a bad person 👀 these comment sections would make you wonder why anyone would ever bother. I'd also like to introduce them to Thomas Harris and see if they can hold on to their evil character = evil author mindset.
@@blah914 I think the difference of character vs author opinions, in this book, lies with the book not establishing that lowen is the one who thinks verity is evil or why. Colleen lays out the situation and expects people to think verity is a bad person because of this and adding lines like her "creepily staring" when she's really just a woman who needs help. Colleen doesn't do anything to tell or show that lowen is solely the one for these opinions, that lowen is against her for any specific reason or that she understood what actually happened with verity. Making it more likely that these are the authors opinions rather than just the characters.
I commented this on the original, but Colleen Hoover could change almost nothing about her writing and be a successful horror author. I think if Lowen had killed the wife and the final letter had instead revealed that Jeremy had written the evil novel to convince Lowen that his wife was evil, then the ending would've been great. At that point, she's already committed murder and Jeremy can hold that over her head, plus he can literally just lock her up if she tries to run off. Then CH could have her manipulative murderer and it would actually be a halfway decent novel.
I feel like it could have worked the other way too! Like if Lowen (who was already studying Verity's writing style to mimic it for her series) actually wrote Verity's manuscript to convince Jeremy to kill Verity. It could have been interesting if Lowen is written so we initially empathize with her but ultimately realize she's the villain. Or I should say more of an overt villain, she's already one of the villains in the original lol
@@shivani9308 Yeah I think I was imagining a scenario where Lowen had actually been stalking Verity and Jeremey for years and sort of orchestrated the whole situation and that would be the twist, but it doesnt quite fit with the story the way it is
not at all.....? Colleen hoover doesnt actively perpetuate violence towards the opposite sex or extremely harmful/backward ideologies... ya books targeted towards teenage girls have always been like this and worse, colleen hoover just went viral via tiktok. Before tiktok, we still had authors like that person who wrote twilight (which has equally bad writing, characters, and misogynistic traits). meanwhile andrew tate not only rode a wave of anti feminsim, but he also amplified it. His target audience (teenage boys) rarely ever critisized him while you have drones of teenage girls not liking colleen hoover. All my homies hate colleen hoover - it really is a small demographic of women and girls who like her. You are literally comparing an author who writes bad books to a man whos literally "accused" of human trafficking, rape, and being involved with crime organizations. this comment was hilariously wrong
@maggie ? I think its more like she normalizes the abuse women face by men like Tate. She aids in perpetuating that abuse is hot and this can lead young women and girls to assume that it is ok. Tate teaches men to abuse, Hoover teaches women its ok and means the men love them.
The way society shames people that don't want kids, then shame them for having kids and struggling to take care of them. It's a loose loose situation. You almost never hear these people that are like "just go through with the pregnancy and then give them up!" talking about how many children they've adopted, because they don't actually care about those children- they care about controlling people and their lives. I don't know who said it first, but it aligns entirely with my current thoughts on kids. "I'd rather regret never having kids, than regret having them"
RUclips has such crazy parameters for what they're going to demonetize, it's astounding. I'm sorry this happened to you, Rachel! I'm super excited to watch this video though.. much love to you and Kyra!
Verity's struggle with her pregnancy made me sympathize with her more. I am only at 1:32:13 but I would feel the same if I ever got pregnant. Not because I would fear losing the love of my partner or anything but because pregnancy is equivalent to body horror for me and I would hate the thought of ruining my body for a child I never wanted. Granted, I would terminate the hypothetical pregnancy asap as I don't want a child to feel unloved ever but still.
You don’t necessarily ruin your body tho. I look the same but with bigger boobs because I’m breastfeeding. So if someday you want a kid don’t torture yourself, it might not be as terrible as you think!
@@totallywireddd I don't. Even bigger breasts would be ruining my body for me. Not to mention, having to spend 9 months watching my body grow. That'll add even more insecurity to my already body-insecure self. Also, it's not just a little 'some parts of my body will get bigger', I would hate the whole duration of pregnancy. I am afraid of being pregnant. Not to mention, I don't want to raise a child. They need so much care that I just don't have the patience or the mental capacity to provide to them. I would choose to electrocute myself before I choose pregnancy or birthing amd/or raising a child. So yeah, ruining by body doesn't just mean ruining my physical body but being healthy otherwise. It would mean ruining my mental wellbeing. I say the former because although it might make me look vain, people will mostly just shut up and even if they don't, I won't have to tire myself explaining the horror even the thought of pregnancy brings to me.
It’s a bit of a tangent, but I love being reminded of the fact you and Alizee are friends (or at least that you get on well enough to be in regular contact). You come across like such a kind, soft sweetheart, and Alizee is like the human embodiment of “U FUCKIN WOT M8?” and it really tickles me that you pal around, I don’t know, I can’t explain it properly. It just cheers me up.
Yes! Rachel goes "Colleen, please read a book. Oh sorry, that was a bit mean". Whereas that would be the nicest thing Alizee says. I'd like to think they're like Wednesday and Enid, or that picture of the goth and rainbow unicorn twins in the car. It just works.
What concerns me the most about these novels is how narrow minded and casually sexist Hoover’s writing is. And how she writes things with such certainty as if the mindset of her main characters are normal. And it concerns me that impressionable people will find these thoughts normal and start to see things in a similar light. Idk just a thought.
I have decided she is secretly a Men's Rights Activist, the type that talks non-stop about how manipulative women are but why won't anyone go out with him
@@theblackcatgirl7013 seriously - she writes like a woman who read every gothic novel and learned zero from them except some stupidly overly literal idea that she should endeavor to redeem the worst peripheral male characters because…they didn’t have a “good woman” and everything would turned off just so happily otherwise heehee!
SO, I am a teenager (I don't live in the US just for reference), let me tell you how horrid it has been for me to see my friends have unrealistic and toxic expectations for guys they want to date. They now firmly believe that if the guy isn't at least slightly nuts, the relationship would be too boring, and by slightly nuts I mean a controlling man, not just in bed but life in general but maybe not on a very serious scale, yet. I obviously like to indulge in unrealistic books because c'mon it's a book but I've had an abusive dad so the idea of an unstable, abusive man sounds like literal hell. You could say that maybe they're not serious and they're just too into the idea of a "book boyfriend", well a few of them are or were dating older men (20-24) while being minors and a few of them who do end up in age appropriate relationships are already planning their "lifelong future" basically marriage and kids, I agree that even in the past some couples used to go above and beyond and also agree that teenagers should be allowed to be cringe but planning kids at around 16 is not something that I expected to see since the rise of happy childfree couples these few years It's not only on Colleen, that would be wrong, but also on those "teenage-highschool" shows where the content is so age inappropriate that teens cannot actually watch it (They obviously end up watching it the most). Now teens look at other ''teens" in shows being questionable and think that's what the teen experience is like and try to perpetuate it
@@sazaaaam those “friends” of yours honestly sound just as legitimately terrible as Hoover herself. you should honestly find yourself ones that are much better than that, because someone like you absolutely deserves it.
i’d already watched this one, after 10 minutes i thought there was a misunderstanding and i was about to click off, but seeing what youtube did i’m gonna watch it all over again. they demonetize me for such trivial stupid things too and you’re %100 right on your rant.
As someone who was a victim of abuse at the hands of a mentally ill mother who didn't want kids but felt like she had to because of societal standards I cannot stress how important I think it is to let people who don't want kids to not have them. It's the best option for the parent(s) and the kids and forcing it only ends in pain for everyone involved.
I have not hated a character in a book I couldn't care less about more than I hate Lowen in Verity. Jeremy is a abuser and a murderer, I have no feelings towards him. Lowen though? God. Poor Verity. I was sympathetic to her and still pitied her even when I thought she attempted to kill and later killed Harper. I feel even worse for her now and I want Verity to be avenged.
@@Yep5366 Well, the video and hell, even your own response gives plenty reasons why one would sympathize with Verity, does it not? And that's when I thought the manuscript was the real deal. Yeah, killing your child daughter is objectively bad but despite that, her struggles with pregnancy and her postpartum mental issues makes her a sympathetic character. Add to that the fact that I consider the letter to be the truth because despite Colleen saying she thinks the manuscript is the truth, there is really nothing that points either way (from what I gather from this video). If Colleen herself is befuddled as to what is the truth, I have no hope there's anything that's intentionally seeded for or against the manuscript or the letter. I also remember there being some inconsistencies between what's described in the 'real world' vs. in the manuscript but I don't remember them so feel free to take it or leave it. Now, for Jeremy being an abuser. Half of that is me speculating based on his lesser described actions: ● His inability to communicate with Verity when he thought she was giving Harper less attention + the anger he showed at a thing that would've been such a small conversation and possibly a genuine oversight if Verity was mentally sound. If you consider the manuscript to be writing exercise, you may dismiss this as fabricated. If not, well, you have to consider this. ● His anger when he read the manuscript and his first thought being murder. Not take her to the police, not talk to her, but straight up murder. For all he knew, Verity was a good mother and he must have known she wrote from the PoV of villainous characters. His anger is justified. Hell, he might've felt like murdering her and that's justified too. But murder? No. His inability or perhaps refusal to either take her to the police or calm down and talk to her and go straight to murder doesn't paint him in a good light. Not to mention, his solution to problems seems to be murder, considering Patricia. ● Verity's fear of Jeremy. This may be because of his murder attempts but this too made me think he might be an abuser. ● But the other half that made me call him an abuser is him impregnating Verity. Yes, they were having unprotected sex so they knew the consequence might be pregnancy and legally, he is fine, as far as I know. However, I still consider it abusive that he never talked to Verity or Lowen about kids before just finishing inside of them. And that's an established pattern. With Verity, he waited until she was engaged, with Lowen, until she was so in love with him that she couldn't resist him. It's almost as if that's his way of binding women to him. Marking them as his even. As for Lowen. Dragged into this mess, yes. But she had an easy out. Take the manuscript, get the fuck out of the house and hand over the manuscript to the police. If she had the time, record Verity moving around and perhaps, lock her door. Not say such heinous shit (which, one may consider verbal abuse) to a comatose woman, for all she knew. Hell, even if she wasn't comatose, a decent person would never say or do the shit Lowen said and did to Verity. Also, no matter how deeply she was in this mess, she didn't have to have sex with a married man. And Jeremy didn't have to cheat on Verity. Good people don't do that. She also didn't have to help Jeremy murder Verity. She didn't know he initially tried to kill her. She could've just said, lets take her to the police. She didn't have to keep the letter from Jeremy, but she did. Just because the narrative tries to frame her as a good or a sympathetic person doesn't mean she is. Just because Lowen is the main character doesn't mean she's a likeable human whose actions are understandable. Same goes for Jeremy. And the opposite for Verity. Just because the narrative tries to frame her as a black and white villian doesn't mean she's not a sympathetic character whose actions are understandable. Not good actions, if she actually tried and murdered her daughter, but understandable. You are putting too much responsibility on a woman with mental issues than seemingly mentally sound people who had many outs, many morally correct routes to take. You may say, Verity could've got help. But you can't get help if you don't know you need help.
(Recreating my comment on 1st upload) There is no way Verity could breach the cervix & amniotic sac, with a presumably unsterile object, and have the pregnancy continue. Is this A) a deliberate clue for readers that Verity’s Evil Autobiography of Evil is not credible, or B) CoHo not caring about medical facts in favor of further villainizing an unmaternal woman?
i wish it was a) but i think the fact that bruising on Verity after they've murdered her was completely ignored... yeah, i doubt that would be intentional from Colleen
on a base level, she writes like a 13 year old who’s found wattpad for the first time and the fact that she has SO many published and very popular books is absolutely baffling lmfao
at 1:49:12 I literally got sterilized to avoid being put in a situation like verity. I wouldn’t resent the children for getting more love from my partner than me, but I don’t want to be convinced or pressured into a pregnancy I don’t want. I would also struggle with being a parent and feel bad for her for having to go through that.
Me personally if I was verity and the girl my husband was cheating with me on helped kill me id haunt the hell out of both of them for the rest of time
colleen hoover's writing really screams to me that she just thinks of one plot point, one central question, which she then creates new plot points to further that singular main one without realising that when you create new plot points those new points also raise questions, and that you can and should have various questions in your narrative that you do EXPLORE. instead she creates new things that will be useful to the main question then discards them after they've "answered" something for the main one, completely disregarding the new questions made from them. Like bringing up the kid's possible turtle murder thing, then tossing it aside the second it's not useful for the pain plot but then forgetting that if you say "oh yea the kid might have killed his turtle" that's obviously gonna raise new questions?????
it's a bit weird that verity's entire "autobiography" seemingly revolved exclusively around her relationship to her husband? as if that was the most interesting aspect of her life.
Okay I'm back for a second watch and I just had to say that if the opening scene was her dropping a coffee on herself or getting a bad nosebleed it would serve exactly the same effect and that enrages me on behalf of the man who got BRUTALLY KILLED for no good goddamn reason
It just struck me as edgy for no reason - like dear Coho was like "hm, how do I establish that this book is supposed to be a dark thriller? How about showing an extremely brutal death in for no reason!" Honestly, it's something I would write as a parody. It's so fucking dumb.
Rachel Oates, what's wrong with you? When the dog is dreaming, internet etiquette commands you turn the camera around to show her kicking and woofing in her sleep!
So, before I watched this the first time, I asked ChatGPT to explain the twist ending to me. After first arguing with me about spoilers, it agreed to tell me after I told it I already read the book. It then proceeded to tell me that the ending revealed that Lowen had hallucinated everything that happened since she arrived at Verity’s house??? It was very sure of this interpretation and I have no idea where it could have gotten this from, lol. Talk about lying with confidence.
So it's not just me lol. I argued with chatGPT about a book I had already read because I asked something about the book (I forgot what) and it was going on about something that never happened in the book. It even gave me characters that weren't in the book. I got so confused, I asked Bing about it and Bing gave me correct-er but not correct answers. Anyway, I re-read the book and went to argue with it again. Same results. It wasn't willing to budge from its 100% wrong answers.
So I can actually answer this ChatGPT is only accurate with information up till September 2021. The reason is to train/educate You see the AI isn't being trained from current live web resource, this is done for an number of reasons, but the long and the short of it is you were asking the AI to explain the ending of a book that to it hadn't been published yet. It likely based it's explanation of the twist based of reviews or articles from ARC (advanced reader copies), interviews with the author and her existing body of work, and gave you what it thought was the most likely conclusion. So yeah that's why it was complaining about spoilers... the poor dear didnt know... On a separate yet unrelated note you can probably help train ChatGPT by telling it it's answer was incorrect and explaining why... pretty ool eh?
As a still fairly young writer (only just graduated with my Creative Writing degree) I just want to say THANK YOU SO MUCH for these videos. They have helped me immensely in identifying my bad writing habits and get me thinking on how I can improve my work. I don't think I've come away from any of your writing videos without the thought of "hmm, I want to write and try to do what they were trying to do, but better" 👍 You rock
54:02 If Hoover (you do not know how much I have to restrain myself from calling her vacuum cleaner) was a good writer, you could say that the styles of Verity and Lowen merging together means Lowen was becoming more like Verity/ was taking Verity's place but I don't think Lowen's style was turning into Verity's but rather, the opposite.
I kept thinking this, I thought Lowen would slowly become as obsessed with Jeremy like Verity was and slowly would become as mentally ill that would have been a good plot, and at first she made it seem like that and I thought Lowen would be potrayed as the villain aswell then I could say it was a good story but in the end Lowen was still the good girl despite everything mweh
@@BangtanFF Right? Despite knowing Colleen had mediocre writing skills, I was hoping for the exact same thing as your comment. But no, instead we got "Lowen is still the good person even if she helped murder a woman among other heinous shit".
On the topic of Varity feeling disconnected from her kids and feeling extremely violated throughout the pregnancy, I feel like not enough people talk about how a child feels if they grow up and find out that they weren't wanted. My mother had my older sister because my dad wanted kids; then three years later had me so she wouldn't be lonely. When I got older, she made a point to tell me when she got angry that she never wanted children - which was also compounded by untreated mental illness. Believe me when I tell you that as a child that is one of the most *crushing* things to hear from your parent who's supposed to love you...
I like bad romance books but like Rachel said it take its self to seriously. It’s like coho read the summary of Rebecca and tried to make it sexy (just my opinion)
I'm not all the way through the video yet, but this book is reminding me VERY strongly of Rebecca. The sociable, charismatic first wife? The quieter, self-conscious second partner? The nurse/housekeeper who views the first wife with affection? It all fits
i have and eating disorder and the scenes of verity struggling with the pregnancy because of her body changes and her image, hits very close to home. i remember when i found out i was so sick i probably would never be able to get pregnant, i felt happier than ever because my worst nightmare was going through this. it's sad seeing such serious mental issues being portrayed as something only an evil person would think.
What’s doubly weird is she was a social worker who would’ve worked with families and relationships in terrible circumstances before she became an author. You’d think she’d write romantic cautionary tales, but no.
The villainization of people who are not drawn to motherhood or who have not been able to have kids or make other choices to not be a mom is absolutely psychotically real.
Listening to this while my day is dragging at work and I just have to say I find the sound of your dog snoozing in the background very relaxing And also as someone who sleepwalks a lot, that reveal was so anticlimactic I nearly laughed. My dad once had to chase after me at 2 am while I was down the street, with no shoes, just in my pjs, in the snow. By this book’s standards I should be forever and always traumatized by cold and snow lmao
Heh. Both my mother and I were sleepwalkers (thankfully, we grew out of it). When she was young, my mother did more or less the same thing as you, except, she walked out of the house, with no shoes, in her night clothes, walked a long way to the local lake and out into the very cold lake - all without waking. Took my grandfather leaping in after her and shaking her awake (can just imagine his panic at realizing what was happening). Still, that never traumatized her or made her afraid of water or cold for the rest of her life. It's like people have no idea how sleepwalking actually work.
I actually didn't watch this video the first time around. I can tell this video was a lot of work to make, especially having to read and reread such a bad book for the review. You did such a good job; I am annoyed at RUclips on your behalf for sure. I feel like there are way too many books that have "cool" titles and "cool" covers that get way more attention than they ever deserve. I feel like that is how CH got so popular.
I still think this book is a result of not reading into Rebecca properly and thoughtlessly borrowing from it with no regards as to why this or that element worked there.
What horrifies me even more is that it's guaranteed that things like this (including the ending/twist) happen in real life, too. That ending, where they ended an innocent person, in one of the most gruesome, horrible, painful ways for absolutely no reason makes me sick to the stomach... I absolutely hate those people
In another universe this would have been a great horror book about cycles of abuse. The main character was abused by her mother, and now she's judgmental and distrustful of other mothers that she views as "unfit" and therefore sees it as her right to steal her life. The other woman was abused by her controlling husband and then went on to resent her children and abuse them. The story ends with her abusers getting together while she's stuck in her own mind watching their relationship unfold
It's funny about this book, I have seen it around so much, and the cover looked nice and eerie, that I almost picked it up. My local bookshop has a literal shelf full of copies of this book and they're all discounted. I'm glad I dodged that bullet
5:27 I don’t drink so I will partake with weed. Ngl I wish I wrote as melodramatic as she does. I’m working on satire and one of my characters being melodramatic all the time is supposed to be a part of the humor. Idk if I’ll work out but I’m trying haha.
31:30 I feel like what pulls me out of her descriptions the most is that her character, who just recently lost her mother to cancer, used it as a comparison for _ivy_ growing on a house
I read this because an ex-friend gave it to me and I forgot I even had it until relatively recently. The whole thing was absurd and yet extremely predictable, but what stuck out to me most was the way Crew was treated. Colleen clearly tries to paint Lowen as the hero and caring about Crew's safety, but if that's the case why doesn't she do anything about it? If she's really that concerned, why doesn't she share the memoir sooner? If she cared that much about the kid she should have immediately told someone about what she believed was Verity confessing to murdering a child. But what does Lowen do? Put it off and have sex with Jeremy, all while claiming she loves him and Crew. It's clear, especially after the ending, that the only reason she ever does anything to Verity is because of jealousy, not because she's upset about what Verity has done. I love reading about messy characters, but you can't have a proper character study if the author gives no sense of responsibility and/or no consequences to their characters actions. Nothing that Lowen does ever comes back to bite her so it makes the whole thing a mess. We can't root for her and we can't see her get what's coming to her either.
The misogyny and general bleh-ness of book reminds me of the VC Andrews books my mom used to read. I was a voracious reader as a kid - picked up ONE, and very quickly decided those where not for me
When I was 11 I felt soo mature reading colleen hoover books 🙈 Looking back at that now i am very happy that I actually matured and can see how bad the writing actually is/was.
i find it interesting that verity wrote her books from the villains’ perspectives and that’s a reflection of her own villainy… and colleen hoover wrote this book from the true villain’s perspective. it makes me wish she did it on purpose
I’m excited for this video because all the wives on the military base I live in are obsessed with Colleen. I’m not really a fan of romance novels because they always seem to be written with the male gaze and steeped in misogyny.
all this time, I somehow was under the impression that the story was about a woman who's in a coma, an other woman who's hired as a ghost writer for the former's books, and the husband who cheats on his wife with the latter, but then it's revealed that he has put the wife into a coma and has fabricated all of her autobiography, in order to make her seem like the villain. so them killing Verity and making it all seem so righteous and have their happily ever after, was a twist for me.
FINALLY! I was gifted this by my sister, she said it was amazing, and my experience with it could not have been more shit. I'm so glad she hasn't asked me if I read it yet, because I'd have to fake enthusiasm. It's harmless and not the worst thing in the world, but the more I read it the more I felt frustrated. (no judgement towards anyone who likes the book, it's just that my sister is an outspoken TERF and i'm not fond of her at the moment)
I assume it was a case of him driving into the tree, letting verity get flung from the wreck due to her lack of seatbelt, and then (since he presumably WAS strapped in) being well enough himself to get out, remove her restraints, and flee the scene. of course, this is only a plan that would work in a world where forensic science hadn't developed since the dark ages, but considering he managed to nearly strangle her to death TWICE without being caught, maybe that's the case here.
TLDR: It would be great plot if Lowen was intentionally written to be the Villain that she is. So I was having some thoughts... The fact that Lowen turns out to be a villain while at first you are lured into thinking her to be the hero is an interesting concept and if that was written well, it would have made a very interesting plot. We could also find out that her sleepwalking-episodes were her "excuse" for her mother beeing afraid of her while really she was a creepy kid? I mean that would explain why the immediatly thought the kid killed the tortoise because maybe she herself had a pet she murdered? That would make much more sense and would explain her behavior so much better. Especially the letter at the end. And than you could have had Jeremy as an bad guy which she doesn't see, because she herself is a bad guy and Vanity as a normal Person with some mental issues and maybe a postpartum depression with hallucinations (which are fairly common and could lead to her believing one child would murder the other) so she tried to murder her but doesn't succeed/ than you add a shame/guilt something in between where she kinda comes to her senses but when her daughter dies the stress and shock makes the hallucinations come back and she kills the other daughter who she blames for her first daughters death. And her staying in her catatonia after Jeremy attempted to kill her could then be explained by her thinking she didn't deserve better because she killed her child in psychosis and her not wanting to leave her son and her being afraid of Jeremy. Than you could add an element of her trying to save Lowen from her husband not knowing Lowen is a bad person as well. It would be really interesting in my opinion and would make an excellent story (if it would also come across that wanting to be child free isn't a villainous aspect in itself but the villains of the story think it is?). Also I would have liked the letter to be to be a warning to Lowen with an explantion instead of a letter to Jeremy. That and a little less clicheed writing and much less cringey sex scenes (maybe just a few insights to highlight the toxic behavior of Jeremy and Lowen)...
I did a creative writing BA and MA, workshopping mine and others' work, feeling proud seeing how we improved and stopped using cliches. Listening to this *published* book made me cringe so hard that my face will never go back to normal... 😖
Lol the doggie’s snoozing noises are adorable and genuinely kinda comforting. I’m on holiday away from my own dogs rn, lol. Missing them. Also, I loved the EAPoe reference! He’s my absolute favorite.
I read a Colleen Hoover book because I had seen her name around booktok as a very good author, and I didn't understand it and I am glad I am not alone 😅
This book would've been infinitely better if, after finding the letter, Lowen set the house on fire while Jeremy was taking a nap, making it look like an accident while she went to visit Verity's tomb with Crew and deciding her baby's middle name was going to be Verity or something.
there it is omg, so much better 👏👏👏i hate that man some girls are actually out there simping over that mediocre man like what, this is what coho is doing to young girls making them romanticize those kind of disgusting men like remember nov 9 and her other horrible ones, their is either incest, cheating husband /boyfriend, abuse, dv, SA like this woman is making young girls believe that it's ok to love a man who does all these things to you, WOW
oh my god, if the bedroom door lock hadn't ended with that stupid fakeout earlier (either just not had jeremy in the room, or the same but crew's around to let them out? any way except an alternate escape route) so it could instead pay off with lowen locking jeremy in so he's trapped in a burning house. that'd be so much satisfying.
@@PugandOwn hell, if the letter is true, then....what was even the point of Verity locking the door in the first place?? (hell, even if the letter wasn't true, Verity's motives for doing this still make no sense to me :/) Personally, even w/o the letter's potential reveal, I was still kinda rooting for Verity, and I find it disappointing that she didn't just lock them into the room while they were busy cheating, then take Crew and set the house on fire while they were trapped inside or something. But yeah, I think your idea would have been the best ending.
I stumbled across this video and love a good Colleen Hoover snark-session but this is one the few videos I've seen where someone sits through and discusses the entire novel from cover to cover. It sounded like a real challenge. I admire your will and determination to read through this thing multiple times so other people don't have to. Seems like the book would have been better if it just admitted that Lowen was a full blown Villain Protagonist who THINKS she's the quirky, "Not Like Other Girls", Romance novel character when in reality she's an obsessive stalker in the same vein as Joe Goldberg from "YOU". Appreciate your efforts. Hope your next few uploads are books you enjoy!
If Jeremy had just ASKED verity just to have water, that could have been a fun, entertaining pick up line. Edit: you said that right after I did hahaha😂
agree. i personally would be like "bruh if i wanna fuck you drunk either say yes or no, don't try to alter my offer" and be turned off (legit the first time i fucked my now longterm partner we both did GHB lmfao but we planned that for like 2 weeks first and were intro type dating before we had sex)
I was planning to read this book for my own personal critique on Colleen Hoover, but I'm so glad I watched this instead. My OCD's given me severe tokophobia, the fear of pregnancy. Every time my period is late, I get so anxious that I begin to throw up, despite me being asexual, and I also get the horrible intrusive thoughts of what I might have to do if I am pregnant. To hear all of it villainized like this is bad enough, but I can't imagine what it would've been like to read it. Let this be a lesson to me to steer clear of anything Hoover, thank you for the video!
To me, this just furthers my personal motivation to keep going with my own projects. Why? If you think of the worst media youve ever read/watched/consumed, and you can call it awful- you have to remember it went through several processes to get greenlit/published/released, and you were still able to consume that media. You still have hope.
I always thought that Hoover tried to have her own modern retelling of Rebecca. From the description of Verity as this perfect woman and then discovering that she was “awful” (which is also so harmful-she was just mentally ill!!), to the plot twists and the attempt at portraying the creepy atmosphere. Even the way Jeremy is described seems like a cheap copy of good writing. It just seems like a self insert of Du Maurier's story but with constant terrible sex scenes. I'm glad that I see more, and more criticism aimed at Hoover because when I read her books a couple of years ago I felt like I'm the only one disliking her in a sea of eager fans eating up every cliché story she would spit out.
I'm reading Rebecca right now and you're totally right. Rebecca is so interesting too - I'm two-thirds done with it, and I don't think Maxim has ever really even kissed the narrator? The focus seems to be so much more Rebecca than the romance.
Thank you for providing contrasting examples of how a good author handles introducing an ominous house. As an aspiring writer myself, it's helpful to see things like that to show HOW Colleen Hoover's work was cliche.
Im so disgusted by this book. I listened to this video during work and I was so furious, so nauseated… I can’t believe this was published and praised. I’m so angry. I want to punch Colleen in the face almost as much as I want to erase this book from existence, or rewrite it and give Verity justice for what Colleen’s stupid, wonder Bread protagonist did. Thank you for this video, though! I’m absolutely subscribed now. Sorry for the vent! 😂
I have never heard of Colleen Hoover, I just put on this video to give you a view because it's pretty unfair what YT is doing. Also your poetry book is really good ❤
*Let me attempt to rewrite the description of Verity's house. Do be kind (but frank) in your criticisms as I know writing fiction only through reading fiction. And I am nowhere near good in my writing. I took some creative liberties to attempt to make the house feel ominous.* Before starting though, can I just say that the "... as I climb the hill" feels as if she's on her foot and not in a car? I read this small passage no less than 10 times to write this and my brain cells hate me for it. > The security gate is propped open at my arrival but the sign of welcome rings ominous contrasted against the iron webs that adorns the gates of the house. A row of trees lines the pathway on either side and a gentle breeze tickles my skin though the rolled down windows of my car. Not long after, the roof of the house peeks through the hill, the slate grey blending into the overcast sky so well I find it impossible to decipher where one ends and the other begins. I park into the stone paved driveway. The house looms over me and coupled with the overcast sky, it feels taller than the wall of trees it was hiding behind mere moments ago. I step out. A strong gust of wind blows away the dry leaves and the grass between the cracks reach out to wrap around my ankles. Ivy creeps along the left wall of the house, its greedy claws firmly grasping the stone façade inching ever closer to engulfing the house whole. Finding nowhere else to look, my eyes meet the dreaded front door, the monstrous color of life, love and death glossy upon the wood. The walls and the ground boast splatters the same blood red as the door, and I imagine the color dripping down as blood drained from a man, some of it on my own clothes and skin. I want to get as physically away from the blood as possible. The stench of blood fresh in my memory. I stumble up the pathway, seeking safety among the tree trunks, the gnarly branches a safe haven compared to the memory of death. < Compared to other examples that Rachel gave, this is a pathetic attempt. But hey, I am someone who picked up writing again recently after I stopped completely since a few months after COVID hit so my barely functioning skills are extremely rusty. And more importantly, I am not a published author and I am willing and trying to learn and improve. And despite all that, I think this portion I wrote was better than what CoHo wrote.
i love this. i also love that you were able to tie back the stench of blood to something that happened so recently (the first scene), something Coho is unable to do. beautiful writing!
(What happened to the "you just can't swear before the 1 minute mark" rule?? LOL 2hours in and youtube throws a hissfit over a quote wtf LOL) What sucks even more is that the letter isn't even the truth even in a "oh MAYBE this was true all along!" way. Colleen Hoover confirms in an interview that she believes that Verity IS evil. The letter is essentially there to reinforce that Verity is awful and is still "manipulating" stuff even after her death. At least with the letter the story can come off as an unreliable biased narrator showing her true colours overtime as an awful person who crouches in to steal this abused woman's life. But no. Verity is JUST EVIL~ Clockwork Reader has a good video called "i read the 5 most popular colleen hoover books so you never have to" and talks about this and shows the interview clip starting at around the 1:30:39 mark.
I was at one point really hoping that Jeremy had drugged Verity and that was why she was mostly unresponsive. As a sort of punishment for her not wanting the kids. Forcing her to live the rest of her life in a flesh prison. But he became sloppy after Lowen moved in and then she started getting a bit more control but had to fake it in order to not make him suspicious while she found a way to escape him with their remaining kid.
That sucks you had to reupload. I loved this video the first go around, so here's another view and comment for the algorithm. My original comment on your first upload was something along the lines of "I'm so glad you had the same opinion as me of this book".
Also to me as a retired professor her “work” reads like the most twisted form of overly literal Jane Eyre/Wuthering Heights/The Monk/Castle of Otranto etc etc fan fiction that endeavors to redeem the most peripheral and vicious male characters by revealing that they just needed a “good” woman 🤮 I also have to comment that the attitude towards persons with disabilities and illness (as someone with relatives who need care) is frankly HORRIFYING. The vicious abuse is treated so casually and justified. It is absolutely vile.
I'm so glad someone hated this like me too. All the girls at work read it and wanted me to read it too. I hated it. I feel like all the time I spent reading it was a waste of time. That was my one and only Coleen Hoover book. Will not do it again.
![Shader Basics, Blending & Textures • Shaders for Game Devs [Part 1]](http://i.ytimg.com/vi/kfM-yu0iQBk/mqdefault.jpg)
I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again: Colleen Hoover books are for people who were late hitting their fanfiction phase.
No but thats an insult to fanfics bc fanfic are actually really good written and the romance often goes in depth (not all but there are rlly good ones out there) but the romance in colleens books are so dry and uninteresting like I never ship any of her characters and I care less if they end up together XD
@@BangtanFF fair, but I say this as a fanfiction writer. Also I was a wattpad user so a lot of stuff on there wasn’t good. Didn’t discover ao3 until I’d been a fanfic reader and writer for a few years
@@WishGender Oh cool! I'm a fanfic writer too, my channel is full of my fanfics and I've writtrn some on wattpad, so Ive seen quite a lot of FF's too and ao3 does have the better ones than wattpad, but ff writets are in my opinion much more creative
@Just living I should’ve said wattpad instead of fanfic lol
Hahaha love this! I read fics for more than 10 years and, even if some fanfics are masterpieces, I understand what you mean.
I feel like when you first start with fics you just consume the first sht you see and then start getting picky. So yes, best comment ever hahaha
Also the irony of Lowen shaming her ex for having consensual choking kink into being fine with her new man trying to choke his wife to death is just something else. God forbid a younger person has a kink, so shameful, but murder.... sure!
Is there any chance, Hoover saw that irony & purposely used it?
@@lesliebohn627 there’s a lot of things that seemed to be carefully planned but I think Coleen just wrote , she didn’t seem to have a grasp on her characters by what she has said in the interviews
wow I didn't even think of this
I guess she only wants people to use choking PROPERLY 😂
HHAHAH that’s hilarious but there’s no way that’s how her name is spelled omg r you serious
It messes me up that so much of Varity's dysphoria about her pregnancy revolves around her need to be desirable for her husband, how convinced she is that he'll throw her away if her body isn't perfect, while also fearing that if she isn't the perfect mother he'll reject her as well... and honestly, I think she had plenty of grounds to think that he is that controlling, demanding, and shallow. The lingering stink of ableism in this book doesn't make it any better.
One of my best friends felt very similar after having her first baby. Her boyfriend was awful to her and she felt so pressured to get back in shape and he even tried to pay for surgery to remove her stretch marks (which ??? that doesn't exist). BUT everyone around her knew it was fatphobia, misogynistic and abusive. I know my example is rooted in reality, but still.
I think Coleen could have still used that pointline but make it so much more nuance by making the other characters acknowledge how fucked it is. Or have another scene or something where Varity has a revelation. IDK, I'm not a writer but I feel she's done a massive disservice by making it seem 'normal'.
I think you mean dysmorphia? since dysphoria relates to being trans, not simply being distressingly concerned with one’s own appearance. but I completely agree with you. The way Verity is treated both within and BY the narrative is just disgusting.
@@thesleepydot Dysphoria refers to a general state of unhappiness or dissatisfaction. Gender dysphoria is what some trans people deal with, ie. A state of dissatisfaction caused by an incongruence with a persons gender and their assigned sex at birth, but dysphoria in and of itself is not exclusive to trans people. For example the more serious version of PMS is called PMDD, or pre-menstrual dysphoric disorder, and dysphoria as a general symptom can often be caused by addiction/substance abuse, depression, anxiety and some personality disorders.
@@TheElf_Online oh I never knew... thanks for informing me!!! ^_^
Just in here to enjoy the chat. I think dsymorphia involves seeing things that aren't there in your body because self view got super distorted.
Like when folks will insist they have too much fat because they can grab a bit of it on their stomach when they're seated ... which is just a pretty normal body being a body. Or getting super concerned about your body retaining a normal amount of water as being monstrously bloated.
Dysphoria I think is an aspect of your body just seeming wrong or off? I recall Savvy Writes Books RUclipsr working out whether she had gender or body dysphoria and it was just the boobs causing the dysphoria because they were too big, not because the boobs were female or a desire for boobs to be pecs instead. It's a good distinction to sort out though. Assuming my understanding is correct, which it could totally be dodgy ngl.
What always gets me is how people shame women who say they don't want to be mothers by saying they'd be bad mothers. Like... okay? And you want them to have a baby even though you think they'd be a bad one? What does that say about you?
It's stupid. Motherhood is a huge responsibility and nobody should be forced into it. That's not fair to the mother or to the baby.
Woman doesn't want kids: doesn't have kids
Asshole: ur a bad woman
Alternate universe...
Same woman who doesn't want kids still has them: I'm unhappy being a parent
Same asshole: then why did u have a child? 😒 ure a bad woman
With these people, women who don't want to be parents just can't win 😩
right? my brother tried to say that as an insult and like yeah i agree that's why i don't want kids
what's not clicking with these ppl?
I’ve decided long ago to not have kids because I feel like I’d be a bad mother. Honestly, I have no idea how people think sometimes
They’re so stupid thinking is “unfair” for the baby not to be born, I heard from some mormon videos 😂😂😂
It's like telling an atheist that they're going to hell
2/3 of the way through the video, I thought the twist was going to be that Jeremy was the villain. When he decided Verity was no longer the "perfect" wife and mother, he faked the car crash and now keeps her sedated (which is why she can still speak and walk around). He lured Lowen to the mansion as a replacement for Verity. He even faked her diary entries to make her look evil. When Lowen finds out the truth, she has to wake up Verity and together they have to escape from Jeremy.
But that would have been a good plot twist, and this is a Colleen Hoover book. Impossible.
that would have been good writing though and it would have actually made a good book about women bonding together and working together to escape abusive men except this is a colleen hoover book, so I think we all need to lower our expectations by like. 100%.
You would be giving CH too much credit with that tbh
This book terrifies me.. not because of the ‘horror’ it attempted, but because of the amount of people it makes believe that verity is the evil manipulator and root for the real evil couple. I tried reading and watching other’s reviews (pro and not) and still came to the same conclusion. It saddens me to see so many people having no understanding and sympathy for women dealing with unwanted pregnancy and mentally ill people, their understanding seem so shallow that not only could they not recognize it, they villainized it.
I'm not sure what you mean. My sister, who is a licensed mental health counselor, enjoyed the book. And she definitely understands mental health.
@@sakurablossoms94 That means nothing. A lot of mental health counselors, psychologists and paychiatrists are some of the worst people in terms of respecting the humanity of mentally ill people. Some even go into the field to abuse a vulnerable group of people, especially in closed institutions. Nurse Ratched type beat...
@@sakurablossoms94 Not all licensed psychologists/counselors deserve their license tbh
@@sakurablossoms94 there is a vast and cavernous chasm between 'being educated about' and true, empathic understanding
@@sakurablossoms94 Second hand anecdotal evidence of one person's opinion does not negate the harmful tropes and stereotypes that perpetuate ableism and misogyny. Nor does second hand anecdotal evidence excuse the ableism and misogyny. That is clear and documented.
Colleen seems to have a lot of issues with sexuality and the fact that sex... is enjoyable, for both parties involved. It's not just a "baby making" process. Her Kink shaming just screams of: Missionary position... or DEATH. Also the point that she makes of the main character trying to, and wishing for an abortion/miscarriage is somehow supposed to make the MC irredeemable is just peak "pro-life" dogma.
Without having read the book, I thought the twist was going to be that Jeremy wrote the autobiography for Lowen to find / as an excuse for trying to kill his wife. Could have been more educational to reveal that Jeremy purposely selected Lowen and lured her into his live with the intention to trick her into bare more children for him after being fed up with his wife for defying him. Maybe she was done being a breeding machine and needed to be replaced?
That would have been an infinitely better ending
@@archivist-93 and would have made sense fr
"This is your final warning. Darkness ahead" has biiiiig 2012 author's notes before an edgy creepypasta fanfic 😭
literally like it comes across so corny 💀
Heavy Tumblr vibes 🙄
REUPLOAD because RUclips decided to demonetise the whole video because I quoted a swear word at 2:15:00. Seriously. I even removed the clip and spoke directly to RUclips support and they still wouldn't do anything and sadly, I have rent to pay so I'm having to re-upload. Ugh. RUclips. Why do you hate us so much?
EDIT: THANK YOU all so much for all your support! ♥♥♥
youtube demonetization sucks, but atleast now this gives me an excuse to rewatch this video💗
@@neopeter2998 SAME, this video shall now be on a rewatch loop in this household
back for a rewatch to hopefully aid in getting the numbers back up cuz this video deserves it!
So you broke the rules, got demonetized and somehow you blame youtube?
Given you basically pay rent by trashing other peoples artistic endeavors and trying to kill other peoples income so they can't pay rent maybe you should be demonetized more often.
Ok then this video shall be my nighttime loop for a few days. Stupid RUclips
At this point I’m not far enough into the video to know whether the twist has to do with Verity’s condition but treating Verity like she’s less than human because of her being disabled makes me feel sick. No his wedding vows aren’t undone just because she can’t serve the roles of wife and mother anymore.
She doesn't show compassion to her at all! Just focusing on the kids, the husband, everyone BUT her.
Exactly, in sickness and health and so on. Why on earth would someone's SO becoming disabled/ill mean that their marriage isn't legitimate anymore? It's so stupid and I hated that whole train of thought being presented as normal and even somewhat true when it blatantly isnt
@@_random_o.o2302 as a disabled person i frankly wasnt that surprised. its extremely common that when women are disabled (and yes, i specify *women* because while this does happen in cases where the man is disabled it doesnt happen to *nearly* the same degree and is thought of far more harshly bc of the way gender roles shake out in our society) the man just leaves her, or.. in some cases just kills her. and it's treated by a significant amount of the abled-bodied public as logical for that to happen because "they're suffering" and "its hard to be there for someone during this" and "he didnt sign up for this". i've seen stories of men ending the lives of their disabled wives (and then their own) get passed aroudn online and have the response to the story be "it's so sad he felt this was his only way out :(" or "well can we really blame him??"
people do not see disabled lives as beign worth living. they do not understand how someone can suffer daily and still want to live. its disturbing being told that it's only logical that someoen like me should want to die. but i'm hardly surprised by it anymore. with disabled women specifically though, the inability to fulfill their "purpose" as a wife and mother is seen as akin to death anyway, they're empty and purposeless shells because in their minds the point of a woman is to serve a man.
I had a boss tell me I had to take care of my health because women stay forever, but men don't, so my boyfriend would eventually get tired of me and leave. She asked "do you really think he wants somebody sick like that?" I am disabled, don't need to or want to get fixed. And yes, that boss was a woman. It's very common for able-bodied and neurotypical people to think that kind of stupid shit and it's totally normalized, unless it's the woman leaving the disabled husband, even if it's because he's an asshole.
@@sleepysystemthe study about it was proven to be wrong by the writers of it. They got part of the code for analyzing it wrong.
1:03:57 “his voice sounded like his throat was coated in honey”
What, so like “glaargh guurgh hurrrrphrm gluuurrrp”? Yeah, tremendously sexy, that
There's a very specific type of voice I'm imagining and it sounds goofy as fuck 😅 like... Alan Rickman but he has a REALLY THICK layer of phlegm in his throat
You know that tiktok where he bites honeycomb and says “it’s so…honey” with a literal honey coated throat 😂😂😂 that’s what I imagine
LMAO 😂😂😂
I was playing Minecraft while watching this, and I kept thinking I was hearing a zombie. Then I realized it was Kyra snoring. 😂
I woke up at 4 am for some cleaning and yoga and yeah. Scared me too
My boyfriend snores sometimes and it scares me too. Sometimes he also mumbles in his sleep, it's a bit creepy but I can live with his demonic sleep self because when awake, he's an absolute cinnamon roll of a person.
same 😭 i was listening to this in the bg while i played fallout 76 and i totally kept thinking mole miners were following me 😭
As someone that has ADHD who struggles with focusing on long-format talking content (video essays, podcasts, etc) it was SUPER distracting and, like, disturbing... I'm not used to sounds like that.
OMG me too, so confused cos i play on peaceful lmao
I love how Rachel shows examples of good writing instead of just criticizing bad writing. And instead of over explaining it, she gives the audience a chance to think abt what makes the good writing good.
Good writing vs bad writing is always a valid discussion. what I find disturbing is the amount of ppl who have decided that bc a writer wrote something they didn't like, the author is a bad person 👀 these comment sections would make you wonder why anyone would ever bother. I'd also like to introduce them to Thomas Harris and see if they can hold on to their evil character = evil author mindset.
@@blah914 I think the difference of character vs author opinions, in this book, lies with the book not establishing that lowen is the one who thinks verity is evil or why. Colleen lays out the situation and expects people to think verity is a bad person because of this and adding lines like her "creepily staring" when she's really just a woman who needs help. Colleen doesn't do anything to tell or show that lowen is solely the one for these opinions, that lowen is against her for any specific reason or that she understood what actually happened with verity. Making it more likely that these are the authors opinions rather than just the characters.
I commented this on the original, but Colleen Hoover could change almost nothing about her writing and be a successful horror author.
I think if Lowen had killed the wife and the final letter had instead revealed that Jeremy had written the evil novel to convince Lowen that his wife was evil, then the ending would've been great. At that point, she's already committed murder and Jeremy can hold that over her head, plus he can literally just lock her up if she tries to run off. Then CH could have her manipulative murderer and it would actually be a halfway decent novel.
Lol this is how I understood it but I have read it ages ago..
Ooohhh that woulda been good
I feel like it could have worked the other way too! Like if Lowen (who was already studying Verity's writing style to mimic it for her series) actually wrote Verity's manuscript to convince Jeremy to kill Verity. It could have been interesting if Lowen is written so we initially empathize with her but ultimately realize she's the villain. Or I should say more of an overt villain, she's already one of the villains in the original lol
@@stellablake6200 but Jeremy read the manuscript before lowen so it wouldn't make sense
@@shivani9308 Yeah I think I was imagining a scenario where Lowen had actually been stalking Verity and Jeremey for years and sort of orchestrated the whole situation and that would be the twist, but it doesnt quite fit with the story the way it is
Colleen Hoover is to young girls what Andrew Tate is to young boys.
That makes so much sense!
not at all.....? Colleen hoover doesnt actively perpetuate violence towards the opposite sex or extremely harmful/backward ideologies... ya books targeted towards teenage girls have always been like this and worse, colleen hoover just went viral via tiktok. Before tiktok, we still had authors like that person who wrote twilight (which has equally bad writing, characters, and misogynistic traits).
meanwhile andrew tate not only rode a wave of anti feminsim, but he also amplified it. His target audience (teenage boys) rarely ever critisized him while you have drones of teenage girls not liking colleen hoover. All my homies hate colleen hoover - it really is a small demographic of women and girls who like her.
You are literally comparing an author who writes bad books to a man whos literally "accused" of human trafficking, rape, and being involved with crime organizations.
this comment was hilariously wrong
@@bfe6ff she's still a horrible writer with horrible views
@@FEARNOTBlue3778 i never said she wasnt ?
@maggie ? I think its more like she normalizes the abuse women face by men like Tate. She aids in perpetuating that abuse is hot and this can lead young women and girls to assume that it is ok. Tate teaches men to abuse, Hoover teaches women its ok and means the men love them.
The way society shames people that don't want kids, then shame them for having kids and struggling to take care of them. It's a loose loose situation. You almost never hear these people that are like "just go through with the pregnancy and then give them up!" talking about how many children they've adopted, because they don't actually care about those children- they care about controlling people and their lives.
I don't know who said it first, but it aligns entirely with my current thoughts on kids. "I'd rather regret never having kids, than regret having them"
RUclips has such crazy parameters for what they're going to demonetize, it's astounding. I'm sorry this happened to you, Rachel! I'm super excited to watch this video though.. much love to you and Kyra!
Verity's struggle with her pregnancy made me sympathize with her more. I am only at 1:32:13 but I would feel the same if I ever got pregnant. Not because I would fear losing the love of my partner or anything but because pregnancy is equivalent to body horror for me and I would hate the thought of ruining my body for a child I never wanted. Granted, I would terminate the hypothetical pregnancy asap as I don't want a child to feel unloved ever but still.
hard same
Pregnancy is my worst nightmare, that's not meant poetically, I have literal nightmares of being pregnant against my will.
@@atherisGAY Same. Not kidding or exaggerating.
You don’t necessarily ruin your body tho. I look the same but with bigger boobs because I’m breastfeeding. So if someday you want a kid don’t torture yourself, it might not be as terrible as you think!
@@totallywireddd I don't. Even bigger breasts would be ruining my body for me. Not to mention, having to spend 9 months watching my body grow. That'll add even more insecurity to my already body-insecure self. Also, it's not just a little 'some parts of my body will get bigger', I would hate the whole duration of pregnancy. I am afraid of being pregnant. Not to mention, I don't want to raise a child. They need so much care that I just don't have the patience or the mental capacity to provide to them. I would choose to electrocute myself before I choose pregnancy or birthing amd/or raising a child.
So yeah, ruining by body doesn't just mean ruining my physical body but being healthy otherwise. It would mean ruining my mental wellbeing. I say the former because although it might make me look vain, people will mostly just shut up and even if they don't, I won't have to tire myself explaining the horror even the thought of pregnancy brings to me.
It’s a bit of a tangent, but I love being reminded of the fact you and Alizee are friends (or at least that you get on well enough to be in regular contact).
You come across like such a kind, soft sweetheart, and Alizee is like the human embodiment of “U FUCKIN WOT M8?” and it really tickles me that you pal around, I don’t know, I can’t explain it properly. It just cheers me up.
Yes! Rachel goes "Colleen, please read a book. Oh sorry, that was a bit mean". Whereas that would be the nicest thing Alizee says. I'd like to think they're like Wednesday and Enid, or that picture of the goth and rainbow unicorn twins in the car. It just works.
Alizee is also friends with Caddicarus, who's like, the embodiment of all Monty Python members into one videogame nerd.
the way i was ready and willing to dive head first into another 2hr colleen hoover review??? 😂 i thought this was a pt 2 and i was here for it.
Same 😅😅😅
LMAO
What concerns me the most about these novels is how narrow minded and casually sexist Hoover’s writing is. And how she writes things with such certainty as if the mindset of her main characters are normal. And it concerns me that impressionable people will find these thoughts normal and start to see things in a similar light. Idk just a thought.
I have decided she is secretly a Men's Rights Activist, the type that talks non-stop about how manipulative women are but why won't anyone go out with him
The reason she does that is because she has that mentality, and to her it _is_ normal.
@@theblackcatgirl7013 seriously - she writes like a woman who read every gothic novel and learned zero from them except some stupidly overly literal idea that she should endeavor to redeem the worst peripheral male characters because…they didn’t have a “good woman” and everything would turned off just so happily otherwise heehee!
SO, I am a teenager (I don't live in the US just for reference), let me tell you how horrid it has been for me to see my friends have unrealistic and toxic expectations for guys they want to date.
They now firmly believe that if the guy isn't at least slightly nuts, the relationship would be too boring, and by slightly nuts I mean a controlling man, not just in bed but life in general but maybe not on a very serious scale, yet.
I obviously like to indulge in unrealistic books because c'mon it's a book but I've had an abusive dad so the idea of an unstable, abusive man sounds like literal hell.
You could say that maybe they're not serious and they're just too into the idea of a "book boyfriend", well a few of them are or were dating older men (20-24) while being minors
and a few of them who do end up in age appropriate relationships are already planning their "lifelong future" basically marriage and kids, I agree that even in the past some couples used to go above and beyond and also agree that teenagers should be allowed to be cringe but planning kids at around 16 is not something that I expected to see since the rise of happy childfree couples these few years
It's not only on Colleen, that would be wrong, but also on those "teenage-highschool" shows where the content is so age inappropriate that teens cannot actually watch it (They obviously end up watching it the most). Now teens look at other ''teens" in shows being questionable and think that's what the teen experience is like and try to perpetuate it
@@sazaaaam those “friends” of yours honestly sound just as legitimately terrible as Hoover herself. you should honestly find yourself ones that are much better than that, because someone like you absolutely deserves it.
i’d already watched this one, after 10 minutes i thought there was a misunderstanding and i was about to click off, but seeing what youtube did i’m gonna watch it all over again. they demonetize me for such trivial stupid things too and you’re %100 right on your rant.
Thank you!!
kazıklı Maria sen napıyorsun burada selam! ❤
@@RachelOates Hi Rachel! Can you also review ugly love?
As someone who was a victim of abuse at the hands of a mentally ill mother who didn't want kids but felt like she had to because of societal standards I cannot stress how important I think it is to let people who don't want kids to not have them. It's the best option for the parent(s) and the kids and forcing it only ends in pain for everyone involved.
"Darkness Ahead" sounds like a warning you'd see before reading a fanfiction with poorly written bdsm in it
I have not hated a character in a book I couldn't care less about more than I hate Lowen in Verity. Jeremy is a abuser and a murderer, I have no feelings towards him. Lowen though? God.
Poor Verity. I was sympathetic to her and still pitied her even when I thought she attempted to kill and later killed Harper. I feel even worse for her now and I want Verity to be avenged.
Is "Colleen Hoover" a pen name for a male writer? Because I get that vibe.
@@Scatscar1985 You would think so, but I'm pretty sure she's a woman.
@@Scatscar1985 Pretty sure she's a woman, sadly.
@@Scatscar1985 Trust, women can be agents of misogyny and patriarchal thinking too. It's not just the men.
@@Yep5366 Well, the video and hell, even your own response gives plenty reasons why one would sympathize with Verity, does it not? And that's when I thought the manuscript was the real deal. Yeah, killing your child daughter is objectively bad but despite that, her struggles with pregnancy and her postpartum mental issues makes her a sympathetic character. Add to that the fact that I consider the letter to be the truth because despite Colleen saying she thinks the manuscript is the truth, there is really nothing that points either way (from what I gather from this video). If Colleen herself is befuddled as to what is the truth, I have no hope there's anything that's intentionally seeded for or against the manuscript or the letter. I also remember there being some inconsistencies between what's described in the 'real world' vs. in the manuscript but I don't remember them so feel free to take it or leave it.
Now, for Jeremy being an abuser. Half of that is me speculating based on his lesser described actions:
● His inability to communicate with Verity when he thought she was giving Harper less attention + the anger he showed at a thing that would've been such a small conversation and possibly a genuine oversight if Verity was mentally sound. If you consider the manuscript to be writing exercise, you may dismiss this as fabricated. If not, well, you have to consider this.
● His anger when he read the manuscript and his first thought being murder. Not take her to the police, not talk to her, but straight up murder. For all he knew, Verity was a good mother and he must have known she wrote from the PoV of villainous characters. His anger is justified. Hell, he might've felt like murdering her and that's justified too. But murder? No. His inability or perhaps refusal to either take her to the police or calm down and talk to her and go straight to murder doesn't paint him in a good light. Not to mention, his solution to problems seems to be murder, considering Patricia.
● Verity's fear of Jeremy. This may be because of his murder attempts but this too made me think he might be an abuser.
● But the other half that made me call him an abuser is him impregnating Verity. Yes, they were having unprotected sex so they knew the consequence might be pregnancy and legally, he is fine, as far as I know. However, I still consider it abusive that he never talked to Verity or Lowen about kids before just finishing inside of them. And that's an established pattern. With Verity, he waited until she was engaged, with Lowen, until she was so in love with him that she couldn't resist him. It's almost as if that's his way of binding women to him. Marking them as his even.
As for Lowen. Dragged into this mess, yes. But she had an easy out. Take the manuscript, get the fuck out of the house and hand over the manuscript to the police. If she had the time, record Verity moving around and perhaps, lock her door. Not say such heinous shit (which, one may consider verbal abuse) to a comatose woman, for all she knew. Hell, even if she wasn't comatose, a decent person would never say or do the shit Lowen said and did to Verity. Also, no matter how deeply she was in this mess, she didn't have to have sex with a married man. And Jeremy didn't have to cheat on Verity. Good people don't do that. She also didn't have to help Jeremy murder Verity. She didn't know he initially tried to kill her. She could've just said, lets take her to the police. She didn't have to keep the letter from Jeremy, but she did.
Just because the narrative tries to frame her as a good or a sympathetic person doesn't mean she is. Just because Lowen is the main character doesn't mean she's a likeable human whose actions are understandable. Same goes for Jeremy. And the opposite for Verity. Just because the narrative tries to frame her as a black and white villian doesn't mean she's not a sympathetic character whose actions are understandable. Not good actions, if she actually tried and murdered her daughter, but understandable. You are putting too much responsibility on a woman with mental issues than seemingly mentally sound people who had many outs, many morally correct routes to take. You may say, Verity could've got help. But you can't get help if you don't know you need help.
(Recreating my comment on 1st upload) There is no way Verity could breach the cervix & amniotic sac, with a presumably unsterile object, and have the pregnancy continue. Is this A) a deliberate clue for readers that Verity’s Evil Autobiography of Evil is not credible, or B) CoHo not caring about medical facts in favor of further villainizing an unmaternal woman?
Tbf, the way coho writes about women, about sex, about bodies, I really wouldn't put it past her to just. Not research anything.
B) she doesn't care and C) Colleen Hoover is actually an alien 👽 that doesn't understand humanity
From the reviews I’ve watched, part of me is dubious about whether CoHo is capable of being a subtle enough writer to attempt #1.
i wish it was a) but i think the fact that bruising on Verity after they've murdered her was completely ignored... yeah, i doubt that would be intentional from Colleen
on a base level, she writes like a 13 year old who’s found wattpad for the first time and the fact that she has SO many published and very popular books is absolutely baffling lmfao
No because she literally writes like how I did at like ten lmao
Greetings to the algorithm ❤
Same 😅
A very good addition to the comments section, I whole heartedly agree
A great contribution which I wholeheartedly support and second!
1:04:25 Jeremy wanting Verity to consent to having sex is being painted as heroic, romantic thing instead of it being the bare fucking minimum.
at 1:49:12 I literally got sterilized to avoid being put in a situation like verity. I wouldn’t resent the children for getting more love from my partner than me, but I don’t want to be convinced or pressured into a pregnancy I don’t want. I would also struggle with being a parent and feel bad for her for having to go through that.
*When Rachel has to re-upload a 2 and ½ hour video because RUclips forced her to take it down*
Me: Guess I'll just watch it again
Me personally if I was verity and the girl my husband was cheating with me on helped kill me id haunt the hell out of both of them for the rest of time
colleen hoover's writing really screams to me that she just thinks of one plot point, one central question, which she then creates new plot points to further that singular main one without realising that when you create new plot points those new points also raise questions, and that you can and should have various questions in your narrative that you do EXPLORE. instead she creates new things that will be useful to the main question then discards them after they've "answered" something for the main one, completely disregarding the new questions made from them. Like bringing up the kid's possible turtle murder thing, then tossing it aside the second it's not useful for the pain plot but then forgetting that if you say "oh yea the kid might have killed his turtle" that's obviously gonna raise new questions?????
it's a bit weird that verity's entire "autobiography" seemingly revolved exclusively around her relationship to her husband? as if that was the most interesting aspect of her life.
yeah :(
Yeah I noticed that too
i never read colleen hoover and i never plan to. rachel, you’re literally a saint for doing this idk how you managed ❤❤
Okay I'm back for a second watch and I just had to say that if the opening scene was her dropping a coffee on herself or getting a bad nosebleed it would serve exactly the same effect and that enrages me on behalf of the man who got BRUTALLY KILLED for no good goddamn reason
It just struck me as edgy for no reason - like dear Coho was like "hm, how do I establish that this book is supposed to be a dark thriller? How about showing an extremely brutal death in for no reason!"
Honestly, it's something I would write as a parody. It's so fucking dumb.
Rachel Oates, what's wrong with you?
When the dog is dreaming, internet etiquette commands you turn the camera around to show her kicking and woofing in her sleep!
Yeah, I was hearing the doggy snores and trying to picture her sleepy adorableness.
This comment is so underrated wtf
So, before I watched this the first time, I asked ChatGPT to explain the twist ending to me. After first arguing with me about spoilers, it agreed to tell me after I told it I already read the book. It then proceeded to tell me that the ending revealed that Lowen had hallucinated everything that happened since she arrived at Verity’s house??? It was very sure of this interpretation and I have no idea where it could have gotten this from, lol. Talk about lying with confidence.
That's hilarious, lmao
So it's not just me lol. I argued with chatGPT about a book I had already read because I asked something about the book (I forgot what) and it was going on about something that never happened in the book. It even gave me characters that weren't in the book. I got so confused, I asked Bing about it and Bing gave me correct-er but not correct answers. Anyway, I re-read the book and went to argue with it again. Same results. It wasn't willing to budge from its 100% wrong answers.
The only conclusion we can draw is that ChatGPT finds this book so incomprehensible that it must be the result of insanity.
That's an answer that can kind of work for any book while also being completely wrong😂
So I can actually answer this ChatGPT is only accurate with information up till September 2021.
The reason is to train/educate
You see the AI isn't being trained from current live web resource,
this is done for an number of reasons,
but the long and the short of it is you were asking the AI to explain the ending of a book that to it hadn't been published yet.
It likely based it's explanation of the twist based of reviews or articles from ARC (advanced reader copies), interviews with the author and her existing body of work, and gave you what it thought was the most likely conclusion.
So yeah that's why it was complaining about spoilers... the poor dear didnt know...
On a separate yet unrelated note you can probably help train ChatGPT by telling it it's answer was incorrect and explaining why... pretty ool eh?
As a still fairly young writer (only just graduated with my Creative Writing degree) I just want to say THANK YOU SO MUCH for these videos. They have helped me immensely in identifying my bad writing habits and get me thinking on how I can improve my work. I don't think I've come away from any of your writing videos without the thought of "hmm, I want to write and try to do what they were trying to do, but better" 👍 You rock
54:02 If Hoover (you do not know how much I have to restrain myself from calling her vacuum cleaner) was a good writer, you could say that the styles of Verity and Lowen merging together means Lowen was becoming more like Verity/ was taking Verity's place but I don't think Lowen's style was turning into Verity's but rather, the opposite.
I kept thinking this, I thought Lowen would slowly become as obsessed with Jeremy like Verity was and slowly would become as mentally ill that would have been a good plot, and at first she made it seem like that and I thought Lowen would be potrayed as the villain aswell then I could say it was a good story but in the end Lowen was still the good girl despite everything mweh
@@BangtanFF Right? Despite knowing Colleen had mediocre writing skills, I was hoping for the exact same thing as your comment. But no, instead we got "Lowen is still the good person even if she helped murder a woman among other heinous shit".
Okay I’m calling Colleen Hoover Vacuum Cleaner from now on and you cannot stop me
@@NotThisAnonymous Thank you. That's all I can say.
On the topic of Varity feeling disconnected from her kids and feeling extremely violated throughout the pregnancy, I feel like not enough people talk about how a child feels if they grow up and find out that they weren't wanted.
My mother had my older sister because my dad wanted kids; then three years later had me so she wouldn't be lonely. When I got older, she made a point to tell me when she got angry that she never wanted children - which was also compounded by untreated mental illness. Believe me when I tell you that as a child that is one of the most *crushing* things to hear from your parent who's supposed to love you...
I like bad romance books but like Rachel said it take its self to seriously. It’s like coho read the summary of Rebecca and tried to make it sexy (just my opinion)
I'm not all the way through the video yet, but this book is reminding me VERY strongly of Rebecca. The sociable, charismatic first wife? The quieter, self-conscious second partner? The nurse/housekeeper who views the first wife with affection? It all fits
100% I was reminded of Rebecca when Rachel was giving her predictions. 😂
Yep!! But rebecca is actually well written and an interesting novel.
i have and eating disorder and the scenes of verity struggling with the pregnancy because of her body changes and her image, hits very close to home. i remember when i found out i was so sick i probably would never be able to get pregnant, i felt happier than ever because my worst nightmare was going through this. it's sad seeing such serious mental issues being portrayed as something only an evil person would think.
Its kinda like trauma is an aesthetic to coho- a sprinkling to put onto characters.
What’s doubly weird is she was a social worker who would’ve worked with families and relationships in terrible circumstances before she became an author. You’d think she’d write romantic cautionary tales, but no.
The villainization of people who are not drawn to motherhood or who have not been able to have kids or make other choices to not be a mom is absolutely psychotically real.
Listening to this while my day is dragging at work and I just have to say I find the sound of your dog snoozing in the background very relaxing
And also as someone who sleepwalks a lot, that reveal was so anticlimactic I nearly laughed. My dad once had to chase after me at 2 am while I was down the street, with no shoes, just in my pjs, in the snow. By this book’s standards I should be forever and always traumatized by cold and snow lmao
Heh. Both my mother and I were sleepwalkers (thankfully, we grew out of it). When she was young, my mother did more or less the same thing as you, except, she walked out of the house, with no shoes, in her night clothes, walked a long way to the local lake and out into the very cold lake - all without waking. Took my grandfather leaping in after her and shaking her awake (can just imagine his panic at realizing what was happening). Still, that never traumatized her or made her afraid of water or cold for the rest of her life.
It's like people have no idea how sleepwalking actually work.
I actually didn't watch this video the first time around. I can tell this video was a lot of work to make, especially having to read and reread such a bad book for the review. You did such a good job; I am annoyed at RUclips on your behalf for sure.
I feel like there are way too many books that have "cool" titles and "cool" covers that get way more attention than they ever deserve. I feel like that is how CH got so popular.
I hope we get more Coleen Hoover breakdowns because I absolutely loved your thoughts and take on this.
I’m more invested in listening to your dog’s sleep patterns than the plot or characters Coleen has given us.
I still think this book is a result of not reading into Rebecca properly and thoughtlessly borrowing from it with no regards as to why this or that element worked there.
What horrifies me even more is that it's guaranteed that things like this (including the ending/twist) happen in real life, too.
That ending, where they ended an innocent person, in one of the most gruesome, horrible, painful ways for absolutely no reason makes me sick to the stomach...
I absolutely hate those people
Yeah, they are judge, jury, and executioner, with barely a thread of evidence to support the claims that Verity is evil.
In another universe this would have been a great horror book about cycles of abuse. The main character was abused by her mother, and now she's judgmental and distrustful of other mothers that she views as "unfit" and therefore sees it as her right to steal her life. The other woman was abused by her controlling husband and then went on to resent her children and abuse them. The story ends with her abusers getting together while she's stuck in her own mind watching their relationship unfold
It's funny about this book, I have seen it around so much, and the cover looked nice and eerie, that I almost picked it up. My local bookshop has a literal shelf full of copies of this book and they're all discounted. I'm glad I dodged that bullet
Moral of the story Colleen Hoover is a bad author but CAN WE TAPK ABOUT KYRA’S CUTE SMILE AFTER RACHEL GIVES HER BELLY RUBS AND A KISS????
5:27 I don’t drink so I will partake with weed. Ngl I wish I wrote as melodramatic as she does. I’m working on satire and one of my characters being melodramatic all the time is supposed to be a part of the humor. Idk if I’ll work out but I’m trying haha.
Oh, I’ll absolutely rewatch this 👀 so fun to watch you tear into this book
31:30 I feel like what pulls me out of her descriptions the most is that her character, who just recently lost her mother to cancer, used it as a comparison for _ivy_ growing on a house
I read this because an ex-friend gave it to me and I forgot I even had it until relatively recently. The whole thing was absurd and yet extremely predictable, but what stuck out to me most was the way Crew was treated. Colleen clearly tries to paint Lowen as the hero and caring about Crew's safety, but if that's the case why doesn't she do anything about it? If she's really that concerned, why doesn't she share the memoir sooner? If she cared that much about the kid she should have immediately told someone about what she believed was Verity confessing to murdering a child. But what does Lowen do? Put it off and have sex with Jeremy, all while claiming she loves him and Crew. It's clear, especially after the ending, that the only reason she ever does anything to Verity is because of jealousy, not because she's upset about what Verity has done.
I love reading about messy characters, but you can't have a proper character study if the author gives no sense of responsibility and/or no consequences to their characters actions. Nothing that Lowen does ever comes back to bite her so it makes the whole thing a mess. We can't root for her and we can't see her get what's coming to her either.
The misogyny and general bleh-ness of book reminds me of the VC Andrews books my mom used to read. I was a voracious reader as a kid - picked up ONE, and very quickly decided those where not for me
watching this whole video makes me feel so nauseous, i can never imagine someone would read this book and see it as a romance :(
This is so disturbing, it's like CH just wanted an excuse to write a bunch of torture porn/ murder fantasies without scrutiny.
Colleen's writing is painful, but Kyra's soft snoring in the background made this video very soothing ^_^
disagree on the snoring; I found it distracting 😭
I was scrolling through the comments trying to see if anyone else was gonna acknowledge the cute doggy snores
@@WishGender I couldn’t concentrate at all 😭😭
She could record some really grand ASMR of it tbh, I think it would be a hit with a portion of her audience (including me)
@@tonichan89 Right? Honestly, I'd fall asleep to that so fast 😆
I'll repeat my thoughts from the last upload. Does this book seem like a poorly executed modern retelling of Jane Eyre? I'm getting that vibe.
Still haven't read Jane Eyre, I got Rebecca vibes.
Someone just liked my reply, I have read Jane Eyre now and yes
When I was 11 I felt soo mature reading colleen hoover books 🙈 Looking back at that now i am very happy that I actually matured and can see how bad the writing actually is/was.
i find it interesting that verity wrote her books from the villains’ perspectives and that’s a reflection of her own villainy… and colleen hoover wrote this book from the true villain’s perspective. it makes me wish she did it on purpose
I’m excited for this video because all the wives on the military base I live in are obsessed with Colleen. I’m not really a fan of romance novels because they always seem to be written with the male gaze and steeped in misogyny.
I love your book reviews! Sucks that you had to reupload, RUclips is ON one
This hurts because you can see the potential in the story itself but the writing just ruins it
all this time, I somehow was under the impression that the story was about a woman who's in a coma, an other woman who's hired as a ghost writer for the former's books, and the husband who cheats on his wife with the latter, but then it's revealed that he has put the wife into a coma and has fabricated all of her autobiography, in order to make her seem like the villain. so them killing Verity and making it all seem so righteous and have their happily ever after, was a twist for me.
Verity clearly has some issues with post partum depression and psychosis. She is not well
FINALLY! I was gifted this by my sister, she said it was amazing, and my experience with it could not have been more shit. I'm so glad she hasn't asked me if I read it yet, because I'd have to fake enthusiasm.
It's harmless and not the worst thing in the world, but the more I read it the more I felt frustrated.
(no judgement towards anyone who likes the book, it's just that my sister is an outspoken TERF and i'm not fond of her at the moment)
Wait, so, Jeremy somehow managed to make it look like Verity ran the car into a tree? How? How could he stage that?
He did some SERIOUS 🌟manifesting🌟 😂
I assume it was a case of him driving into the tree, letting verity get flung from the wreck due to her lack of seatbelt, and then (since he presumably WAS strapped in) being well enough himself to get out, remove her restraints, and flee the scene.
of course, this is only a plan that would work in a world where forensic science hadn't developed since the dark ages, but considering he managed to nearly strangle her to death TWICE without being caught, maybe that's the case here.
I love the sound of Kyra snoring! So cute and comforting 🥰
Ugh, this didn't deserve to be demonetised
TLDR: It would be great plot if Lowen was intentionally written to be the Villain that she is.
So I was having some thoughts... The fact that Lowen turns out to be a villain while at first you are lured into thinking her to be the hero is an interesting concept and if that was written well, it would have made a very interesting plot. We could also find out that her sleepwalking-episodes were her "excuse" for her mother beeing afraid of her while really she was a creepy kid? I mean that would explain why the immediatly thought the kid killed the tortoise because maybe she herself had a pet she murdered?
That would make much more sense and would explain her behavior so much better. Especially the letter at the end. And than you could have had Jeremy as an bad guy which she doesn't see, because she herself is a bad guy and Vanity as a normal Person with some mental issues and maybe a postpartum depression with hallucinations (which are fairly common and could lead to her believing one child would murder the other) so she tried to murder her but doesn't succeed/ than you add a shame/guilt something in between where she kinda comes to her senses but when her daughter dies the stress and shock makes the hallucinations come back and she kills the other daughter who she blames for her first daughters death.
And her staying in her catatonia after Jeremy attempted to kill her could then be explained by her thinking she didn't deserve better because she killed her child in psychosis and her not wanting to leave her son and her being afraid of Jeremy.
Than you could add an element of her trying to save Lowen from her husband not knowing Lowen is a bad person as well.
It would be really interesting in my opinion and would make an excellent story (if it would also come across that wanting to be child free isn't a villainous aspect in itself but the villains of the story think it is?). Also I would have liked the letter to be to be a warning to Lowen with an explantion instead of a letter to Jeremy.
That and a little less clicheed writing and much less cringey sex scenes (maybe just a few insights to highlight the toxic behavior of Jeremy and Lowen)...
I did a creative writing BA and MA, workshopping mine and others' work, feeling proud seeing how we improved and stopped using cliches.
Listening to this *published* book made me cringe so hard that my face will never go back to normal... 😖
Lol the doggie’s snoozing noises are adorable and genuinely kinda comforting. I’m on holiday away from my own dogs rn, lol. Missing them. Also, I loved the EAPoe reference! He’s my absolute favorite.
I read a Colleen Hoover book because I had seen her name around booktok as a very good author, and I didn't understand it and I am glad I am not alone 😅
I'm gonna rewatch it for real later but for now... I just let it replay twice on double speed without sound while I watched a movie
This book would've been infinitely better if, after finding the letter, Lowen set the house on fire while Jeremy was taking a nap, making it look like an accident while she went to visit Verity's tomb with Crew and deciding her baby's middle name was going to be Verity or something.
there it is omg, so much better 👏👏👏i hate that man
some girls are actually out there simping over that mediocre man like what, this is what coho is doing to young girls making them romanticize those kind of disgusting men like remember nov 9 and her other horrible ones, their is either incest, cheating husband /boyfriend, abuse, dv, SA like this woman is making young girls believe that it's ok to love a man who does all these things to you, WOW
oh my god, if the bedroom door lock hadn't ended with that stupid fakeout earlier (either just not had jeremy in the room, or the same but crew's around to let them out? any way except an alternate escape route) so it could instead pay off with lowen locking jeremy in so he's trapped in a burning house. that'd be so much satisfying.
@@PugandOwn hell, if the letter is true, then....what was even the point of Verity locking the door in the first place?? (hell, even if the letter wasn't true, Verity's motives for doing this still make no sense to me :/) Personally, even w/o the letter's potential reveal, I was still kinda rooting for Verity, and I find it disappointing that she didn't just lock them into the room while they were busy cheating, then take Crew and set the house on fire while they were trapped inside or something. But yeah, I think your idea would have been the best ending.
I stumbled across this video and love a good Colleen Hoover snark-session but this is one the few videos I've seen where someone sits through and discusses the entire novel from cover to cover. It sounded like a real challenge. I admire your will and determination to read through this thing multiple times so other people don't have to.
Seems like the book would have been better if it just admitted that Lowen was a full blown Villain Protagonist who THINKS she's the quirky, "Not Like Other Girls", Romance novel character when in reality she's an obsessive stalker in the same vein as Joe Goldberg from "YOU".
Appreciate your efforts. Hope your next few uploads are books you enjoy!
If Jeremy had just ASKED verity just to have water, that could have been a fun, entertaining pick up line.
Edit: you said that right after I did hahaha😂
agree. i personally would be like "bruh if i wanna fuck you drunk either say yes or no, don't try to alter my offer" and be turned off (legit the first time i fucked my now longterm partner we both did GHB lmfao but we planned that for like 2 weeks first and were intro type dating before we had sex)
I was planning to read this book for my own personal critique on Colleen Hoover, but I'm so glad I watched this instead. My OCD's given me severe tokophobia, the fear of pregnancy. Every time my period is late, I get so anxious that I begin to throw up, despite me being asexual, and I also get the horrible intrusive thoughts of what I might have to do if I am pregnant. To hear all of it villainized like this is bad enough, but I can't imagine what it would've been like to read it.
Let this be a lesson to me to steer clear of anything Hoover, thank you for the video!
To me, this just furthers my personal motivation to keep going with my own projects.
Why?
If you think of the worst media youve ever read/watched/consumed, and you can call it awful- you have to remember it went through several processes to get greenlit/published/released, and you were still able to consume that media.
You still have hope.
I always thought that Hoover tried to have her own modern retelling of Rebecca. From the description of Verity as this perfect woman and then discovering that she was “awful” (which is also so harmful-she was just mentally ill!!), to the plot twists and the attempt at portraying the creepy atmosphere. Even the way Jeremy is described seems like a cheap copy of good writing. It just seems like a self insert of Du Maurier's story but with constant terrible sex scenes.
I'm glad that I see more, and more criticism aimed at Hoover because when I read her books a couple of years ago I felt like I'm the only one disliking her in a sea of eager fans eating up every cliché story she would spit out.
I'm reading Rebecca right now and you're totally right. Rebecca is so interesting too - I'm two-thirds done with it, and I don't think Maxim has ever really even kissed the narrator? The focus seems to be so much more Rebecca than the romance.
Thank you for providing contrasting examples of how a good author handles introducing an ominous house. As an aspiring writer myself, it's helpful to see things like that to show HOW Colleen Hoover's work was cliche.
Im so disgusted by this book. I listened to this video during work and I was so furious, so nauseated… I can’t believe this was published and praised. I’m so angry. I want to punch Colleen in the face almost as much as I want to erase this book from existence, or rewrite it and give Verity justice for what Colleen’s stupid, wonder Bread protagonist did.
Thank you for this video, though! I’m absolutely subscribed now. Sorry for the vent! 😂
I have never heard of Colleen Hoover, I just put on this video to give you a view because it's pretty unfair what YT is doing. Also your poetry book is really good ❤
*Let me attempt to rewrite the description of Verity's house. Do be kind (but frank) in your criticisms as I know writing fiction only through reading fiction. And I am nowhere near good in my writing. I took some creative liberties to attempt to make the house feel ominous.*
Before starting though, can I just say that the "... as I climb the hill" feels as if she's on her foot and not in a car? I read this small passage no less than 10 times to write this and my brain cells hate me for it.
> The security gate is propped open at my arrival but the sign of welcome rings ominous contrasted against the iron webs that adorns the gates of the house. A row of trees lines the pathway on either side and a gentle breeze tickles my skin though the rolled down windows of my car. Not long after, the roof of the house peeks through the hill, the slate grey blending into the overcast sky so well I find it impossible to decipher where one ends and the other begins.
I park into the stone paved driveway. The house looms over me and coupled with the overcast sky, it feels taller than the wall of trees it was hiding behind mere moments ago. I step out. A strong gust of wind blows away the dry leaves and the grass between the cracks reach out to wrap around my ankles. Ivy creeps along the left wall of the house, its greedy claws firmly grasping the stone façade inching ever closer to engulfing the house whole.
Finding nowhere else to look, my eyes meet the dreaded front door, the monstrous color of life, love and death glossy upon the wood. The walls and the ground boast splatters the same blood red as the door, and I imagine the color dripping down as blood drained from a man, some of it on my own clothes and skin. I want to get as physically away from the blood as possible. The stench of blood fresh in my memory. I stumble up the pathway, seeking safety among the tree trunks, the gnarly branches a safe haven compared to the memory of death. <
Compared to other examples that Rachel gave, this is a pathetic attempt. But hey, I am someone who picked up writing again recently after I stopped completely since a few months after COVID hit so my barely functioning skills are extremely rusty. And more importantly, I am not a published author and I am willing and trying to learn and improve.
And despite all that, I think this portion I wrote was better than what CoHo wrote.
You did a great job! This is how present tense should be utilized.
@@nimeshchokshi1921 Thank you!
i love this. i also love that you were able to tie back the stench of blood to something that happened so recently (the first scene), something Coho is unable to do. beautiful writing!
@@elizabethhoffman5895 Thank you!
(What happened to the "you just can't swear before the 1 minute mark" rule?? LOL 2hours in and youtube throws a hissfit over a quote wtf LOL)
What sucks even more is that the letter isn't even the truth even in a "oh MAYBE this was true all along!" way.
Colleen Hoover confirms in an interview that she believes that Verity IS evil. The letter is essentially there to reinforce that Verity is awful and is still "manipulating" stuff even after her death.
At least with the letter the story can come off as an unreliable biased narrator showing her true colours overtime as an awful person who crouches in to steal this abused woman's life. But no. Verity is JUST EVIL~
Clockwork Reader has a good video called "i read the 5 most popular colleen hoover books so you never have to" and talks about this and shows the interview clip starting at around the 1:30:39 mark.
Wtf youtube? I live for your book reviews, this rewatch will be just the first of many 💖
Rewatching, making myself suffer through this again for you
The second watch is just as entertaining and interesting as the first. Really well done! I hope this helps with the algorithm
I was at one point really hoping that Jeremy had drugged Verity and that was why she was mostly unresponsive. As a sort of punishment for her not wanting the kids. Forcing her to live the rest of her life in a flesh prison. But he became sloppy after Lowen moved in and then she started getting a bit more control but had to fake it in order to not make him suspicious while she found a way to escape him with their remaining kid.
That sucks you had to reupload. I loved this video the first go around, so here's another view and comment for the algorithm.
My original comment on your first upload was something along the lines of "I'm so glad you had the same opinion as me of this book".
Happy to watch this again for the algorithm. Keep up the awesome work Rachel!!! ❤
Also to me as a retired professor her “work” reads like the most twisted form of overly literal Jane Eyre/Wuthering Heights/The Monk/Castle of Otranto etc etc fan fiction that endeavors to redeem the most peripheral and vicious male characters by revealing that they just needed a “good” woman 🤮 I also have to comment that the attitude towards persons with disabilities and illness (as someone with relatives who need care) is frankly HORRIFYING. The vicious abuse is treated so casually and justified. It is absolutely vile.
I'm so glad someone hated this like me too. All the girls at work read it and wanted me to read it too. I hated it. I feel like all the time I spent reading it was a waste of time. That was my one and only Coleen Hoover book. Will not do it again.