Last week I set out on an expedition to find and read a Colleen Hoover book.
I’m an English major and, more relevantly, a lifelong literary elitist. Pretentious books have been the pillars of my superiority complex since grade school, as I peered disdainfully at my classmates’ beyblade battles over my copy of “Beowulf” and once told my seventh-grade teacher that I found “Great Expectations” just so much more rewarding when reading it for the third time.
I like to think I’m a recovering book nerd now, despite the occasional surge of smugness when I’ve already read something on the class book list, and the one unfortunate college party interaction dubbed “The Tolstoy Incident.” Reading was my own way of being anti-pop culture and alternative in the Smithiest sense of the word. But then again, who am I if I can’t romanticize my life by sprawling on Chapin lawn with a Jhumpa Lahiri novel?
Enter BookTok.
Maybe I’m just projecting my own insecurities when I say I immediately despised BookTok — a facet of TikTok cultishly devoted to what some of us would call “trashy” books. BookTok was a direct attack on everything I had ever thought was special about myself, on every layer of superiority I had donned on the basis of being “A Reader.” Now, here was my one personality trait being co-opted by every 15 to 24 year-old with a social media presence. Their ringleader? Colleen Hoover.
That may be a stretch. But, at the very least, here was an author who was worshiped by this community I was conditioned to hate. So, naturally, I formed a one-sided feud with Colleen Hoover. This mostly consisted of a repetition of the first four stages of grief every time I saw a reel of someone clutching “It Ends With Us” and some long tirades in my notes app. There may or may not have also been some obsessive stalking of her Instagram account, plus or minus some muttering about millennial hashtags under my breath.
But during one of my many conversations (rants) on the subject of my literary nemesis, it was brought to my attention that I had never actually read one of Hoover’s books. How could I flail so violently against something that I hadn’t even given a chance? Naturally, my deep-seated need to be right drove me to justify my hatred by tackling the offender herself — in novel form, of course.
So there I was, one Saturday when I should have been doing my history reading, slinking around Forbes Library with a copy of “Verity” tucked under my arm. I found a back corner of the fiction section and looked around before cracking the cover, settling into the sticky leather armchair. I didn’t budge from it for the four hours it took me to finish the book. Heedless of the library-goers wandering by, I was intent only on turning the next page. I devoured it.
Now, I’m not trying to say “Verity” was the best thing I’ve ever read. I’m not even trying to say it was very good at all. The characters were two-dimensional and unrealistic. The dialogue was at the same time predictable and out of character. The five-year-old in the book would often break out in sentences far more eloquent than the authoress main character. The plot was formulaic and unimaginative. The writing was bland, repetitive and choppy, occasionally to the point of distraction. Even the smut was unimaginative and vanilla, with passionless sex scenes in which the most kinky the characters get is the occasional cunnilingus.
I wasn’t left with any pressing questions. I wasn’t rooting for any of the characters, nor did I particularly dislike any of them, I simply found them uncompelling. I struggle to remember basic plot details only a few days later and have forgotten the characters’ names entirely. It’s not a book that sticks with you. Not with me, at least.
But “Verity” is consumable in every literary definition of the word. I read it in a morning without losing focus or interest — which has to count for something, right?
And who am I to argue that a book needs to be inaccessible to be good? If someone can tell a story simply and effectively, is that not the height of storytelling? Isn’t the goal to just be entertained? Especially in a college setting where the last thing you need after a whole week of reading academic papers and primary sources is a book that requires a dictionary — isn’t a mindlessly entertaining book the perfect thing to reach for?
This is the argument that I have with myself, over and over again. But after giving the book its fair shot, I still can’t help but feel that there are authors more worthy of obsession. Colleen Hoover may just as well be dumped with the next microtrend that comes along. She’ll fade into the background shaded by the fads and celebrities we worship and then abandon when a shiny new idol comes along. Either way, with this final attempt, maybe I can abandon my obsession for good, and slip back into the world of my own slipping grasp on my imagined intellectual superiority. Maybe, at the very least, I can respect the work of an author who has captivated millions. I doubt it, but here’s hoping.
Exactly how I feel as someone else who loves reading classics!