Spoilers if you haven’t read it, talk of SA as well. Seriously. Major spoilers. Don’t be mad if you read this and find out spoilers. You can read reviews without spoilers.
Fallon is female mc, Ben is male love interest for context. This is a ROMANCE novel!!!
Ben is very sexist and abusive. There, I said it. And before you say “Woah woah WOAHHHH,“ listen to this quote from Ben’s pov on the 24th page. TWENTY FOUR PAGES IN.
“But if we’re just going to sit here and stare at each other, it’d be nice if she were showing a little cleavage, instead of wearing this long-sleeved shirt that leaves everything to the imagination. It’s pushing eighty degrees outside. She should be in something a lot less … convent-inspired.”
👁👄👁
BRO WHAT? We don’t dress for you???!?
Also, “I couldn’t help but wonder what kind of panties you had on…… were you a thong girl? Were you going commando?”
THAT WAS ONE HOUR AFTER THEY MET THAT HE TOLD HER THAT? RED FLAG! RUN!
I’m just gonna leave a list of quotes he said. I feel as though I don’t have to explain them. They speak for themselves.
“It’s your own fault people feel uncomfortable looking at you.” She has scars covering half of her body from a fire. Oh and a fire that he LIT, and we find out later lol hahaha romance am I right? Oh and she forgives him bc he has some trauma 😔
Fallon: I don’t want to wear that, I want to wear this.
Ben: No. I’m paying for dinner, so I get to choose what to stare at while we eat.
Why would a girl care to find herself when she’ll never be able to make herself feel as good as a guy can
I’ve never wanted to use physical force on a girl before, but I want to push her to the ground and hold her there until the cab drives away.
Fallon: “I need to get back to my date.” I try to push past him, but he leans in closer, sandwhiching me against the wall.
Ben: Don’t be like that, I’ve been through hell today trying to find you.
Okay, stalking and not listening to consent, as he proceeds to touch her sexually 😀
How is this rated 4.32 stars on goodreads? Just HOW?
Edit: YES I KNOW THAT THERE ARE TOXIC BOOK TROPES THAT PEOPLE ENJOY! BUT SHE DID NOT CONSENT TO HIM TOUCHING HER AND HE DID IT ANYWAY AND PEOPLE ARE SAYING THIS BOOK IS AMAZING? RAPE CULTURE PEOPLE!!!
by Nicole_201
22 Comments
Is this supposed to be a romance novel ? Because those are full of unhealthy and toxic tropes, I’m personally fine with it, I just enjoy it those for what they are.
Haven’t read it but it sounds awful. I have stopped reading more than one book because it treated behavior like this as normal.
I never got the intense fan base behind Colleen Hoover. A lot of girls/women I know swear by her, but the relationships in her books creep me out :((
Wow, that sounds like pure trash. Like, *Fifty Shades of Grey* levels of trash.
But that’s just me. Maybe sexual predators are a big turn on, and I’m the weirdo. /s
I have to thank this subreddit for helping me avoid anything written by Colleen Hoover. This is the fifth or sixth time I’ve seen a post about how awful her books are. Good looking out, team!
It’s almost like it’s 1957 and I’m reading a letter to the editor in the Des Moines Register in which a local Sunday School teacher is railing against the “filth” in Peyton Place.
Yeah a lot of popular romance recently seems to have a lot of that sort of thing, to the point where I’ve had to stop reading a lot of it. I try to be understanding because I know people do enjoy it, but it makes me so uncomfortable it takes me out of the story
I enjoyed Verity because the point of the book is that everything about the situation is fucked up and I knew that going in. I wish I’d known her *actual* romances were basically in the same vein bc I didn’t care for the second one I read.
Because Colleen Hoover is not a good writer. The end.
I’ve done my fair share of objectification of the female sex, but I’ve never wondered whether a woman was “going commando” (actually or literally) or if, perhaps, she was a “thong girl” (though Sisqo might’ve inspired me once to consider whether our preacher’s wife was such a gal, cuz she had dumps like a truck. But Jesus soon corrected me).
And I have yet to come across any “convent-inspired” clothing, except in porn.
Something that always bothers the shit out of me in these viral romance books is that the men truly just suck. I’ve never read November 9 but the guy sounds like a asshole written by someone who doesn’t actually know how guys think. Tessa Bailey is the god damn worst at this. I get reading a toxic book to explore the themes and emotions in a safe way with no consequences…. But at least make the male characters a bit more nuanced than a basic neanderthal, cave man vibe.
Thank you for your spoiler 👍 I will now be skipping those and taking them out of my TBR 😌
Hot take!
UGH. Thank you. Apparently I need to start a “Do Not Read This Author” list. Blech. Blech. BLECH.
I’m not a fan of her writing either, and the relationships always seem like a literal nightmare to me, like WHY would people engage in such relationships. I don’t entirely get why her books are so popular, but maybe because they’re SO HORNY OH MY GOD. Yes they’re romance novels, but everyone is so incredibly horny and physically attracted to eachother ALL OF THE TIME, jeez. Maybe they’re really meant mostly as smut and to feed your sexual fantasies, a bit like Fifty Shades? If you read them with that expectation, they might not be as bad? Idk, it’s not really my thing either.
A few years ago a YouTuber shared a video that detailed how this book romanticizes abuse. I decided then and there that I would never read one of her books.
There’s a difference between sharing a story about an abusive relationship and portraying it as wrong versus portraying it as good. Colleen Hoover chose to portray it as good, which is very unfortunate. A lot of young girls read her books. Many have used this story as an example for love. No one should think that this is love.
I just want to give my opinion for those who haven’t read this book , I can see how Ben is sexist at times but I definitely would not call him abusive. A lot of these quotes sound terrible because they are taken out of context. For example:
– when he told her he was thinking about what thong she was wearing it was because she told him that she thinks the first thing everybody notices when they see her is her scars and he was going through a list of all the things he noticed aside from her scars. He also told her how he noticed her hair, and her eyes before he noticed her scars.
– In the scene where he’s thinking that she should show some cleavage, it is because she was so self conscious about wearing anything that showed her scars that all she would wear all the time was long sleeves and he is trying to make her feel sexy and give her confidence about wearing something that will reveal her scars. The whole dialogue they have is not sexist but this one line about his thought process from it taken out of context can be seen that way.
Anyways, all of these quotes taken out of context sound much more sexist and abusive than they actually are but that is just my humble opinion. Just wanted to give you guys a different perspective.
it is a disgusting book that romanticizes abuse, arson, stalking, and sexual assault. I don’t recommend her books they are pure trash.
i’ve read a lot of her books and i’m a sucker for romance and then i read verity…i started questioning my sanity and started thinking back about all of the mmcs in her books and realized…I DONT WANT ANY OF THEM…the ones that i read all had terrible mmcs but it’s ok bc they have been through things 🥺🥺 girl bye ✋ idk how she does this shit and then goes…yeah that’s it!
It was offensively bad.
I’m confused. Are these characters half siblings? His father is missing / “dead” and his mom was “in love” with her dad? Is his mom meant to be the best friend that her dad slept with? I probably half read this because it was pretty bad but I’m seriously lost on why he burned down the dads house and who everyone’s parents are.
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in roblox i get every question but others nope…… actually nvm 8 year olds dont know everything,you know????