This week, Colleen Hoover donned a striking floral gown as she stood alongside Hollywood A-lister Blake Lively at the world premier for the movie adaptation of her award-winning, hit novel It Ends With Us – in which the Gossip Girl actress stars as the lead.
The glitzy event is a far cry from the 44-year-old’s life before striking gold with the book; as the Texas-born publishing sensation went from being a minimum wage social worker to a household name.
When she self-published her first young-adult novel, Slammed, in January 2012, Colleen was living in a trailer with her husband, a long-distance truck driver, and their three sons.
She was elated when she made a small sum in royalties as it was enough to pay the water bill.
Before her success, the author admits she was very happy and loved the people around her but was ‘very poor’, with a washcloth in place of where the doorknob should be.
This week, Colleen Hoover donned a striking floral gown as she stood alongside Hollywood A-lister Blake Lively at the world premier for the movie adaptation of her award-winning, hit novel It Ends With Us – in which the Gossip Girl actress stars as the lead
Colleen didn’t have a publisher, an agent or any of the usual machinery that goes into engineering a bestseller: the six-figure marketing campaigns, the talk-show and podcast tours, the speaking gigs and literary awards, the glowing reviews from mainstream book critics.
But seven months later, Slammed hit the bestseller list. By May, Colleen had made £31,000 in royalties, money she used to pay back her stepfather for the trailer.
By the summer, with two books on the bestseller list ‒ Slammed and a sequel, Point of Retreat ‒ she quit her job to write full time.
Colleen, who outsold the Bible in 2022, last year told the TODAY show: ‘ ‘My goal was, ‘Oh, I hope I write a book someday.’ That’s as far as it went. You know, I just wanted to sit down, get an idea, write a book, maybe someone would read it… Actually thinking about having a book that was on The New York Times (bestseller list) was not even in my brain.’
She also opened up about how her own past has shaped her stories.
Colleen’s It Ends With Us, which came out in 2016, focuses on domestic abuse and how individuals get caught up in generational cycles of violence.
‘One of my earliest memories was him throwing a TV at her,’ she said of her biological father in the interview. ‘We grew up in an abusive household up to that point.’
‘There were no resources for women to leave situations like that… She was able to get out of that relationship. And then from then on, I just remember growing up with a mother who was so strong and independent.’
The glitzy event is a far cry from the 44-year-old’s life before striking gold with the book; as the Texas-born publishing sensation went from being a minimum wage social worker to a household name. Colleen pictured with Brandon Sklenar, Isabela Ferrer and Blake Lively
When she self-published her first young-adult novel, Slammed, in January 2012, Colleen was living in a trailer with her husband, a long-distance truck driver, and their three sons. Pictured in a recent photo
Colleen has been with her husband since they both met as high school sweethearts aged 16 – and in a recent post celebrated 24 years of being married to the ‘kindest person she knows’.
By the time she wrote It Ends With Us, Colleen became huge on BookTok, with her novel topping everyone’s recommendation lists.
But as quickly as her social media crown came, reviewers became more scathing and critical of her works once she started to dominate the bestseller shelves.
The books are mostly aimed at young adults and often focus on love and destructive relationships, but the level of writing is increasingly being criticised online.
Recently, an American on TikTok reviewed her work, saying: ‘Simply written, they do not stimulate your imagination or make you step outside of your comfort zone.
‘They trap new readers and make them feel like they’re only capable of reading her books.
‘They’re literally books written for people who don’t read because they are easy to read.
Colleen has been with her husband since they both met as high school sweethearts aged 16 – and in a recent post celebrated 24 years of being married to the ‘kindest person she knows’. Pictured when she was young
When she self-published her first young-adult novel, Slammed, in January 2012, Colleen was living in a trailer with her husband, a long-distance truck driver, and their three sons. Colleen pictured in her first home
‘Go to a beach and you’ll see a bunch of people reading them.
‘Why? Because that’s the one place people who don’t usually read read.
‘Furthermore representation is non-existent.’
But despite Colleen’s rise to the top in publishing – and fall from popularity online – the adaptation of her most famous book, It Ends With Us has been largely well received by critics.
Despite being mired with rumours of a feud amid the cast, the movie – which is out today – has been relatively positively reviewed for handling topics like abuse, trauma and recovery ‘unexpectedly well’.
The movie follows Lily Bloom (played by Blake), a floral designer who falls in love with neurosurgeon Ryle Kincaid (portrayed by Justin), years after losing touch with her first love, Atlas (played by Brandon), after he joined the military.
But things get dramatic after Lily reconnects with Atlas after running into him at a restaurant, just as her romance with Ryle starts to turn toxic.
But despite Colleen’s rise to the top in publishing – and fall from popularity online – the adaptation of her most famous book, It Ends With Us has been largely well received by critics. Pictured with her husband when they were young
Giving it three stars out of five, Benjamin Lee for The Guardian wrote: ‘It’s a plot of hackneyed soap tropes but there’s a real maturity to how it unfolds, a story of abuse that’s far less obvious than we’ve grown accustomed to, the details far knottier than some might be comfortable with.’
Justin Baldoni – who is a main cast lead as well as the director was described as ‘big and shiny’ and ‘filled with perfectly lit restaurants and perfectly styled outfits, a cast of handsome people living handsome lives’.
‘Yet Hall’s dialogue, while often a little too simplistic, is rooted and believable and so the heightened world isn’t difficult for us to buy into and the emotional impact isn’t difficult for us to feel affected by,’ Benjamin added.
Giving it the same three-star ranking, Empire said that while the movie ‘is not short on clichés’ it also ‘manages to move beyond the usual expectations’.
‘Sure, there’s your bog-standard rooftop meet-cute between Blake Lively’s kookily dressed florist Lily Bloom and Baldoni’s hunky neurosurgeon Ryle Kincaid (both absurdly named characters) — but the pair share some real, intense chemistry, both actors wildly charming and charismatic when they need to be,’ John Nugent wrote.
However, some critics were less impressed.
‘It Ends with Us is capable of poignancy,’ said Clarisse Loughrey of the Evening Standard.
It comes as fans of the novel and movie are convinced costars Blake Lively and Justin Baldoni are embroiled in a fierce feud – after noticing some suspicious behavior between the two cast members. Both pictured in the film
‘Yet it’s also entirely ill equipped to square such sensitive material up against scenes of diamanté boots being sensually rolled down, an out-of-place but very funny Jenny Slate rocking up in a string of Carrie Bradshaw-worthy outfits, or Lively simply revelling in that deep, half-laughing voice that made her an icon of casual cool on TV’s Gossip Girl. This film’s good intentions feel misplaced.’
It comes as fans of the novel and movie are convinced costars Blake Lively and Justin Baldoni are embroiled in a fierce feud – after noticing some suspicious behavior between the two cast members.
The pair didn’t pose for any pictures together at the event, despite playing the two main characters and love interests in the flick.
She happily took photos with her other costars like Jenny Slate and Brandon Sklenar, but not Justin.
Two days later, Blake attended a photo call in London for the film with some of the other stars – but Justin was mysteriously absent.
In addition, the two haven’t done any press together in the weeks leading up to the film’s release.
The book follows Lily Bloom (played by Blake), a floral designer who falls in love with neurosurgeon Ryle Kincaid (portrayed by Justin), years after losing touch with her first love, Atlas (played by Brandon), after he joined the military
Instead, Blake sat down for an interview with her costar, Brandon, last month; she and Brandon also participated in a promotional video with It Ends With Us stars Alex Neustaedter and Isabela Ferrer, but Justin had no part in it.
Eagle-eyed social media users also noticed that both Blake and author Colleen unfollowed Justin on Instagram recently.
At the time, DailyMail.com contacted representatives for Justin, Blake and the movie’s production company Wayfarer Studios.
It Ends With Us is the most popular of Colleen’s works, but she has had multiple successes which have racked in sales.
Her devoted fanbase has also given her a degree of control over her work that is unusual in publishing.
Although she built a strong fanbase early in her career, her sales soared during the pandemic, when her books became a sensation on TikTok. To date, the hashtag #colleenhoover has amassed more than 2.4 billion views.
Libby McGuire, head of Colleen’s main publisher, called the phenomenon ‘the reverse of the Oprah book club’.
Whereas Oprah Winfrey was one woman making a recommendation, and sometimes selling two million books, now it’s 100 people making a recommendation ‒ and selling four million books, McGuire says. ‘We’re all just sitting back going, ‘OK, what’s the next one they’re going to pick?’