Colleen Hoover
BornMargaret Colleen Fennell[1]
(1979-12-11) December 11, 1979
Sulphur Springs, Texas, U.S.
OccupationAuthor
Alma materTexas A&M-Commerce (BA)
GenreYoung adult fiction and new adult fiction
Notable worksIt Ends with Us
Spouse
Heath Hoover
​
(m. 2000)​
Children3
Signature

Colleen Hoover (born Margaret Colleen Fennell; December 11, 1979) is an American author who primarily writes novels in the romance and young adult fiction genres.[2][1] She is best known for her 2016 romance novel It Ends with Us. Many of her works were self-published before being picked up by a publishing house.[2][3] As of October 2022, Hoover has sold approximately 20 million books.[4] She was named one of the 100 most influential people in the world by Time magazine in 2023.[5]

Early and personal life

Hoover was born on December 11, 1979,[6] in Sulphur Springs, Texas, to Vannoy Fite[1] and Eddie Fennell. She grew up in Saltillo, Texas,[7] and she graduated from Saltillo High School in 1998.[8] She married Heath Hoover in 2000,[9] and they have three sons.[10] Hoover graduated from Texas A&M-Commerce with a degree in social work.[11] She worked various social work and teaching jobs before starting her career as an author.[12]

Career

In November 2011, Hoover began writing her debut novel, Slammed, with no intention of getting published. She was inspired by a lyric, "decide what to be and go be it", from an Avett Brothers song, "Head Full of Doubt/Road Full of Promise," and she incorporated Avett Brothers lyrics throughout the story.[13] Hoover self-published Slammed in January 2012.[11] She states that she published the novel so her mother, who had just received an Amazon Kindle, could read it.[14] A sequel, Point of Retreat, was published in February 2012.[11] After a few months, Slammed was reviewed and given five stars by book blogger Maryse Black,[15] and afterward, sales rapidly rocketed for Hoover's first two books.[11][16] Slammed and Point of Retreat reached #8 and #18, respectively, on the New York Times Best Seller list in August of that year.[17][18] Atria Books picked up the novels and republished them on August 10, 2012.[19] A third book in the series, This Girl, was published in April 2013.[20][21] After the success of Slammed, Hoover quit her job in social work to become a full-time writer.[14]

Hoover's novel Hopeless was self-published in December 2012, and features a girl who was home-schooled throughout her elementary education before going to a public high school.[11] The book reached #1 on the New York Times Best Seller list on January 20,[2][3] and remained there for three weeks.[22] It was the first self-published novel to ever top the list.[23] A companion novel, Losing Hope, was published that July.[24]

Finding Cinderella is a free novella that Hoover published in 2014. It features several of the characters depicted in her novels Hopeless and Losing Hope. A paperback was released with several bonus features, such as a new epilogue and Hoover's own "Cinderella story".[25] Maybe Someday, published in March 2014, was the first novel of a small series about a boy and a girl who write music together and fall in love. Musician Griffin Peterson created a soundtrack to accompany the novel.[26] Links in the e-book or a scannable QR code in the paperback led to a website where readers could listen to the music.[27]

Never Never, a 2015 collaboration with Tarryn Fisher, was originally split into three parts and sold as three separate books. The work was later republished as one complete book.

Hoover's novel It Ends with Us was published in 2016.[28] Hoover described it as "the hardest book I've ever written."[29] The novel concerns domestic violence, and, according to Hoover, it was written with the intention of advocating for domestic violence victims.[30] The story was inspired by Hoover's personal experience as a child growing up in a household with domestic violence, which carried through into her adult life. The book's main character, Lily, experiences domestic violence at a young age, witnessing her father's abuse towards her mother, on top of experiencing it firsthand, and then she ends up in a violent relationship as an adult.[31] As of 2019, the novel had sold over a million copies worldwide, and it has been translated into over twenty languages.[32] In 2021, Hoover experienced a surge in popularity due to attention from the #BookTok community on TikTok.[30][33] As a result, in January 2022, It Ends with Us was #1 on The New York Times Best Sellers list.[34] Filming of a movie adaptation of It Ends with Us began in May 2023.[35]

A sequel to It Ends with Us, titled It Starts with Us, was published on October 18, 2022, by Atria Books.[36] Simon & Schuster released the details of the extensive marketing campaign for the novel, which became the publisher's most-preordered book of all time.[37]

In October 2022, Simon & Schuster UK acquired two standalone novels by Hoover, which are to be published in 2024 and 2026.[38]

As of October 2022, Hoover has sold more than 20 million books.[4] Reflecting on Hoover's success in 2022, Alexandra Alter of The New York Times wrote, "To say she's currently the best-selling novelist in the United States, to even compare her to other successful authors who have landed several books on the best seller lists, fails to capture the size and loyalty of her audience."[4] Hoover's work has been criticized for normalizing abuse.[39]

Awards and achievements

YearAwardWorkCategoryResultRef
2012Goodreads Choice Awards SlammedYoung Adult FictionNominated[40]
2013Goodreads Choice AwardsLosing HopeRomanceNominated[41]
2013Goodreads Choice AwardsThis GirlRomanceNominated[41]
2014UtopYA Con AwardsMaybe SomedayMost Innovative MarketingWon[42]
2015Goodreads Choice AwardsConfessRomanceWon[43]
2016 Goodreads Choice Awards It Ends with Us Romance Won [44]

New York Times Best Sellers

In 2022, Hoover held six of the top ten spots on the New York Times paperback fiction best seller list.[4]

  • Slammed (#8)[18]
  • Point of Retreat (#18)[18]
  • This Girl (#9)[21]
  • Hopeless (#1)[22]
  • Losing Hope (#6)[24]
  • Maybe Someday (#3)[45]
  • Ugly Love (#4)
  • Confess (#4)[45]
  • November 9 (#9)
  • It Ends with Us (#1)[34]
  • Verity (#2)

Works

Books

It Ends with Us series

Slammed series

  • Slammed (2012)
  • Point of Retreat (2012)
  • This Girl (2013)

Hopeless series

  • Hopeless (2012)
  • Losing Hope (2013)
  • Finding Cinderella (novella; 2013)
  • Finding Perfect (novella; 2019)

Maybe Someday series

  • Maybe Someday (2014)
  • Maybe Not (novella; 2014)
  • Maybe Now (2018)

Standalone novels

  • Ugly Love (2014)
  • Never Never (2015, digital; 2023, physical) three part novella series with Tarryn Fisher
  • Confess (2015)
  • November 9 (2015)
  • Too Late (2016)
  • Without Merit (2017)
  • All Your Perfects (2018)
  • Verity (2018)
  • Regretting You (2019)
  • Heart Bones (2020)
  • Layla (2020)
  • Reminders of Him (2022)

Source:[46][47]

Short stories

  • "A Father's Kiss" from The Kiss (An Anthology of Love and Other Close Encounters)
  • "Saint" from One More Step (An Anthology)
  • "The Dress" from Two More Days (An Anthology)

See also

References

  1. 1 2 3 Chang, JuJu (February 21, 2013). "Emerging 'New Adult' Book Genre Puts Smut Fiction on Bestseller Lists". ABC News. Retrieved July 10, 2014.
  2. 1 2 3 "Colleen Hoover". Amazon. Retrieved July 10, 2014.
  3. 1 2 "Self-published Colleen Hoover Talks Living the American Dream". CBS This Morning. May 20, 2013. Retrieved July 10, 2014.
  4. 1 2 3 4 Alter, Alexandra (October 9, 2022). "How Colleen Hoover Rose to Rule the Best-Seller List". The New York Times. Retrieved October 18, 2022.
  5. ↑ "Time 100". Time. April 13, 2023. Retrieved April 15, 2023.
  6. ↑ "Colleen Hoover". The Book Pusher. Archived from the original on September 5, 2014. Retrieved July 10, 2014.
  7. ↑ Hoover, Colleen. "Paying it forward..." Colleen Hoover. Archived from the original on June 26, 2014. Retrieved July 10, 2014.
  8. ↑ "Colleen Hoover". Classmates.com. Retrieved July 10, 2014.
  9. ↑ Hoover, Colleen. "Fourteen Years. :0". Colleen Hoover. Archived from the original on May 10, 2014. Retrieved July 10, 2014.
  10. ↑ "The Author". Maybe Someday Soundtrack. Archived from the original on October 6, 2014. Retrieved July 10, 2014.
  11. 1 2 3 4 5 Stengle, Jamie (April 16, 2013). "Colleen Hoover Books: Texas Woman Self-Publishes, Hits Best-Seller Lists". Huffington Post. Retrieved July 10, 2014.
  12. ↑ Alter, Alexandra (October 10, 2022). "How Colleen Hoover Rose to Rule Best Seller-List". New York Times.
  13. ↑ "How The Avett Brothers Kindled the Career of a Self-Published Author". GalleyCat. June 7, 2012. Archived from the original on June 5, 2014. Retrieved July 10, 2014.
  14. 1 2 "On TikTok, crying is encouraged. Colleen Hoover's books get the job done". Washington Post. ISSN 0190-8286. Retrieved May 5, 2022.
  15. ↑ "Book Review: Slammed by Colleen Hoover". Maryse.net. March 23, 2012.
  16. ↑ "A Raw Blog Post". ColleenHoover.com. Archived from the original on October 30, 2014. Retrieved October 30, 2014.
  17. ↑ "E-Book Fiction Best Sellers". New York Times. July 22, 2012. Retrieved July 10, 2014.
  18. 1 2 3 "E-Book Fiction Best Sellers". New York Times. August 5, 2012. Retrieved July 10, 2014.
  19. ↑ "Point of Retreat by Colleen Hoover". Goodreads.com. Retrieved August 14, 2014.
  20. ↑ "This Girl by Colleen Hoover". Goodreads.com. Retrieved August 14, 2014.
  21. 1 2 "E-Book Fiction Best Sellers". New York Times. May 19, 2013. Retrieved July 10, 2014.
  22. 1 2 "E-Book Fiction Best Sellers". New York Times. January 20, 2013. Retrieved July 10, 2014.
  23. ↑ "Best-Selling Moms: Self-Publishing $ucce$$ Stories". May 3, 2013. Archived from the original on May 13, 2014. Retrieved July 10, 2014.
  24. 1 2 "Combined Print & E-Book Fiction". The New York Times. July 28, 2013. Retrieved December 31, 2022.
  25. ↑ Flood, Alison (January 31, 2014). "Colleen Hoovers fans press publisher into print version of ebook". The Guardian. Retrieved August 14, 2014.
  26. ↑ "Griffin Peterson's Official Website". GriffinPeterson.com. Archived from the original on April 26, 2020. Retrieved July 10, 2014.
  27. ↑ "Soundtrack". Maybe Someday. Archived from the original on January 14, 2014. Retrieved July 10, 2014.
  28. ↑ "It Ends with Us". Goodreads. Retrieved November 26, 2016.
  29. ↑ "New Adult author Colleen Hoover releases novel 'It Ends with Us'". NY Daily News. Retrieved November 26, 2016.
  30. 1 2 Italie, Hillel (September 16, 2021). "Author Colleen Hoover's word-of-mouth success". Associated Press. Retrieved January 6, 2022.
  31. ↑ Dwiastuti, Winda; Yamin, Harumi Manik Ayu (July 30, 2020). The Simplification Domestic Violence in Colleen Hoover's It Ends with Us (2016). Atlantis Press. pp. 76–81. doi:10.2991/assehr.k.200729.015. ISBN 978-94-6252-995-3. S2CID 226703846.
  32. ↑ McNary, Dave (July 15, 2019). "Justin Baldoni Developing 'It Ends With Us' Romance Movie". Variety. Retrieved February 11, 2022.
  33. ↑ Merry, Stephanie (January 20, 2022). "On TikTok, crying is encouraged. Colleen Hoover's books get the job done". The Washington Post. Retrieved February 11, 2022.
  34. 1 2 "Combined Print & E-Book Fiction – Best Sellers – Books". The New York Times. Retrieved January 6, 2021.
  35. ↑ "'It Ends with Us' Cast". msn.com. June 1, 2023. Retrieved June 1, 2023.
  36. ↑ "Atria to Publish Colleen Hoover's 'It Starts with Us' in October". Publishers Weekly. February 11, 2022. Retrieved February 12, 2022.
  37. ↑ Comerford, Ruth (October 17, 2022). "S&S unveils campaign details for most pre-ordered title to date". The Bookseller. Retrieved October 17, 2022.
  38. ↑ Comerford, Ruth (October 12, 2022). "Colleen Hoover's new thrillers signed by Simon & Schuster and Sphere". The Bookseller. Retrieved October 17, 2022.
  39. ↑ Willingham, A. J. (August 27, 2023). "Colleen Hoover is the hottest author in America. She also may be the most controversial". CNN. Retrieved August 28, 2023.
  40. ↑ "The Best Books of 2012". Goodreads. Retrieved July 10, 2014.
  41. 1 2 "Best Books of 2013". Goodreads. Retrieved July 10, 2014.
  42. ↑ "2014 UtopYA Awards Winners Announced". My Bookopolis. Archived from the original on June 28, 2014. Retrieved July 10, 2014.
  43. ↑ "Best Romance of 2015". Goodreads. Retrieved November 25, 2016.
  44. ↑ Nickelsburg, Monica (December 6, 2016). "The votes are in: Goodreads reveals 20 best books of 2016". GeekWire. Archived from the original on December 22, 2023. Retrieved December 22, 2023.
  45. 1 2 "E-Book Fiction Best Sellers". New York Time. April 6, 2014. Retrieved July 10, 2014.
  46. ↑ "Books | Colleen Hoover". January 11, 2017. Retrieved July 3, 2023.
  47. ↑ "Books By Colleen Hoover". Goodreads.com. Retrieved August 14, 2014.
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