First, some preamble, then a summary, then my not concise and concise thoughts.
I recently joined bookstagram. I have been posting daily for about a month now - it is very addicting. I didn't know Colleen Hoover existed a few months ago, but thanks to Instagram I see a picture of one of her books multiple times a day as I obsessively scroll. So I decided to read one of her books. Considering how popular her new books seem to be on insta, I knew my library would not be able to get me one of those copies for at least several months. When I put November 9, however, I was not the 759th person requesting it so I decided to give this one a try.
It sat on my shelf waiting for it's turn to be read - I had been waiting for Eleanor Oliphant is Completely Fine for like a year (I probably was about #759 for that one at some point) so that one needed to be read first, and then some how Left Neglected which I sadly moved a bit lower on the TBR because so much else was going on (sad to say I neglected it...) like wedding planning and turning 31 and ARC copies I had to review ASAP and a best friend visiting from England... July has been hectic. Anyway, November 9, was just chilling for a bit and my only conscious thought was "it's due August 4th so make sure you read it when you're done with Eleanor", so just as I'm finishing up with Eleanor two things happen:
1) I see this fabulous new instagram account that this person has created and is solely about books that are over hyped and determining whether or not they are any good. She gave the new Colleen Hoover book, It Ends With Us 3.5 stars because it was predictable but she was planning to read the next one.
2) A new bookstagram friend said she didn't love how tropey and predictable Colleen Hoover books were seconds before I was able to say "I'm starting my first Colleen Hoover book later today!"
Then I started reading and I couldn't stop. But I'm conflicted. Was I preparing a mental argument behind loving or hating it? Maybe?
Summary
On the First November 9th (which is really the 2nd or 3rd depending on what you want to count as the beginning of the story), 2 years after a house fire left her with severe burns and scarring on the left side of her body, 18 year old Fallon has lunch with her dad at a restaurant and tells him she's moving to NYC. Fallon is mad at her father for a number of reasons, but mainly that he did not rescue her from the fire that night because his priorities weren't always focused on what's best for his daughter. In the middle of their argument a teen boy, Ben, joins the booth announcing that he is Fallon's boyfriend and helps defend her against her father's criticisms about her career potential now that she is scarred. This fake boyfriend scheme starts the ball rolling for a romance that takes place only once a year for a planned 5 years. The two decide that for 5 years (from 18-23) they will meet on November 9th at the same place and at the same time (though that never actually works out that way - spoiler but also not really) and then decide at 23 if they want to be together forever.
My (not at all concise) thoughts:
The book is divided into sections, most of the sections are about 4 chapters long and alternate between Ben and Fallon's point of view. As with most romance novels there are: sex scenes (though surprisingly not graphic - think YA style descriptions), fake boyfriend/soulmate/second chance tropes, poor decisions based on what they think is best for the other person, confusion about what the other person feels, huge travel budgets, crying, single vs in a relationship wrong place wrong time type problems (not literal wrong place wrong time... but also kind of?), typical romcom ending. Unlike most romance novels there were: deep discussions of suicide and death, a focus on positive body image and confidence building and it wasn't as predictable as I was expecting it to be. So all in all, a best of both worlds situation - you've got your classic romance (without the overly descriptive sex scenes that make me want to vomit, I might add!) with some actual real people problems that actually give it some depth. So why am I so conflicted as I write this?
1) I'm annoyed by the way we count the November 9ths - this may sound petty but let me explain. Well first, why is the first one the one where they meet for the first time and not the one where the fire happened? Second, why is the same last one both called the 5th November 9th by Fallon and the Last November 9th by Ben. It seems picky, but when your book is completely based on this one day a year, the naming of the sections is confusing.
2) There is a book within a book, and the last few chapters are mainly told through that book, so we find out some major plot hole fillers through Fallon reading Ben's writing. This would be fine if it was just a note, but actually it was two notes, plus a note within a chapter, plus a prologue and three (or 4?) chapters. This is a lot of writing within writing and I didn't love it.
3) The plot twists or really the way loose ends are tied up wasn't my favourite. Without too many spoilers, there is a reason Ben is at the restaurant with Fallon and her father that day and I get it, and it's reasonable but I don't love it.
4) It's written like a YA. I have nothing against YAs, I was a closet YA fan for a lot of years and now I write a blog about reading and recommending books to all types of people including children and teens so I just pretend that's why I'm reading YAs when in reality I'm just still a YA fan! But the problem is, this isn't a YA. I was expecting that Fallon and Ben at 18 and 23 would be slightly more grown up, but there isn't much to show that 5 years has passed. I'm glad she's more confident now and he wrote a book but you do a lot of growing between 18 and 23, those are some pretty significant years for figuring life out, that was the whole premise behind the 5 years thing to begin with, but yet they haven't really changed.
But. This book was addicting. I read it in less than a day and I. COULD. NOT. PUT. IT. DOWN. I could 100% picture this book being turned into a movie. I would go watch it in theatres.
Final Review
I really liked this book. The premise is interesting, there's an acceptable number of clichés and it sucked me right in. It was linear - no time hopping, was easy to follow BUT I didn't find it that predictable. It has a few minor details that bugged me but really as I was writing them above I felt pretty petty picking them out - like I was looking for faults. So bottom line - if you like romance books, definitely read it. If you want to try a Colleen Hoover but don't want to fork over big bucks or wait 7 years for your local library to have a copy, definitely read this book. If you like YA books, read this book. If you want something that has more depth but is easy to follow and slightly addicting, read this book. Basically, I think you should read this book. Why I was conflicted, I don't know, but we'll just have to wait and see what I think of Colleen Hoover's other books and whether or not they live up to the hype!