Play Book Tag discussion

I don’t read Colleen Hoover.

She writes exactly the kind of love stories I actively avoid—the ones where every character has a dead parent, a secret prison record, a criminal uncle, or an overdose tucked into the second act. I don’t want to suddenly be drowning in childhood neglect and generational grief.

I like my feelings stirred, not shattered.

And yet—

One sunny afternoon, I was walking through the grass with my best friend. We were talking about everything and nothing.

She turned to me and said, “Can I tell you the story of a book I read?”

I said sure. Because of course. Because the best part of reading is talking about it with your best friend.

She told me the whole thing:
(view spoiler)[A girl from nothing, living in a trailer with an addict mother. The overdose. A summer with nowhere to go. A reluctant stay with her estranged dad in a too-perfect beach house. The boy next door—sad and sun-drenched. Haunted and hot...... (hide spoiler)]

Then she said, “It’s Colleen Hoover.”

That’s when I realised: I had been Trojan Hoovered.

She smiled. “You wouldn’t have listened if I told you first.”

She was right. I wouldn’t have. I would’ve shut down, tuned out, rolled my eyes.
But maybe it was the sunlight. Maybe it was her voice. But I read the book.

And here’s the frustrating thing: I didn’t love it.
But I also… didn’t not feel it.

I didn’t like the book. I still don’t like Colleen Hoover’s stories.
But I do like when someone I love tells me a story they loved.

I like that my best friend wanted me to feel something with her.
And I like that, for one golden afternoon, I let myself.

Maybe that’s what books are really for—not the plot, not the twist, but the delivery. The way a friend tells it in the sun, with just the right pauses.

I still don’t like Colleen Hoover.
But maybe I liked this—whatever this was.