Colleen Hoover was one of my first authors that I loved when I started venturing away from young adult books to adult books. Many of her books such as November 9, Ugly Love, Verity, and of course, It Ends With Us. Many of her books were five star reads for me, and all were reads that left me gutted.
It’s been a while since she’s had a new release, and things have been happening for her. It Ends With Us became a movie, and there was the scandal that came with the movie. Hoover has become problematic due to her romanticizing abusive relationships as well, especially with It Ends With Us’ popularity.
However, she’s back with her latest book, Woman Down.
Woman Down is about author Petra Rose, who starts the novel with a severe case of writer’s block after her main character in her book’s movie adaption was cut. Rose goes to a remote cabin to get inspiration, and runs into Saint, an attractive cop who shows up, literally on her doorstep. Soon, the lines between realty and fiction begin to blur for Petra, and leaves them in dangerous territory.
I have mixed feelings about this one. This book really explores the concept of cancel culture and the effect that the Internet has on famous people, as well as the pressure that authors feel while they have to churn out books constantly. I loved reading about the scandals that Petra had throughout the book, and couldn’t help but wonder if they were similar to the one that Hoover herself had when dealing with the Lively/Baldoni scandal a few years ago.
That being said, I also have the same feelings about the main character, Petra. What I liked about the book was that many of her details were like an onion and revealed slowly. Her real last name. The fact that she was married and a mother. I liked that because it felt like we, the reader is getting to know Petra as a friend and a person. Seeing her get sucked into the fantasy after she’s been dealing with and seeing how she fought with herself about what’s right and wrong definitely was something that I enjoyed reading and I liked about her.
Petra was not an unlikeable main character, but there were some things that I found to be off about her. She was naive in the fact that she didn’t lock her doors and her ‘muse’ managed to come right in — just to name an example.
This book to me was definitely something that kept me engaged and was something that I couldn’t put down, like many of Hoover’s other books for me. However, the one thing that I didn’t enjoy was the fact that this book could be described in different sections: about 45 percent of it was about Petra’s frustrations with writer’s block, 25 percent of it was about the romance, and the last 20 percent of the book was the twists and the big revelations.
Did I see the twists coming?
No.
However, I will say that I definitely enjoyed the ride of the book, and it definitely helped me get out of my reading slump. It was definitely different than the emotional roller coasters that Hoover is known for, but I definitely had a good time reading it.
Rating: 4 out of 5 stars.
You can get Woman Down on Amazon (affiliate link).
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