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micslibrary's review against another edition
4.0
i put off reading this book for a year because i really wasn’t sure the story would be for me. still felt like the story wasn’t for me until about 100 pages in and boy am i glad i gave this book a shot!
while it starts off slow, you fully get sucked in after the accident. you want to shake both morgan and clara for being idiots and ignoring each other rather than just sharing their feelings. it’s a beautiful story of a mother and daughter being driven apart but brought back together with the truth.
don’t even get me started on the love stories happening in the background
while it starts off slow, you fully get sucked in after the accident. you want to shake both morgan and clara for being idiots and ignoring each other rather than just sharing their feelings. it’s a beautiful story of a mother and daughter being driven apart but brought back together with the truth.
don’t even get me started on the love stories happening in the background
ashleyfleming4's review against another edition
3.0
"Attraction isn’t something that only happens once, with one person. It’s part of what drives humans. Our attraction to each other, to art, to food, to entertainment. Attraction is fun. So when you decide to commit to someone, you aren’t saying, ‘I promise I’ll never be attracted to anyone else.’ You’re saying, ‘I promise to commit to you, despite my potential future attraction to other people.’”
kitty1205's review against another edition
funny
lighthearted
reflective
tense
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Plot
- Strong character development? N/A
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? N/A
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
4.0
mrp_reads's review against another edition
4.0
Colleen really knows how to get to you. There was twist and turns and tragedy. The story ended super sweet I can’t be mad at it. But I’m also not super obsessed with it. Like i wouldn’t shove this book down someone’s throat. It’s great but like not in my top 5.
maddibowers's review against another edition
emotional
hopeful
mysterious
sad
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Plot
- Strong character development? No
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
3.5
carmelanic0le's review against another edition
dark
emotional
hopeful
tense
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Plot
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated
3.0
blurrypetals's review against another edition
4.0
So, every time I finish one of Colleen's book, I look at a list of her previous books and rank the new book on a scale of how painful it was, with It Ends With Us and All Your Perfects being the most painful, November 9 and Ugly Love being quite painful but not so much that the thought of rereading it one day was unbearable up with the most painful ones, and Maybe Someday and Without Merit being so painless they didn't feel like anything Colleen would ever write.
I think, for the most part, Colleen's secret ingredients that go into delivering the perfect Colleen Hoover Gut Punch™ come down to two elements.
The first is that the love interest must be cagey. Colleen Hoover's writing is at its best, in my opinion, when we have a Holder, a Miles, or a Ben holding some sort of deep, dark secret back. It can't be mild. It has to be world-shattering. It doesn't even necessarily need to play off as a twist, per se, but it needs to come late in the novel and it needs to shake the foundation of what we thought we knew. Regretting You is unique in the bunch of CoHo's books in that there are two protagonists, a mother and a daughter, who each have their own love interests.
Because the Colleen Hoover Gut Punch™ this time around is not something delivered by either of these fellas, Jonah and Miller, they both feel a little...well, milquetoast. It's unfortunate, because I felt like they were both very good characters, especially Miller, but neither of them gets a very interesting secret to keep from their baes. Sure, they each have a secret, but the both of them are both very kind, open, and honest men. Obviously, more realistically, this is preferable to, say, Holder in Hopeless, who is content to leave so much crime virtually unpunished, but Holder makes for a much more interesting read because he's weird, he isn't entirely forthcoming, he's cagey, and it made his book a page turner. Unfortunately Jonah and Miller both lack this mystery and, even though CoHo has written books that feature non-cagey love interests before, this shouldn't be too much to the book's detriment, but I did mention there were two ingredients to delivering a perfect Colleen Hoover Gut Punch™.
The second ingredient has to do with what I mentioned at the top of the review about pain. Those who are familiar with what happens at the beginning of this book might be scratching their heads at reading this, as something very sad and painful happens very early on, but I think this doesn't really work for me. I think part of why the inciting incident of this novel doesn't land is because it is so early in the novel, but the reason it doesn't work comes down to POV.
Colleen's books are usually very personal stories about two people who are falling in love, usually told from one POV, sometimes from two if she's feeling adventurous. Instead, she tried something new and told a story from the POV's of a woman and her daughter. This divvies their pain up and it also divvies up the time we could have spent better understanding and experiencing their pain between the two, making their two journeys through grief and into love feel like two completely different books. They even have two different tones, and I almost feel as though Clara's chapters could have been written by a completely different person.
This is all to say, this ends up feeling devoid of a Colleen Hoover Gut Punch™. That doesn't necessarily mean it's bad; it isn't, it's just not really Colleen enough for me. I wish she had chosen one couple to focus on instead of mashing them into one novel. She could have even written two books, one for each couple, and made them companion pieces, not unlike Hopeless and Losing Hope, surrounding the same time period and events, but dedicating the proper amount of time to each character.
I'm really only disappointed because I did like the characters (well, Morgan, Jonah, and Miller, at least; I found Clara to be quite grating after a certain point) and I wish they had been given enough time and space to really explore the pain they were all going through.
I don't normally like to spoil books in my reviews, especially not CoHo's books, which are altogether better if you go into them knowing nothing, but if I could make one small change it would be this:
I did enjoy this, though! I just wish it had a bit more of Colleen's classic secrecy and pain. Instead, this ended up feeling like something she did not write, especially, as I've said, when it comes to Clara's chapters. That won't stop me from reading whatever she comes up with next, though! Better luck next time!
I think, for the most part, Colleen's secret ingredients that go into delivering the perfect Colleen Hoover Gut Punch™ come down to two elements.
The first is that the love interest must be cagey. Colleen Hoover's writing is at its best, in my opinion, when we have a Holder, a Miles, or a Ben holding some sort of deep, dark secret back. It can't be mild. It has to be world-shattering. It doesn't even necessarily need to play off as a twist, per se, but it needs to come late in the novel and it needs to shake the foundation of what we thought we knew. Regretting You is unique in the bunch of CoHo's books in that there are two protagonists, a mother and a daughter, who each have their own love interests.
Because the Colleen Hoover Gut Punch™ this time around is not something delivered by either of these fellas, Jonah and Miller, they both feel a little...well, milquetoast. It's unfortunate, because I felt like they were both very good characters, especially Miller, but neither of them gets a very interesting secret to keep from their baes. Sure, they each have a secret, but the both of them are both very kind, open, and honest men. Obviously, more realistically, this is preferable to, say, Holder in Hopeless, who is content to leave so much crime virtually unpunished, but Holder makes for a much more interesting read because he's weird, he isn't entirely forthcoming, he's cagey, and it made his book a page turner. Unfortunately Jonah and Miller both lack this mystery and, even though CoHo has written books that feature non-cagey love interests before, this shouldn't be too much to the book's detriment, but I did mention there were two ingredients to delivering a perfect Colleen Hoover Gut Punch™.
The second ingredient has to do with what I mentioned at the top of the review about pain. Those who are familiar with what happens at the beginning of this book might be scratching their heads at reading this, as something very sad and painful happens very early on, but I think this doesn't really work for me. I think part of why the inciting incident of this novel doesn't land is because it is so early in the novel, but the reason it doesn't work comes down to POV.
Colleen's books are usually very personal stories about two people who are falling in love, usually told from one POV, sometimes from two if she's feeling adventurous. Instead, she tried something new and told a story from the POV's of a woman and her daughter. This divvies their pain up and it also divvies up the time we could have spent better understanding and experiencing their pain between the two, making their two journeys through grief and into love feel like two completely different books. They even have two different tones, and I almost feel as though Clara's chapters could have been written by a completely different person.
This is all to say, this ends up feeling devoid of a Colleen Hoover Gut Punch™. That doesn't necessarily mean it's bad; it isn't, it's just not really Colleen enough for me. I wish she had chosen one couple to focus on instead of mashing them into one novel. She could have even written two books, one for each couple, and made them companion pieces, not unlike Hopeless and Losing Hope, surrounding the same time period and events, but dedicating the proper amount of time to each character.
I'm really only disappointed because I did like the characters (well, Morgan, Jonah, and Miller, at least; I found Clara to be quite grating after a certain point) and I wish they had been given enough time and space to really explore the pain they were all going through.
I don't normally like to spoil books in my reviews, especially not CoHo's books, which are altogether better if you go into them knowing nothing, but if I could make one small change it would be this:
Spoiler
The reveal that Chris and Jenny were having an affair should have been saved for much later in the novel. Let Jonah and Morgan grow close, let them grow suspicious of what was actually going on, then have them find the letters in the toolbox and that's when they finally discover things were not as they seemed. That all just unraveled far too quickly and it left Morgan's character to flounder and lose momentum so early.I did enjoy this, though! I just wish it had a bit more of Colleen's classic secrecy and pain. Instead, this ended up feeling like something she did not write, especially, as I've said, when it comes to Clara's chapters. That won't stop me from reading whatever she comes up with next, though! Better luck next time!