I am the only one that deserves you…
I wanted to read something by Colleen Hoover because a lot of people suggested this writer to me when I was looking for contemporary novels. I read Confess by Colleen Hoover in three days. Even though I had no difficulty reading this book, I am not sure what to think about it. Maybe by the end of this review I have found my opinion.
Book Review: Confess by Colleen Hoover
Rating:
Title & Author: Confess by Colleen Hoover
Genre: Contemporary, Romance
Release Date: March 10 2015
Series: Standalone
Publisher: Atria Books
Synopsis
Auburn Reed has her entire life mapped out. Her goals are in sight and there’s no room for mistakes. But when she walks into a Dallas art studio in search of a job, she doesn’t expect to find a deep attraction to the enigmatic artist who works there, Owen Gentry.
For once, Auburn takes a risk and puts her heart in control, only to discover Owen is keeping major secrets from coming out. The magnitude of his past threatens to destroy everything important to Auburn, and the only way to get her life back on track is to cut Owen out of it.
The last thing Owen wants is to lose Auburn, but he can’t seem to convince her that truth is sometimes as subjective as art. All he would have to do to save their relationship is confess. But in this case, the confession could be much more destructive than the actual sin…
Confess by Colleen Hoover filled me with a feeling of unease when I started reading. It starts out with something that happened in the past and which had a great influence on the main character Auburn Mason Reed. That’s all still fine, it usually is a sign of well developed characters. Then the book moves on, and the character of Owen Mason Gentry starts to tell the story from his side and it become mysterious. Because he knows Auburn from somewhere, but never lets the reader know where from. This really frustrated me. And on top of that, you only find out half way through the book that there is another big secret of Auburn’s running around the streets of Dallas. The point at which this secret was uncovered was weird and did not feel right to me.
I loved the characters, they were well defined and had a lot of depth. Auburn has her ‘past’ moment at the beginning of the book, telling the reader about how it came to be for Auburn to not have a boyfriend by the age of twenty – or twenty-one depending on where in the book you wonder about it. But you don’t get much from Owen, only the bad things. Even though his ‘bad’ things aren’t all that bad, if you know why. His character would have been a bit better if you could really see why he was doing the things he did.
Now I think about about it, I felt like I was missing a huge part when the book makes a time jump between the second night after Auburn and Owen met and Auburn’s birthday, which covers like three weeks. It felt off. And then Auburn also gets up sad about someone (who she does not even like) not showing up for her birthday feels weird. Why would you get up sad about someone not showing up on your birthday if you don’t like them? Only later you find out why she got up sad, it would have been the perfect time to unveil Auburn’s secret.
Sometimes I found the way Colleen wrote some of the dialogue disturbing.
As an example
“I am the only one that deserves you.”
I got uneasy by this phrase. It felt as if Owen is claiming Auburn and she lets him even though she says at some point she does not like to be claimed – when someone else is doing that to her. It disturbs me when someone says they do not like it and then allow someone to do it right in their faces. And a lot of the sexual phrases where like that.
On that fact, I do not care for sex in books and the author really did a number on this one – I don’t think it is as bad as a certain other series, but those are still on my TBR list. It was pretty graphic and I do not think it was necessary for the story.
I had planned to read Hopeless next, I don’t think I will ever read any romance novels by Colleen Hoover again. Not because they are super bad, or anything. But romance is not my best category of books and the way she has written them just goes against me.
So all and all I think I did not like this book. Even though the characters are well written, the story just did not allure me like some other stories do. Also I am not a huge fan of romance novels anyway so it is not a surprise to me. Colleen Hoover might not be the author for me, but I certainly do not want to tell people not to read her books. Because she might be the author for someone else.
Let me know what you thought of this book!
If you have any requests for which book I should talk about next, please let me know in the comments down below.
For now, let books enrich your life!