There’s More to Life Than ‘Verity’! Ranking Colleen Hoover’s Books
Few authors have enjoyed such a meteoric rise to fame quite like Colleen Hoover. The former social worker first decided to write a book simply because her mother got a new e-reader and she wanted to give her something to read. She self-published that book, Slammed, and next thing you know, she’s a bestselling author.
Much of Hoover’s success is thanks to BookTok on TikTok, where social media word of mouth resulted in a book deal that enabled her to quit her job and write full-time. To date, she’s written 26 novels and has sold about 20 million books worldwide. Here’s a list of all of Hoover’s books in chronological order:
- Slammed (2012)
- Slammed, part 2: Point of Retreat (2012)
- Hopeless, book 1 (2012)
- Slammed, part 3: This Girl (2013)
- Hopeless, book 2: Losing Hope (2013)
- Hopeless, book 3: Finding Cinderella (2013)
- Maybe series, book 1: Maybe Someday (2014)
- Ugly Love (2014)
- Maybe book 2: Maybe Not (2014)
- Confess (2015)
- November 9 (2015)
- Never Never, Part One (2015
- Never Never, Part Two (2015)
- Never Never, Part Three (2016)
- It Ends With Us (2016)
- Too Late (2016)
- Without Merit (2017)
- All Your Perfects (2018)
- Maybe, book 3: Maybe Now (2018)
- Verity (2018)
- Hopeless, book 4: Finding Perfect (2019)
- Regretting You (2019)
- Heart Bones (2020)
- Layla (2020)
- Reminders Of Him (2022)
- It Starts With Us (2022) (Follow up to It Ends With Us)
Never Never is a Young Adult series co-authored with Tarryn Fisher. In 2023, all three Never Never books were re-released in one volume. The sheer number of books she’s written can be overwhelming, so we’re ranking our ten favorite Hoover books below, with our favorite in the number one spot.
10. Ugly Love (2014)
Frenemies Tate and Miles decide to give in to their mutual chemistry and start a “no strings attached” sexual relationship, and everything goes great at first. Then … they catch feelings. Soon Tate is wondering if she can set her true feelings aside and keep seeing him purely for physical love. Spoiler alert: They can’t!
9. November 9 (2015)
Fallon and Ben meet just one day before she’s slated to move across the country. They share one perfect day together and fall in love, then part as friends. The pair keep in touch as Ben uses Fallon’s adventurous lifestyle as inspiration for the novel he’s writing, and they meet up on the same date, November 9, every year to catch up. Then, something happens to make Fallon question whether Ben is telling the truth about his life, or if he’s actually living in reality at all. Could he be just using her as fodder for his book?
8. Layla (2020)
Leeds and Layla are in love, but then Layla is the victim of a devastating accident that leaves her mentally and emotionally scarred. Leeds tries to help her recover, but she now acts like a totally different person. He decides to take her away to the bed and breakfast where they first met, but once there, Layla goes from bad to worse. Leeds takes comfort with another guest at the hotel, a woman named Willow, and then he must choose between the two in a heartbreaking conclusion.
7. Hopeless (first book in a series)
This YA offering is the first in a 3-part series, and it’s guaranteed to make you remember the blush of first love. Sky and Dean are both high school seniors with bad reputations. The moment they meet the sparks start to fly, and they bond over their mutual troubled pasts. Sky discovers she can’t resist Dean, yet when she discovers his dark secret she’s not sure she can ever look at him the same way again.
6. All Your Perfects (2018)
Quinn and Graham had a picture-perfect beginning to their love story, but their marriage has been riddled with problems. Both have issues of their own that, when combined, become explosive. In All Your Perfects, the author examines the idea that our future happiness is reliant on our past.
5. Slammed (3-book series)
Slammed is the first book Hoover ever sat down to write, eventually going on to continue the story in a 3-part series of novels. The first Slammed book introduces us to Layken and Will, two young neighbors whose lives change in an instant after they make a shocking discovery.
4. Maybe Someday (2014)
Maybe Someday kicks off another 3-book trilogy, the Maybe series. The first book introduces us to Sydney, a college student who finds out her boyfriend is cheating on her, which sends her reeling. She winds up meeting a guy named Ridge, and they fall in love. The second book in the series, Maybe Not, focuses not on Sydney and Ridge, but on another couple named Warren and Bridgette. But never fear, all four young lovers are featured in the third book, Maybe Now.
3. Never Never (2023)
Hoover teamed up with psychological thriller author Tarryn Fisher (The Wives) for this twisty-turny romantic suspense novel. The story is about two lovers, Charlie and Silas, who have been friends forever but now, for some reason, they have no memory of the life they had together. They have to piece together the puzzle to determine what happened to erase their memories, and what they ever saw each other in the first place.
2. It Ends with Us (2016)
Hoover has called this book “the hardest book” she ever wrote, and that’s because it’s rooted in her own upbringing in an abusive home. It follows Lily, a young woman who falls for a successful neurosurgeon named Ryle. Ryle insists he doesn’t want a relationship, but they soon fall in love anyway. He is arrogant to the extreme, and their relationship quickly turns toxic. Meanwhile, Lily can’t stop thinking about Atlas, the boy she knew back in high school, who just happens to be coming back into her life ….
Though many readers criticized It Ends With Us as glorifying abusive relationships, the novel was one of Hoover’s most popular offerings and inspired a sequel called It Starts With Us in 2022. For better or for worse, a movie version of the first book will premiere in 2024 starring Blake Lively and Justin Baldoni.
1. Verity (2018)
For a while there, we couldn’t read anything book-related without someone recommending Verity to us. The buzz has died down a few years later, but this remains one of Hoover’s most controversial yet titillating books to date. In fact, it’s the only psychological thriller she’s ever penned on her own, and it’s definitely unforgettable.
Starving writer Lowen Ashleigh is desperate for work, so when a job working for a handsome man’s successful wife falls into her lap, she grabs it and never looks back. Lowen is hired to finish writing a book that author Verity Crawford started before a tragic accident left her in a persistent vegetative state, but she discovers a lot more secrets lurking in a hidden manuscript in Verity’s office. As the truth becomes more and more blurred, Lowen must decide who she trusts, and what she’s willing to do to save herself.
Special note: Verity is spicy. As in, don’t read it in mixed company-spicy, and don’t even think about listening to the audiobook in public. You’ve been warned!
(featured image: Atria)
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