Romanticism captured Mexicans. This 2023, the author American Colleen Hoover (1979), with her book fictional Break the circle was placed as the writer of sentimental and suspense literature for adults, the best-selling in the country.
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Originally published in 2016, this bookwhose original title is It Ends With Uswill be filmed in 2024 Film adaptation that will star actors Blake Lively and Justin Baldoni.
With little more than twenty published works, Hoover’s popularity is such that he currently occupies the Goodreads platform second place as the author most followed by readers, only surpassed by the legendary horror and fantasy writer Stephen King.
Furthermore, the author has managed to sell more than 20 million books around the world and his name has been included in the list of Best Sellers of the The New York Times newspaper.
According to Planeta editorial, Breaking the circle is the fiction book best-selling in Mexico in 2023, the same author also includes A Despite You, at number 10, on the list.
FROM SELF-PUBLICATION TO INTERNATIONAL FAME
But it’s not just the numbers that are surprising about this author originally from Texas – whose fame is also reflected in her social networkswhere on TikTok he has almost a million and a half followers, while on Instagram and Facebookhas 1.9 million and 952 thousand, respectively – but also its history of rise, born from entertainment and the possibility of self-publishing on the Internet.
In an interview with the writer Jenna Hager, daughter of the former president of the United States, George W. Bush, for the Today program, Colleen – who studied social work – said that it all began in 2012, with the intention of sharing her loved ones with those close to her. novel Love in verseso one day, in order to do it, he decided to use Amazon’s self-publishing option, so that they could download it for free.
To their surprise, after the free period, several readers continued purchasing the construction site and after four months it appeared on the list of The New York Times. After that first hit, Colleen improved her economic situation, she herself states that she was very poor, along with her three children and her husband, with whom she lived in a mobile home, and with whom she now shares her success, in the company of her mother and her sisters.
“(Fame) is not what brings me joy. I love to write and I would do it even if I hadn’t had that mention in the newspaper. “I started doing this for fun and I would continue doing it for that same reason, but, by no means, the happiness in my life comes from the people around me,” Colleen said in that interview.
In addition to this, the press and several critics have emphasized the impulse that platforms as TikTokhave given their work, where now reviews of books in a subcommunity called BookTok.
“People ask me ‘how did you get your books went viral in TikTok‘?’, and I answer that it wasn’t me, that it was the same people readers, the bloggers, the booktokers. I think what happens is that people believe what other readers teach them, more than a commercial where the authors They say ‘read my book’. That’s what has made BookTok different, it feels authentic and organic,” said Colleen in the conversation with Jenna Hager.
CRITICISM AND CONTROVERSY
Criticized, even labeled in a somewhat derogatory way among the list of authors fashion and seasonal commercials, Hoover’s works are characterized by combining romance and suspense, with descriptions of sexual acts and explicit violence, where there is not always a happy ending, as the norm of the romantic genre dictates.
However, these narratives have served the author to discuss some “difficult” topics for our time, such as violence and domestic abuse. This is the case of his novel Breaking the Circle, which has been criticized on several occasions, also by bloggers, booktokers and other critics for “romanticizing abuse,” despite the fact that the author herself has confessed that it is a story that seeks precisely to “inspire people to break with abuse.” Story that is also inspired by her own mother.
Faced with criticism, Hoover affirms that he does not really take it into account, as he focuses more on being able to “connect” with his readersin addition to the fact that she considers herself her biggest critic, which is not so beneficial either, since sometimes she cannot believe herself to be a participant in her own success.
Others of his books that have achieved great success are “Ugly Love”, “Ask me for anything but love”, “Maybe now”, “I won’t forget you”, “Never ever” and “Start over”.
One of the pieces of advice that the author has given to all those who are interested in writing is to treat the topics that interest them most, even though their texts reach people who do not agree with them. Colleen Hoover is already preparing to write a new book, which may possibly be a thriller.