The saddest book by Colleen Hoover
This week's book: Colleen Hoover's love story-drama “reminders of him”
When the novel “Reminders of Him” was published in 2022, its author, Colleen Hoover, said she wanted to write a romantic comedy. But in the end, it became “the saddest book of all” she had ever written. The story of a woman released from prison trying to win back her daughter has now received a screen adaptation, which was released worldwide on March 13th. Literary columnist for Realnoe Vremya, Yekaterina Petrova, tells the story of how a Texas farmer's daughter became the bestselling author in the United States, why this story of guilt and forgiveness became a bestseller, and why film adaptations of Colleen Hoover's books have unexpectedly become one of the main sources of romantic dramas for Hollywood.
“Find a man who treats his mother well”
Margaret Colleen Hoover (née Fennell) was born on December 11, 1979, in Sulphur Springs, Texas. She grew up in the small town of Saltillo. The future writer's childhood was spent in a rural setting: the family owned a small dairy farm with about fifty cows, where Colleen and her sister worked mornings and weekends.
Hoover's earliest memory is of domestic violence: at the age of two, she saw her father throw a television at her mother. Her parents divorced soon after. Her mother later remarried. Her stepfather worked as an auto mechanic, while her mother worked as a waitress and bartender. The family was not wealthy: a house without heating or air conditioning stood on the farm property, but Hoover herself recalled not feeling that poverty as a child.
She met her future husband, Heath Hoover, as a teenager. They were both 16 when they started dating, although they had technically first met in kindergarten, but they don't remember it. In one recollection, the writer mentioned hearing Heath tell friends at a party that he always spent Wednesday evenings with his mother. “My mom always said: 'Find a man who treats his mother well — he'll treat you the same way,'" Colleen recalled, explaining why she decided to get to know Heath better.
In 2000, when she was twenty, they got married, and soon their first child was born. The couple has three sons in total. The young family lived in a trailer worth about $14,000 on a piece of land owned by the writer's stepfather.
Hoover had wanted to write since childhood but for a long time did not consider it a viable profession. She earned a Bachelor's degree in Social Work from Texas A&M University–Commerce and worked in social services for several years: at a child protection center, in a hospice, and in a state nutrition program for women and children. According to her, “she always wanted to write, but never thought she could make it her career.”
“The reverse version of Oprah’s book club”
In 2011, Colleen Hoover began working on her first novel, “Slammed," inspired by a line from a song by The Avett Brothers: “Decide what to be and go be it.” She wrote the book in snatches while her son rehearsed at a local theater, and continued working on it at home at night, sometimes getting only four hours of sleep. The novel was intended as a Christmas gift for her mother. Hoover self-published it on the Kindle Direct Publishing platform in January 2012.
Initially, only a few people bought the book. “She called me and said: 'Mom, six strangers bought the book,'" her mother recalled. But soon sales skyrocketed after a positive review from a book blogger, and within a few months, the novel landed on The New York Times bestseller list. By the summer of that same year, when two of her books — “Slammed” and its sequel “Point of Retreat” — made the list, Hoover quit her social services job and began writing full-time.
In subsequent years, she wrote over twenty books, often alternating between self-publishing platforms and collaborating with major publishing houses. Her novel “Hopeless” (2012) was the first self-published work to reach number one on The New York Times bestseller list. Later, Colleen Hoover published two to three books a year, experimenting with genres ranging from young adult novels to thrillers. Her most famous book became “It Ends with Us” (2016), dedicated to the theme of domestic violence. Hoover called it “the hardest book I've ever written," explaining that the story was based on her mother's experiences.
The themes of Hoover's books often extend beyond the classic love story. Although many plots center on a relationship, they are underpinned by heavier topics: domestic violence, addiction, poverty, or psychological trauma. The writer admits to deliberately heightening the emotional tension in her texts: while working, she “sometimes goes too far with the emotions… if I don't feel them myself, I make the scene sadder or scarier.” She also explained that she writes in a way that easily translates to film: “When I write, I always envision my books as a movie.”
The phenomenon of Colleen Hoover's popularity is linked to several factors. Her career began without publishers or marketing campaigns, and her audience was formed by readers themselves through reviews and social media. In 2022, she became the bestselling fiction author in the United States, and her books occupied six of the ten spots on The New York Times bestseller list. An editor at Atria described this effect as “the reverse version of Oprah's Book Club”: not one influential person recommending a book to millions, but hundreds of readers recommending it to each other. Hoover herself explains it more simply: “It's not me… Readers decide what sells right now.” In 2023, Time magazine included her in its list of the 100 most influential people in the world.
An attempt to create lightness in “total chaos”
Colleen Hoover's novel “Reminders of Him” was published in English in 2022 and tells the story of a young woman named Kenna Rowan. The heroine returns to her hometown after five years in prison: she was serving time for a tragic accident in which her boyfriend, Scotty, died. After her release, Kenna tries to reconnect with her daughter, Diem, who was born while Kenna was incarcerated. But the girl is being raised by Scotty's deceased parents, who want nothing to do with her mother.
Kenna returns to a place where she is blamed for the tragedy and where almost everyone has decided to keep her at a distance, despite her attempts to prove she has changed. The heroine herself understands the risk of returning and says it will “either fix me or destroy me completely.”
The plot revolves around the relationship between Kenna and Ledger Ward — a bar owner and the best friend of the deceased Scotty. He becomes the only person who doesn't shut the door in her face and remains her last link to her daughter. Their relationship develops against a backdrop of conflict: Ledger hated Kenna for years, blaming her for his friend's death, but gradually begins to see her attempts to change her life and reconnect with her child. In the book, their feelings are accompanied by a constant internal dilemma: if others find out about their connection, it could cost both of them any chance of being part of the girl's life.
The story is very sentimental, but it has many strange gaps. For instance, Ledger doesn't recognize Kenna when she returns from prison. He supposedly never saw his best friend's girlfriend in person — only in photos. According to him, she changed a lot during her five years in prison. Ledger's motivation regarding Diem is also not revealed. He lives in the house across from Scotty's parents, spends a lot of time with the girl, and becomes something between a father and a kind uncle to her. Why a young man under thirty would need this is not explained in the text.
A feature of the novel is its narrative form, which includes Kenna's letters to the deceased Scotty. Through them, her experiences, guilt, and desire to see her daughter are revealed. In one letter, she reflects on the unfairness of circumstances:
Life is a very cruel thing and chooses for itself whom to destroy. You're given any kind of shitty circumstances, and society declares that you too can achieve the American Dream. It just forgets to add that dreams almost never come true.
The novel itself arose during the pandemic: Hoover was trying to write a romantic comedy because, as she said, 2020 was “total chaos” and she wanted to create something light. However, during the process, she decided to embrace her own emotions and admitted: “I think I ended up writing the saddest book of all.” As a result, the book became a story about guilt, forgiveness, and the attempt to regain a lost family.
“Hollywood releases too few romantic dramas”
The film adaptation of the novel “Reminders of Him” was released this week. The film was directed by Vanessa Caswill from a screenplay written by Hoover herself along with her producing partner, Lauren Levine. The film stars Maika Monroe, Tyrik Withers, Rudy Pankow, Lauren Graham, and Bradley Whitford, as well as singer Lainey Wilson, for whom this was her film debut. The premiere took place on March 9, 2026, in Los Angeles, and on March 13, Universal Pictures released the film worldwide.
According to the aggregator Rotten Tomatoes, about 60% of critics gave the film positive ratings, while Metacritic assigned it a score of 50 out of 100, corresponding to “mixed or average reviews.”
The project was officially announced in the fall of 2024, when Universal Pictures reported the start of work on the novel's adaptation. Hoover and Levine not only wrote the screenplay but also served as producers alongside Gina Matthews. For the writer, this marked a new stage. "'Reminders of Him' is the first film whose screenplay I wrote myself," she noted, explaining that previously she had only observed adaptations of her books. According to her, early in her career she readily sold the rights to her books because “it was just exciting to get an offer: 'Someone wants to buy this? Take it and make something good.'" Later, Hoover decided to participate more actively in production and began developing projects through her own company, Heartbones Entertainment.
Filming took place in Canada: the main production period began on April 16, 2025, in Calgary and ended on June 12. Hoover was present on set and participated in the editing work. The film's composer was Tom Howe.
An interesting detail relates to the writer's cameo: actor Tyrik Withers joked during an interview that viewers would see Hoover on screen, but she explained this was impossible. “I often make cameos because readers love it, but this time I couldn't — I didn't have a work visa for Canada," Colleen said in one interview.
The film is part of a broader wave of adaptations of Hoover's works. Following the films “It Ends with Us” and “Regretting You," studios began actively adapting her books for the screen, and “Reminders of Him” became one of the next projects. Exhibitor Relations analyst Jeff Bock explained the industry's interest by noting that “Hollywood releases too few romantic dramas for adult audiences. The audience exists, but there isn't enough content," and it is precisely Hoover's adaptations that fill this niche. The writer herself noted that the films also impact the book market: “Every time an adaptation comes out, book sales increase. People say: 'I'm going to see the movie. Have you read the book?'"
Publisher: Eksmo
Translation from English: Anna Byalko
Number of pages: 384
Year: 2025
*Age rating: 18+*
Yekaterina Petrova is a literary columnist for the online newspaper Realnoe Vremya and hosts the Telegram channel «Булочки с маком».