New York Times best selling author, Colleen Hoover, released her tear-jerking novel “Ugly Love” to bookstores on August 5, 2014.
“Ugly Love” by Colleen Hoover is the story of a hard-working and driven nurse named Tate Collins who decides to live with her brother, Corbin, in his apartment in San Francisco while she is on the lookout for her own apartment. While she is living with him, she gets the attention of his flight attendant best friend, Miles Archer, who also lives in the apartment next door. As the two find themselves becoming closer, Tate knows that it could never be anything more than a no-strings attached relationship because of how closed off Miles is. She isn’t quite sure what or who made him so rigid, but all she wants to do is find out. Once both of their mutual attractions are exposed to each other, they find themselves in the perfect set up to create an arrangement that lets themselves go no farther than just that; an arrangement. As time progresses, Tate begins to fall hard for Miles, even though she knows she can’t go against the rules of their no-strings attached arrangement. But, once she finds out why Miles is the way he is, Tate learns the heartbreaking truth about why they can’t take their arrangement any farther. In this heart-rending and beautiful love story of accepting the hardships of the past, Hoover creates the perfect balance of romance and forgiveness as she tells how two people who have obvious attractions for one another become something so much more than just attraction.
Although this story has its ups and downs of creating a true love relationship between the two characters, by the end of the novel, Hoover finally gave readers what they had been dying for. Throughout the course of the novel, all Tate and Miles strictly had was a physical relationship, where they agreed emotions would never get in the way. But, as predicted, emotions did indeed get in the way, especially for Tate. As Tate begins to express her new-found emotions to Miles, he finally lets her in on the truth of why he can’t open his heart to love. Once she knows the information she had been wanting to know the entirety of their arrangement, Tate gives Miles the time he needed to heal and forgive himself of his hardships of the past. Finally, towards the end chapters of one of Hoover’s all time greats, Miles finally opens his heart to Tate and lets her heal the wounds of his past. Readers and fans of Hoover went crazy over this famous love story, and it begins to grow in sales all these years later.
Another beautiful asset of this novel was the way Colleen portrayed forgiveness. For most of the novel, Miles was brought on to be this self-centered and stand-offish character–at least until he met Tate. Hoover put Tate in Miles’s life, so he was able to forgive himself from his burdens of the past. Tate was able to show Miles that in life, it is okay to accept the bad things that happened to him when he was young. She showed him that the only way to be able to love another person again after traumatic events was to be able to love himself again. With that being added into the novel, readers were able to learn some pretty valuable and beautiful life lessons through the entirety of the novel. That is why this novel was so special to so many people, especially people who related to the storyline.
In all, “Ugly Love” by Colleen Hoover was one of the most heartbreaking and beautiful love stories of all time. There truly is no other story like this one that portrays love and forgiveness so well in just one story. The way Hoover showed the character growth and maturity of Miles throughout the novel is certainly unmatched and just like no other. This novel was absolutely adored by fans and critics so much that it brought Colleen Hoover to be one of the best romance novelists ever. It is recommended for ages 16 and up, and receives a worthy 5 star rating. It definitely showcases Colleen Hoover’s greatest strengths in her writing.
