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A review by rowena_reads_a_book
Ugly Love by Colleen Hoover
5.0
Two words: Emotional and Damage!
When Tate moves in with her brother, love isn't on her mind. Saving money and finding a place of her own is. That is until she finds Miles Archer passed out in front of her brother's apartment door. The attraction between the two is instant. The chemistry is there. There's just one problem: Miles doesn't want a relationship, he just wants sex. Tate agrees and the two set out rules. Rule One: don't expect a future. And Rule Two: Tate must never ask about his past.
I did not expect the story that Hoover tells. I expected a simple contemporary romance where Tate and Miles fall in love, that he's got a past he has to hide and Tate is desperate to find out. While on the surface that is exactly what Ugly Love is, it was so much more. Its a story of grief and healing, especially for Miles and that's what I loved about this story. The tragedy in his past is something he can't get over, he doesn't want to love again because of this pain, and Tate is offering him tiny glimpses of what it's like to be alive again.
One thing I absolutely adored about this book was Hoover's style of writing. While Tate's point of view is purely prose, Miles is written in verse to convey just how happy and how high he was on love in his past. Hoover shows a very clever use of white space during these chapters, splitting words up and making them fall down the page, playing with font size and punctuation. It's just so beautifully clever. It's so articulate about portraying the fever dream of being in love and personal tragedy.
The ending is bittersweet: there's all this pain and turmoil in Miles's past that the future he's faced with, he's completely terrified to look at until he does. And in that moment Miles heals. He realises that the moments of sadness will be just that: moments. The ending reminded me of The Secret Garden, at the end of the film when Mary's uncle, Lord Craven tells her that she's "brought them back to life." That is exactly what Tate does for Miles and its just so lovely.
Honestly, when I think back on all the books I've read this year, I think this has to be my favourite so far.
When Tate moves in with her brother, love isn't on her mind. Saving money and finding a place of her own is. That is until she finds Miles Archer passed out in front of her brother's apartment door. The attraction between the two is instant. The chemistry is there. There's just one problem: Miles doesn't want a relationship, he just wants sex. Tate agrees and the two set out rules. Rule One: don't expect a future. And Rule Two: Tate must never ask about his past.
I did not expect the story that Hoover tells. I expected a simple contemporary romance where Tate and Miles fall in love, that he's got a past he has to hide and Tate is desperate to find out. While on the surface that is exactly what Ugly Love is, it was so much more. Its a story of grief and healing, especially for Miles and that's what I loved about this story. The tragedy in his past is something he can't get over, he doesn't want to love again because of this pain, and Tate is offering him tiny glimpses of what it's like to be alive again.
One thing I absolutely adored about this book was Hoover's style of writing. While Tate's point of view is purely prose, Miles is written in verse to convey just how happy and how high he was on love in his past. Hoover shows a very clever use of white space during these chapters, splitting words up and making them fall down the page, playing with font size and punctuation. It's just so beautifully clever. It's so articulate about portraying the fever dream of being in love and personal tragedy.
The ending is bittersweet: there's all this pain and turmoil in Miles's past that the future he's faced with, he's completely terrified to look at until he does. And in that moment Miles heals. He realises that the moments of sadness will be just that: moments. The ending reminded me of The Secret Garden, at the end of the film when Mary's uncle, Lord Craven tells her that she's "brought them back to life." That is exactly what Tate does for Miles and its just so lovely.
Honestly, when I think back on all the books I've read this year, I think this has to be my favourite so far.