Dear Colleen: Please Touch Grass

This is my official petition for Colleen Hoover to throw her computer away and do something else. Maybe real estate. She has no problem selling toxic men to people, so selling malfunctioning homes should be a breeze. 

I read Colleen Hoover's newest novel “Woman Down.” I didn’t want to. But I felt I had to, for all of humanity. 

“Woman Down” follows Petra Rose, a famed author, who is struggling with a writing block after a movie adaptation of one of her novels receives criticism. To help work through the writing block, she goes to her writing cabin. 

To note, she is currently writing a novel about a lawyer named Reya who starts an affair with a married police officer named Cam. 

Petra is struggling to write because she has never been in a love triangle before. While writing, her friend jokingly tells her to try method writing.

Well what do you know, the first night at her cabin, a police officer shows up because of a suicide that happened on the road near her cabin. The police officer, Nathaniel Saint, gives her his card and says he’ll be in touch. Petra sees a wedding ring. Petra is down bad immediately, already picturing him as the officer in her novel, Cam. 

The next day, the officer comes over to take a statement. Petra and Saint talk about her novel, and Petra alludes that she might need to experience a love triangle and an affair to write it. Saint is all too happy to oblige and falls into the role of Cam and kisses her. 

As the novel goes on, Petra and Saint role play as her characters, Reya and Cam, starting a “romance.” Saint starts to get too into character. One night he breaks into the cabin, and ties her up. She is furious and terrified. Saint was confused because he thought she was asking for it. And she gaslights herself thinking maybe she did tell him that she wanted it. 

Anyway, this miscommunication gets solved and they continue their little role playing game. Her writing block is fixed. Problem solved. 

Except it’s not.

One day, Petra gets a surprise. Her husband and her two young kids show up to the cabin. That is right, Petra is married. This is not once alluded to. Genuinely out of nowhere. Her husband and children arrive about half way through the novel. Not once before is any mention of them. Petra doesn’t feel guilty at all until they actually show up on page. 

When they arrive, Petra quickly texts Saint to not come over that day saying that her husband and kids showed up. 

Petra and her husband, Shepard, have been struggling. Money problems have been causing issues. Petra is finding her husband predictable and boring so she starts to imagine him as Saint instead. 

There are so many plot twists that are just thrust into the story. With suspense or mystery novels, I feel like the reader should be given clues—however minute—to piece the story together. This was not the case in this story. The twists come up suddenly, out of thin air.  Not sure if she knows about this little thing called foreshadowing. 

There are five major plot twists- four of which occur practically back to back.

Plot twist #1: Petra is married with kids.

Plot twist #2: Saint is actually not married and never has been.

Plot twist #3: The suicide that brought Saint to Petra’s door did not happen. Saint set it up to look like it had.

Plot twist #4: Saint is not a cop at all. He is a screen writer who has been following Petra’s career for years.

Plot twist #5: It was Petra’s best friend who told him to go to the cabin as a cop to help Petra write. 

More unhinged events happen throughout the rest of the novel which leads to Saint and Petra having a falling out. But by the end of the book, they make plans to meet at the writing cabin, presumably to resume their role playing affair.

What I can’t get over is the fact that no one suffered any consequences for their actions. Shepard never found out about the cheating, Saint got away with lying about his life and breaking into the cabin, 

In the grand scheme of things, the writing was not terrible. It was just fine. But I found the pacing to be too slow at the beginning, too fast in the end. It was like going from 25 to 100 within a few pages. Colleen Hoover writes like she thinks her audience is stupid. Everything has to be explained from character emotions to the plot. I don’t need everything explained to me. I can figure out that Petra would be terrified after being tied up by a strange man without her saying she is terrified. 

I’m going to just say; avoid Colleen Hoover books. Don’t waste your time, money, or mind. There are better books out there.