Release Blitz and Reviews: Regretting You: Colleen Hoover
Regretting You
Colleen Hoover
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Release Date December 10, 2019
From #1 New York Times bestselling author of It Ends with Us comes a poignant novel about family, first love, grief, and betrayal that will touch the hearts of both mothers and daughters.
Morgan Grant and her sixteen-year-old daughter, Clara, would like nothing more than to be nothing alike.
Morgan is determined to prevent her daughter from making the same mistakes she did. By getting pregnant and married way too young, Morgan put her own dreams on hold. Clara doesn’t want to follow in her mother’s footsteps. Her predictable mother doesn’t have a spontaneous bone in her body.
With warring personalities and conflicting goals, Morgan and Clara find it increasingly difficult to coexist. The only person who can bring peace to the household is Chris—Morgan’s husband, Clara’s father, and the family anchor. But that peace is shattered when Chris is involved in a tragic and questionable accident. The heartbreaking and long-lasting consequences will reach far beyond just Morgan and Clara.
While struggling to rebuild everything that crashed around them, Morgan finds comfort in the last person she expects to, and Clara turns to the one boy she’s been forbidden to see. With each passing day, new secrets, resentment, and misunderstandings make mother and daughter fall further apart. So far apart, it might be impossible for them to ever fall back together.
I went into this blindly without reading the blurb so I am going to try to be spoiler-free. I was not sure in the first couple of chapters where it was going, but boy did it take me on a tumultuous journey. This spans seventeen years and many changes. It is about loss, harsh reality, first love, family, secrets, and how messy and complicated life can be.It features Morgan and her teen daughter, Clara, and we get both of their points-of-view. Morgan's life was changed years ago due to circumstances and she has been a stay-at-home wife and mother without much else to give her purpose. She is predictable and dependable, but unfulfilled. Clara feels overprotected and misunderstood at times. And she is just starting to entertain the idea that a boy she is crushing on might like her too. They have a close extended family that spends a lot of time together.
When they are faced with something that rocks their world to the core, they are both lost in grief, guilt, anger, and pain. There are layers of secrets and betrayals that Morgan is just realizing while wanting to protect her daughter. And they both have trouble communicating their own feelings, pain, and misplaced guilt. But due to the intense feelings of them both, they end up fighting more than supporting each other. The changing dynamics and hidden feelings they are each struggling with just seem to keep putting up more walls between them.
It is about the mother and daughter relationship and trying to regain trust and healing while also figuring out who they want to be. But it is also about two love stories and the power of connections and the possibility of soul mates. I loved the two major male leads. They were also both struggling with personal issues themselves and also trying to be there for Morgan and Clara. But the situations are complicated and at times added to the tension and infighting. But I adored their capacity for love and acceptance, and how they knew what they wanted even if they were not sure it was even a possibility.
It shows how the truth, no matter how painful, is better than lies. Humans have faults and make mistakes, but sometimes the only way to move on is to forgive. This book is so emotional and so realistic. The characters and all of their dynamic relationships are so well developed. I felt everything they did along the way...the good, the bad, and the ugly. Though there is a lot of pain, there is also humor, hope, healing, and romance. And I left it with a smile on my face and a repaired heart.
I am still thinking about this book a day later. It is definitely one of my top favorites of 2019 and one of Colleen Hoover's most powerful works.
My habit with Colleen’s books is to go into them with as blind as I can. I hadn’t even read the full synopsis before I started so it took me a few chapters to get a feel for where the book was going.
Morgan and Clara are mother and daughter facing devastating grief and life changes they never expected. Even before tragedy struck, they were each questioning in their own way. Morgan was feeling stagnant. Spending her life as a wife and mother, she was feeling like she didn’t know who she was anymore outside of her duties at home. Clara feels stifled by her parents’ rules and her desire for more independence. She isn’t going to make the same mistakes her parents did, so she doesn’t understand why they won’t let her make her own decisions.
Spanning seventeen years, narrated by mother and daughter, this was a very different “romance.” There are elements of romance in each woman’s storyline, and they are great, but what makes Regretting You stand out is the relationship between Morgan and Clara. Raising teenagers is difficult enough without major life events throwing massive amounts of grief, guilt, and confusion into the mix. These two have a lot going on at once, and how they handle it only serves to stress that hiding secrets only leads to more misunderstanding.
The male leads in both generations are dealing with their own upheaval as well. I loved the way each generation faced challenges that fit not only their age/stage of life, but drive the story along and keep the pages turning. I loved both of these guys for different reasons, and while there were times the teenagers made me roll my eyes (as only one who has lived through the teenage years and lived to reflect on them can), but even as the angst was high it was still perfect for the story.
From the very first page, this story pulled me in and kept me thinking. I am always amazed at Colleen’s ability to write contemporary with something fresh every single time. This one had me reflecting on a lot of things in life including my relationship with my mother during my teenage years, and my relationship with my own teenager. Regretting You is filled with so many layers and so much authentic feeling!
Morgan and Clara are mother and daughter facing devastating grief and life changes they never expected. Even before tragedy struck, they were each questioning in their own way. Morgan was feeling stagnant. Spending her life as a wife and mother, she was feeling like she didn’t know who she was anymore outside of her duties at home. Clara feels stifled by her parents’ rules and her desire for more independence. She isn’t going to make the same mistakes her parents did, so she doesn’t understand why they won’t let her make her own decisions.
Spanning seventeen years, narrated by mother and daughter, this was a very different “romance.” There are elements of romance in each woman’s storyline, and they are great, but what makes Regretting You stand out is the relationship between Morgan and Clara. Raising teenagers is difficult enough without major life events throwing massive amounts of grief, guilt, and confusion into the mix. These two have a lot going on at once, and how they handle it only serves to stress that hiding secrets only leads to more misunderstanding.
The male leads in both generations are dealing with their own upheaval as well. I loved the way each generation faced challenges that fit not only their age/stage of life, but drive the story along and keep the pages turning. I loved both of these guys for different reasons, and while there were times the teenagers made me roll my eyes (as only one who has lived through the teenage years and lived to reflect on them can), but even as the angst was high it was still perfect for the story.
From the very first page, this story pulled me in and kept me thinking. I am always amazed at Colleen’s ability to write contemporary with something fresh every single time. This one had me reflecting on a lot of things in life including my relationship with my mother during my teenage years, and my relationship with my own teenager. Regretting You is filled with so many layers and so much authentic feeling!
So much angst but oh so good!
Regretting You is raw. It is reality. It is grief and healing. It is young love and old love. It is secrets. It is spiraling out of control. It is keeping your composure and sacrificing. It is rebellion. It is consequences. It is tragedy. It is betrayal. It is friendships. It is truths. It is learning to live again. It is growth.
All of this made for an emotional wreck. A roller-coaster ride of turmoil and realism. But mixed in with all that strife was a mother and daughter learning to navigate a new set of rules. A new relationship. A new dimension.
Regretting You is everything this girl didn't even know she needed and more.
I will say I had a small issue. There was a certain part I wanted more of. Not because the author didn't give closure. Because she did. The character got the exact closure she needed; one that CoHo felt was vital. No this closure was for me. I am a nosy bitch, and I wanted answers. There were too many questions. Too many what ifs and what the hells. I wanted to know exactly what happened. I didn't need this closure for any of the characters. The closure they got allowed them to move on to the future they needed. I wanted these answers just for my nosy and selfish self.
Even with that small thing, I would definitely recommend this CoHo book.
Colleen Hoover is the #1 New York Times and International bestselling author of thirteen novels and multiple novellas. She lives in Texas with her husband and their three boys. She is the founder of The Bookworm Box, a non-profit book subscription service and bookstore in Sulphur Springs, Texas.
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