To Fill Up & Live | Ugly Love

Title: Ugly Love

Author: Colleen Hoover

Publication: 2014

Major Character(s): Tate and Miles

Main Plot: Tate, fresh out of university and starting grad school, has little time to dedicate to a relationship. So it seems like a blessing when she meets Miles, who is the definition of emotionally unavailable, and the two decide to engage in a purely physical relationship instead. But things are never really that simple, are they?

Favorite Lines:
"God gives us the ugliness so we don't take the beautiful things in life for granted."

"Some people they grow wiser as they grow older. Unfortunately, most people just grow older."

"She's like poetry. Like prose and love letters and lyrics, cascading down the center of a page."

My Rating: 4.7

Confession: I'm a skimmer. Well not habitually but sometimes I'll start reading a new book by skimming it first, just flipping the pages. First thing I noticed about Ugly Love was the switching of point of view between the two main characters and how Miles' chapters were set six years earlier and the prose was formatted strangely. And I groaned because I just knew I was going to hate it. Lies! It was my favorite! I loved Miles chapters. They read like a diary. No more than that. The lovely 'stream of consciousness' writing flowed like the lyrics to a song, bopping along to a melody only Miles could hear. And what makes me love it even more is that it fits his mentality and feelings perfectly, and is surely something Hoover intended and it's perfect!

So it's fair to say that I really enjoyed Hoover's writing style. I also really liked the story! Truthfully, I was surprised by the existence of a storyline - Fifty Shades of Grey really set the bar low for storylines in New Adult books for me - and that said storyline was actually laid out and executed very well. And I enjoyed the sexy times immensely. Am I allowed to say that? Does it make you completely uncomfortable to read that? Oh, well. I did! And you'd be hard-pressed (hehe, a pun!) to find someone who can say they didn't. I found that Hoover used sex as a mechanism to display how either a relationship was developing or falling apart. It never felt arbitrary and so it felt less like reading soft-core porn.

I also really loved Hoover's characters (especially Cap!). Don't get me wrong, I had issues with every single one of them and found myself getting frustrated with their decisions. But I still liked them, which to me is the true test of characters and their development. If I like a character or can really appreciate their story arch - if I care about what happens to them -, then an author has truly done her job. Hoover's characters are believable and feel very real. I get them and their motivation, despite whether I agree with their choices or not. (As my dear Kristen would say, some things were just unforgivable.) My heart felt for Miles while truly understanding Tate. I wanted happiness for them both and found myself rooting for them less than 30 pages into the novel. And most of all, I loved that they both developed throughout the story. Every character in Ugly Love ended up different and, I would argue, better people on the other side of things.

Overall, I'm so glad this was our book choice this month. It was love-related without being too lovey-dovey and it managed to be a heart-warming story despite the heavier topics it handled. It was a quick read because I constantly wanted to know what happened next as I was so invested in the story from the very beginning, only coming up for air after the final page.  If you're into contemporary reads and don't mind a little lust in the pages of your novel, definitely pick this one up!

Did you read along with us this month? Any thoughts on Ugly Love? Link up your review below and of course, let me know what you thought in the comments below.



Also, do you regularly read New Adult books? If so, I'd like some suggestions as this genre is relatively new to me.  

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March's book is Love Lucy by April Lindner. 

During her summer in Florence, Italy, Lucy finds herself falling in love with all the the city has to offer - all of it. Once she returns home, she finds out that moving on from an experience like that is easier said than done. We hope you'll read along with us and join us in reviewing Love Lucy on Tuesday, April 7th!