[Annmarie’s Review] Regretting You by Colleen Hoover

Regretting You
by Colleen Hoover
Pages: 365
Release Date: December 10, 2019
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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 know many Hoover fans may disagree with me, but Regretting You wasn’t my all time favorite by the epic Coho. I was was a huge fan of her last two releases Verity and All Your Perfects and this one just didn’t do it for me. This one didn’t evoke as many emotions and tears as I was anticipating, especially because of the themes of infidelity, mother and daughter relationships, and grief. Which honesty is a lot to throw all in one book. This book had the feels of Without Merit which also was not one of my favorites by Hoover, and maybe its because YA is not my favorite Genre.

Like all Coho books it was beautifully written and a very easy read. The topic of grief was portrayed through two separate points of view, three actually, the Mother Morgan, Clara, and Jonah. I found the daughter Clara hard to connect with because of the way she handled her grief and the situation at hand, but I did feel connection to the mother Morgan. I do wish however Colleen had gone deeper into both characters. It felt like there were so many pieces to these characters puzzle and it felt like there were some missing pieces in the story.

Regretting You also had a little bit of romance which I did enjoy. I found the way that Clara handled her relationship with Miller a bit amusing. There was a lot of back and forth, a few mistakes, but ultimately Miller was kind and patient and was there for Clara when she needed him most. I was happy with how things eventually turned out for the mother Morgan. I don’t want to spoil it, but she eventually does start to find herself and her voice. I just wished there was a little more.

Overall, it I did enjoy the story. It definitely has some twists and turns I wasn’t expecting but I just wish I had connected to the characters a little more. Colleen was dealing with a lot of subjects in this story and I think there will be a lot of people that can relate to one of the subjects.