*spoiler-free*
Ugly Love is a heart-breaking love story between Tate Collins and Miles Archer. Whilst it isn’t love at first sight, the two share an undeniable attraction for one another which leads to complicated emotions and situations. Miles is best friend and neighbour to Tate’s brother, Corbin, adding to the complexity of dynamics between the group.
The chapters are largely told from Tate’s perspective in the present day and Miles’ story from 6 years ago. Slowly Miles’ chapters lead up to current events which keep the suspense of the book going. Quite often, Miles’ chapters are written like poetry. This is a little on the nose of the romance theme, and there doesn’t always seem a point to it, but it does break up the book somewhat. Quite a lot of the story told by Miles from 6 years ago actually reminded me of a storyline from Gossip Girl (iykyk) which I found quite interesting as it embodied the theme of ugly love very well but did find a little distracting. However, the content of these chapters did grow on me as it was an effective way to give Miles’ character depth. As his character is so complex, these different chapters allow the reader to feel a variety of emotions towards him from love to hatred.
A common theme with the Colleen Hoover books I have read (such as Verity and It Ends With Us), is how sexual these books get. Ugly Love definitely includes this the most however the second half of the book was definitely more emotional and tied together a lot of things related throughout the book. I did find the plot quite predictable, but it is always satisfying when what you want to happen in a book is played out.
It’s the beautiful moments like these that make up for the ugly love.
p332
After finishing the book and looking at reviews online I saw that the ending was controversial. I quite liked the ending as it seems to wrap up Miles’ storyline in particular well, but it is undeniable that the events escalated very quickly. I couldn’t help but think as well that the whole book could have been avoided if Miles had just gone to therapy, and I’m surprised that none of the characters in the book ever suggested this.
Overall, Ugly Love was an enjoyable read as it was very easy to get through. I always find Hoover’s books especially good for escapism as ultimately you end up feeling all the feels. It was nearly a 5-star read but for me, there were some parts of the book that made me cringe and others where I felt the characters acted so differently compared to how they had been introduced.
I was also intrigued to see that there were plans for a movie to be made for this book. I saw lots of promotions online and a teaser trailer, but these were from years ago and no news since. Whilst it seems like the film is not happening anymore, it was still disappointing to see that the trailer for this film just looked like another 50 Shades of Grey story. I am also not sure why the social media accounts weren’t removed if it was not going ahead?! Regardless, I still liked the book and I’m excited to read more of Hoover’s work.
4/5 stars
Soph's Library 