10 Ways to Say “This Novel Isn’t What You Think”
By Kathryn Craft | February 21, 2025 |
photo adapted / Horia Varlan
After a string of heavy reads last fall, I wanted to get swept away in some pure entertainment. I figured the light pink, flowery cover of the 2016 mega-seller by a romance author I hadn’t yet read would fit the bill.
Colleen Hoover’s It Ends with Us did not deliver on the promise of its cover. While the opening did offer a familiar boy-meets-girl moment, I was denied the escapism I sought when the plot evolved toward domestic abuse. Despite the genre switch-up, Hoover did deliver a story that “powerfully illustrates the devastation of abuse—and the strength of the survivors,” as its starred Kirkus review claimed.
This critical three-star Amazon review, though, from reader KieraAnne, speaks to the point of this post:
It didn’t really happen like you’d think. There weren’t TONS of red flags she was ignoring (although there were several), so the first time, it really caught you off guard. It was so much later in the story than I expected that, as a reader, I had grown complacent, so it was shocking when it happened, just as it was to Lily. It was easy to see why someone would explain it away and move forward with the relationship.
KieraAnne knew what to expect then forgot to be looking for it; I expected one thing and got another. These results interest me since misguided assumptions about the nature of a novel can often result in a negative review—and yet to date, this novel has an average of 4.7 stars on Amazon with more than 390,000 ratings. How did Hoover pull this off?
She began on page one.
A reader will seek immediate genre clues for reassurance that this will be the kind of book they like. These clues are often subtle, but their cumulative effect establishes a psychological through line that will help the reader keep wheels on the road when negotiating the unexpected turn ahead.
Let’s look at ten of the ways Hoover forewarned her readers, right in the first chapter, of the darkness to come.
1
She worked the word “suicide” into her opening sentence.
As I sit here with one foot on either side of the ledge, looking down from twelve stories above the streets of Boston, I can’t help but think about suicide.
To instill faith in her female protagonist, Hoover quickly assures us that her character likes her life just fine—she’s thinking about the potentially bad decisions other people make while seeking fresh air and silence on a rooftop. Suicide won’t even be a plot point—but an unsettling seed has been planted.
2
We learn that this woman couldn’t think of anything nice to say about her father while eulogizing him earlier that day. Hmm. Why? By allowing her reader to sit with this question, Hoover colors the interaction to come.
3
Then the protagonist lays some emotional track that, in retrospect, will feel loaded. “I didn’t account for how cold it would be up here, though. It’s not unbearable, but it’s not comfortable, either.” Then in the next paragraph: “I love it when the sky makes me feel insignificant.”
4
The romantic lead makes this memorable entrance: “But unfortunately for me, the door was just shoved open so hard, I expect the stairwell to spit a human out onto the rooftop. The door slams shut again and footsteps move swiftly across the deck.” When he leans over the railing as if “on the verge of having a breakdown,” and then spins around and kicks a patio chair over and over, the as-yet-unseen protagonist envies him “taking his aggression out on a patio chair like a champ.” She recalls seeing her father do the same thing once.
5
Character description: He finally turns toward her and she sees that he’s “beautiful.” When he speaks, her first thought is, “I feel his voice in my stomach. That’s not good.” Later, when she asks aloud, “So what did that chair do to make you so angry,” he stares at her with the “darkest eyes she’s ever seen” and an “intimidating presence.” When she asks if it’s because a woman had broken his heart, he chuckles and says, “If only my issues were as trivial as matters of the heart.”
6
After he requests that she please get off the ledge, we know the man foresees danger the woman does not; someone had fallen from that roof last month.
7
Character naming: Her name is Lily Blossom Bloom. His name is Ryle.
8
As they get to know each other, Ryle asks Lily for a “naked truth”—something that will make him feel “a little less screwed up on the inside.” Lily confesses that her father abused her mother and that she has hated him her whole life for being such a bad person. Ryle defends her father with this inclusive language: “There’s no such thing as bad people. We’re all just people who sometimes do bad things.”
9
Offering a “naked truth” in exchange, Ryle, a neurosurgeon, says he’s on the roof because he saw a boy die today—and earns Lily’s empathy with a story about a little boy who is now dead because he and his brother found a gun in their father’s room that went off by accident. Later, we’ll learn this is a lie. The only naked truth is Ryle’s knowledge that something like that would scar the older brother for life.
10
Ryle himself suggests this will not be a love story. “Love has never appealed to me. It’s always been more of a burden than anything.” Lily, on the other hand, doesn’t see the point in starting anything that doesn’t point toward a future.
These hints may seem obvious when listed together, but Hoover’s mad skill was the way she wove them into a scene that still comes across as a 25-page-long come-on. Despite Lily’s insistence that she doesn’t want a one-night stand, Ryle keeps making slow, calculated advances—which are terminated by a phone call at chapter’s end. The reader, with heightened senses left ragged, will read on to see how this mismatched couple gets together. We want to watch them heal each other. Et voilà—the reader is complicit in laying the psychological foundation for a story of abuse.
This isn’t beginner-level craft. This is Us was Hoover’s 23rd novel. She’s picked up a few tricks. One of them, clearly, is this ability to manage reader expectation so that even though you are a well-known romance writer, you can write a story about abuse without losing your reader.
We can learn from her example. For most of us, this kind of considered foreshadowing will be consciously applied in revision—even the writer needs to know how the story is going to turn out before going back to plant the right clues. This may not have been the case for Hoover, who describes this novel as her most personal, since the relationship between Lily and Ryle is based on the abuse in their own parents’ marriage. Once you’re fully steeped in your story and know where it’s heading, it’s more likely that such clues will arise from your subconscious mind—but then, in revision, it’s up to you to make good use of them.
If you’ve read Hoover’s novel, did you pick up on these “genre shading” clues? Could your novel benefit from these same techniques? And if you’re writing your first novel, have you thought about how to signal its genre to the reader?
Kathryn Craft (she/her) is the author of two novels from Sourcebooks, The Art of Falling and The Far End of Happy. Her forthcoming book, Crafting Story Movement: Techniques to Engage Readers and Drive Your Novel Forward, draws from decades of experience as both a story consultant and a movement specialist/dance critic. Learn more on Kathryn’s website.
[coffee]
Thank you, Kathryn. I appreciate the clues you pointed out that I’m sure I missed when I read the book. I’m hoping my memory retains what you suggested as I edit my own work!
Hi Meg, thanks for your comment. And worry not—the post will still be here when you’re ready to revise!
Kathryn, I’ve not read Colleen Hoover but boy, you have just given us a masterclass in beginnings. Thank you. I’ll be picking this up at the library.
This was my first of Hoover’s as well, Vijaya. I hope you enjoy it!
Great article, Kathryn.
Thanks Cindy! I always appreciate you stopping by.
An incisive analysis, and thanks for using Hoover. She doesn’t get enough credit for her skills.
Thanks Barbara!With this fine introduction, I’ll be reading more of her.
Hello Kathryn. It’s good to see a professional editor analyse aspects of a novel I will never read. Through your eyes, I see how genre novels work, what they rely on to please their readers. This especially hit home with me:
“A reader will seek immediate genre clues for reassurance that this will be the kind of book they like. These clues are often subtle, but their cumulative effect establishes a psychological through line that will help the reader keep wheels on the road when negotiating the unexpected turn ahead.”
This is fascinating to me. Dedicated readers of specific genres expect immediate genre clues, in order to be reassured that the book meets not just general standards, but clues that the book is playing by that genre’s rules. That way, the reader can stay focused (keep the wheels on the road), to be ready for surprises.
Thanks Barry. I use the term “genre” loosely here, as a “type” of story. There really isn’t an “abuse fiction” genre—and if there were, who would say, “Oh I simply devour abuse stories—I love them!” And to simply call it “contemporary fiction” casts too wide a net to offer the assurance the reader seeks. But as a renowned romance author wanting to explore darker complications, Hoover needed to do “something” to signal that intent. As it turned out, she paved her diverging path with “many little somethings.”
I guess, given the size of her readership, you could call it the Colleen Hoover genre.
This is a thoughtful and useful piece, Kathryn. Thanks.
Thanks for reading, Michael
You can do ALL of those things, but if you don’t ALREADY have a huge reader base which will follow you a lot longer through a story that devolves differently from the expectations, and keep reading anyway, INSTEAD of 4.7 ratings, you will get a whole bunch of negative reviews and low ratings and DNFs.
An unknown writer can’t do this – not enough readers will follow to get to the ‘good but different’ parts.
She has calibrated HER readers, and they allow her to stretch them and their understandings.
Nora Roberts has done something similar, stretching the limits of what HER readers will allow as a Romance.
It isn’t for the newbie, no matter how well the newbie writes and plots, because readers won’t buy, read, review, recommend when they’re not satisfied. These pros are taking the fact of their readers’ love as a given. I guess you could call it educational.
You never want to mislead a reader as to the genre of your novel, even if you’re an established author. You’re right, Alicia—that will result in a negative review. The most dangerous thing Hoover’s publisher did in this regard is give her that flowery cover.
But with the right cover and back-cover copy, added to contextual clues in the narrative, even a new author can lead a new reader straight toward the story they want to tell. That’s another topic, but I agree—you need some advanced skills to pull that off.
Kathryn’s column led me to read the sample first chapter of “It Ends with Us,” and wow! Hoover is masterful, IMHO. Unfortunately, while I stand in awe of her as a writer, I found both the characters such unpleasant people (yes, I can tell they’ve suffered, and so I have compassion for them, but I don’t LIKE either of them, and incidentally, I don’t like the name game — “Ryle” — really?)that deals with abuse as well as passion, I would have guessed it was the opening to a gory thriller of the type I particularly do not like. A masterfully plotted and written one, several cuts above the ordinary slam-bang, with interesting psychological twists –but not something I want to read for “pleasure.” So — in short (finally) — without a good blurb or prior knowledge to inform me, I would not have read much past the first couple of pages, let alone purchased this.
Hiya grumpy! It’s absolutely your right to be Ryled, riled, or reviled by these characters. Not every book is for every reader, and Hoover just avoided a negative review by turning you away (see Alica’s comment above). And certainly not everyone reads for pleasure. For me, coming to it cold, the dark undertones transported my expectations of this story from pure entertainment to intrigue as I wondered where it was going. I’m glad you read today, though, as these are useful techniques to keep in mind as you hone the genre expectations for each of your own stories.
I love this kind of close reading! Thank you, Kathryn.
“Close reading”—ha! I guess that finally explains why I’m a slow reader!
What stuck in my mind was feet on either side of the ledge. I was so busy trying and failing to visualise this I really couldn’t concentrate on what followed. Beware distracting your readers!
Great analysis. An odd if not downright misleading cover which readers were obviously able to get past. I’m wondering what Hoover did to get the readers to care about her protagonist in the opening and beyond. How did she overcome detachment when the elements of abuse arrived on the page?