Ugly Love: An addictive friends-with-benefits romance from the author of global sensation VERITY

Ugly Love is a beautifully written and deeply moving story that completely pulled at my heartstrings. The plot is gripping and the characters feel painfully real. Their story is raw and at times utterly heartbreaking. My heart ached for Tate as she fell for Miles, even after he warned her he couldn’t love her back. I adored Miles too, though there were moments I wanted to step into the book and shake him for the hurt he caused, however unintentionally. I loved the dual POVs, especially Miles’ chapters that shift between past and present, slowly revealing why he is the way he is. Tate’s unlikely friendship with Cap, the 80 year old lift attendant, was another highlight: tender, gentle, and unexpectedly beautiful. This book is equal parts heart‑warming and gut‑wrenching, and it will leave you with both happy and sad tears. It’s definitely not one to overlook.

I'll start my review with a confession - I'm a Colleen Hoover fan. A big one. Huge in fact. I've loved all the books she has written up until now, with each one making me think "wow, that's her best book yet. I love these characters" and "It doesn't get any better than this". And therein lies my problem. My fear in fact, that at some point, I'm going to pick up her new book and just think "oh", that I'm going to be disappointed, feel that I'm missing the intensity of Hopeless, the character connection of Slammed or the romance of Maybe Someday. No one is capable of writing novel after novel that just keep getting better and better, right? Wrong. In my opinion, Ugly Love is Colleen Hoover's best book to date. I was instantly drawn to the characters, wanted to find out more of their story and share their emotions with them as I turned every page of this incredible book. It is an utterly beautiful story. Let me try to explain why I love it so much... We already know from the book's blurb that Miles Archer is not your typical Hoover lead character. Not looking for love, with a ban on questions regarding his past and promising no future HEA, he's hardly Prince Charming material and could, in all honesty, come across as cold, clinical and somewhat heartless. The genius of the book is the balance you get with the alternating chapters. We skip effortlessly between present day, told from our female lead Tate's POV, to chapters written from an eighteen year old Miles, some six years previously. It is in these flashback chapters that we meet the real Miles. This warm, open, loveable, heart-on-his-sleeve eighteen year old, who is so ready to give and receive love, shows us that deep down, present day Miles is not the cold, emotionless character we have been led to believe. Given that Miles was once such an incredibly warm and loving guy, we can only speculate that something unbearably painful must have happened for him to close down emotionally in the way he has. It is this fact that draws you to the character, and keeps us with him throughout the book. I found myself reading the present day chapters, hoping against hope that glimpses of the old Miles would shine through, and of course, every now and then they did, before he would catch himself and reign himself in. As much as I loved the flashback chapters and the joy of seeing such a loveable, poetic side to Miles, I must confess, I read them with a growing sense of dread as I waited to find out just what could have happened in his life to change him so drastically. I loved Miles, I truly did, but there were also times when I was so mad at him for the, albeit unintentional, pain he put Tate through. Tate Collins is a fantastic character. Independent, kind, warm and fun, we get to see all sides of her via her various relationships, be it her good humoured, sibling bickering with Corbin or her hilarious and touching interactions with Cap (seriously, who writes the BFF for their female lead as an 80 year old male lift attendant?! Genius!!) to her intense attraction to the dark and moody Miles. Tate is an every girl and I think this is why we love her. From the moment the connection is made with Miles and the ground rules are laid out, you hope that she will be able to follow them without getting emotionally attached and hurt but you fear that may prove impossible. I think sometimes we try to kid ourselves. Hold an internal chat that says "this is going to be fine, we can do this" whereas deep down, we know we are lying to ourselves. This is why Tate is so real to me and where I think Colleen's writing excels. The hurt, embarrassment and anguish you feel for Tate during this book is so brilliantly observed and wonderfully written, that your heart breaks for her again and again. I fully expect some readers will criticise Tate's character for being weak, but I think she's far from that. I just find her reactions so true to life. Now I agree, in real life, if Tate were my best friend, and she told me all about her relationship with Miles, I would be advising her to run for the hills, to find someone more deserving of her love and to move on. However, come on, we've all been there, haven't we? When you are the person in the relationship, it is not so easy to just detach your emotions and follow the cold, logical path, is it? We would be robots if that were the case. People make their own decisions, right or wrong, based on emotion and feelings, and that's the type of character I want to read about in my novels, not someone who behaves as though they live their life following The Optimum Relationship Guide for Dummies manual. I really do not want to give away much of the actual storyline, so I'll say no more about how the book unfolds. I will just say this story has a different feel to it from other Colleen Hoover books. It's a little darker, not containing quite the amount of humour we've seen in her other books although there are light moments, particularly involving the brilliant Cap. It's certainly sexier without being unnecessarily graphic. Even in her sex scenes, there's a wonderful truth to how she writes. I mean honestly, how often in other stories have you read that the hero "rips off" the girl's panties and though "Really? What were they made of, paper? I'm quite sure mine wouldn't give way so easily without first doing an impression of a cheese cutter slicing through a lump of Cheddar", so I love her for injecting some humour into that scene. Ugly Love is a gorgeous book that both broke my heart and had me crying with joy. Emotional, poetic, gut-wrenching, beautiful and oh so real, it goes to the very top of my favourite books of 2014 list.

I was curious enough to download this book after watching the teaser trailer starring Nick Bateman as Miles Archer. It left me SO conflicted. Part of me wanted to love it and another part of me wanted to tear it to shreds. I finished it yesterday and I'm still torn over how I feel about it. If I read it with my heart I think I'd love it, but I couldn't leave my head at the door and that pulled me in a different direction. I'd never read any of Hoover's books before, so the writing style was a complete surprise to me. I'm going to put my hand up to the fact that I'd assumed she was like dozens of other writers in this field, but I was pleasantly surprised. Her writing is both lyrical and conceptual and I really loved that about it. I loved the way she plays with ideas of liquid and solid and describes the irresistible draw between two people who are that attracted to each other. It seduced my brain in ways it hasn't been since I last read something by Tiffany Reisz. I loved Tate as a lead character. Despite her helplessness in the face of her feelings, she's strong and vibrant and sassy in a lot of ways. She's no vapid doormat. She knows her mind and she's okay with who she is, despite her moments of vulnerability. I liked that she could see Miles' behaviour as unfair and she even mentions red flags a couple of times in the book and that gives her extra credit as far as I'm concerned. I was emotionally engaged with her and rooting for her. Her internal turmoil is both painful and realistic and absorbing. I liked that she didn't judge anyone (except Dillon, who totally deserved it) and her friendship with Cap is one of the best threads throughout the story. The cast of supporting characters are also really good. Dillon is superbly and shamelessly creepy. Corbin is a typical big brother and his character rings as truly authentic. I know this because my brother was exactly the same and I didn't date for 9 years. 9 YEARS. Thanks Stuart. Really. Thanks. *facepalm*. That blend of unfair dictation and love is realistic and it was great. Cap is also brilliant - I love his lame jokes and the wisdom he imparts. I'm still laughing over the interrupting cow joke. This is erotica and while the sex scenes are really well written, they're not so hot and steamy that you get flustered reading them. In a weird way, that's one of the strengths of this book. Because they're not so captivating, they're not the whole focus of the plot. The emotion is. It's a fine line to walk and I think Hoover captures that balance brilliantly. I think what caused the conflict for me was Miles Archer, the main male character. The way he was written, I really wanted to like him. He's obviously damaged and Hoover didn't go anywhere near that hideous trope of abuse being disguised as love. She wrote him really well. He doesn't claim it's love, he doesn't hide what he is and he makes no excuses for it. He's up front and honest about what he feels he's capable of giving and even when he acts in an unpleasant way, they both knew it was coming. That's where the emotional turmoil is so great - Tate can't help feeling let down but she knows it's because she set herself up for it by wanting what he promised he couldn't give. The problem I have with him is that I didn't buy his reason for being the way that he is. I get that his back story was traumatic but I just didn't feel like it translated into his current mindset. If I can't buy his damaged back story, then it means that he's just acting like a dick in the present. And that's where I'm conflicted. Because I really wanted to like him. I felt for him. I wanted him to change, to open his heart, to let it go. I felt sad for him because of his past and the story in the present is so well written that I wanted to give it my whole hearted approval. There was just something missing for me. I'll maybe feel differently in a few days, I don't know. On the plus side, I'll go and see the film and I'm definitely going to download other books by this author because I have a feeling she could be a new favourite. Would I recommend it to other readers? Yes, I would. Especially if you read erotica anyway. It's a fresh look at a genre that sorely needs it.

I loved this story about Tate and Miles i loved the twists and turns in this story Definatetly recommend reading this book.

This is an excellent book. I absolutely loved it. Didn’t love the mornings I slept in cos I stayed up late to keep reading cos I couldn’t put it down. Highly recommend

This was a beautifully written poignant, heart-wrenching love story that really tugged at my heart strings. I'm almost ashamed to admit that this is my first Colleen Hoover read. I've heard so much about this author's books and she's been on my TBR list since forever. When I spotted this book on sale on Amazon a few days ago I grabbed a copy and I'm so glad I did. Now I understand the hype, and I totally get it. I ADORED the writing. Gosh, I was highlighting so much I just gave up in the end. May as well just highlight the entire book. Lol. The best part of this book was the skillful way the author elicited emotion from the reader. I felt EVERYTHING alongside Miles and Tate. All the pain and the heartache and the hurt. I cried and I laughed and I cringed. Miles was in so much pain that it was difficult to read at times. I knew his treatment of Tate came from the issues in his past, but he was really horrible to her at times, and it was challenging not to scream at Tate to walk away, because he trampled all over her. However, she was tenacious and determined to cling onto her hope that he would come through and realize what they had. I liked the way this book was written in dual perspective, switching from present to past. It didn't take much to figure out what had happened six years ago so I can't say it was a major shocker, but it was very emotional all the same. I enjoyed getting Mile's current perspective at the end. I loved how protective Corbin was of Tate though it was a little OTT at times. My favorite secondary character, without a shadow of a doubt, was Cap. He was awesome and so full of wisdom. He always knew the right thing to say, the right way to act. I had a few minor issues with this book, but not enough to merit a mention or a reduced rating. All in all, this was a really great read and I look forward to checking out more of this authors work. This review will be posted to my blog in due course: My YA NA Book Obsession Some favorite quotes: "That's how it is when a person develops an attraction toward someone. He's nowhere, then suddenly he's everywhere, whether you want him to be or not." "His lips against mine feel like everything. Like living and dying and being reborn.." "I'm not Tate when I'm near Miles. I'm liquid, and liquid doesn't know how to be firm or stand up for itself. Liquid flows. That's all I want to do with Miles. Flow." "I don't know if I can do this, Miles. I don't know if I can follow rule number two, because I suddenly want to climb into your future more than I want to climb into the backseat."

A lot of people had this book as their favourite Colleen Hoover novel and after just finishing it I’m really confused why. It’s a good book and I would recommend reading it, but the characters just really didn’t do much for me, none of them. I finished reading it wondering how any of these people fell in love with each other, it’s all very sex and lust based with no real emotions whatsoever, for that reason I’d say so far it’s my least favourite book by her, I just wasn’t very invested in any of the characters nor by the end of the book did I care too much how it would end.

I really hate to give a CoHo book anything but 5 stars, but, it is what it is.. For starters, I really did end up enjoying the story. It took me a while to get there, with a lot of frustrations and irritations along the way, but by 70% or so I found myself zooming through the pages, dying to know where the story was leading to. It's just unfortunate it took nearly three quarters of the book to get there.. For a lot of the book I felt like it was going to be your typical friends with benefits story that will ultimately lead to a relationship and everybody would live happily ever after.. yeah, I couldn't have been more wrong. Upon meeting there is an undeniable attraction between Miles and Tate. They both want each other, but neither of them want anymore than that. No strings sex is their agreement, with only two rules to follow. "Don't ask about my past, and never expect a future." Of course Tate agrees to this, never believing that it would come back to bite her on the arse. I found it pretty repetitive at times. There's only so many times you can read about two people sneaking around, having sex, denying their feelings and repeating.. I know I should enjoy the build up, the anticipation, but for whatever reason it just felt too much here. Miles was keeping major secrets about his past from Tate, which explain why he is so against love and relationships, but I was getting fed up waiting to find out what they were. I felt like I needed to skim/skip to get to the juicy parts, which happened around 70%. Once we got to that part I was hooked and couldn't stop reading until I finished. Those last chapters are what stopped me rating this book only 3 stars. They were brilliant. Beautifully written and so emotional that I was in tears. It was what I had been waiting for throughout the whole book. "If I were capable of loving someone.. It would be you." My biggest dislike throughout the book was the writing style. It's not the fact that it's written in dual POV or that the book is told in both past and present. My issue was the way in which the past chapters, in Miles' POV were written. I have no idea the real term for it, but I will just refer to it as 'poem style writing'. I do not wish to read a book written with words on random lines. So, I guess I am crap at poems, but that was exactly how the book was written in my eyes. I found his chapters so distracting being written like that and it really put me off the book. I didn't enjoy them at all, which is a shame because Miles' past was the most interesting aspect of the story. I just couldn't connect to him with the writing as it was. Overall I did enjoy this book, even though it took me a while, I would just prefer to read books in a normal writing style in future.

Good

Goed en vlot leesbaar boek. Mooi en aangrijpend verhaal!

This book is a sad story that follows a girl named Tate. I cannot say more. Buy it.

Good book

EVERYONE SHOULD READ THIS BOOK