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.
Regretting You, an all-new beautiful and touching novel from #1 New York Times bestselling author Colleen Hoover, is available now!
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Blurb
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.
Review
5 stars
Wow, Colleen Hoover. What a story! A beautifully written, emotional and heartfelt story about love and loss, and the bonds between family and lovers. Both heartwrenching and beautifully sweet, this surprising novel captivated me from start to finish and I loved it!
The story is written from the POVs of Morgan and Clara – a mother and 16-year-old daughter who are dealing with devastating loss and grief. Though reeling from the same event, they are suffering in very different ways, leading to misunderstandings and a rift in their relationship which only adds to their grief and emotional turmoil. But in this tumultuous time, they are both find comfort in new relationships, and we get two love stories unfolding side-by-side – one an achingly beautiful and natural friends-to-lovers romance, and the other a beautifully sweet and fun YA romance. Both are gorgeous to read, and both had my heart pounding, but while Morgan and Clara are falling in love, their own relationship is falling apart.
“Sometimes you have to walk away from the fight in order to win it.”
The chapters are written in alternating POVs between Morgan and Clara, and it’s one of those stories where you are so wrapped up in the chapter that you’re reading that you don’t want it to end because you don’t want the perspective to change, only for the next chapter to start and you get so wrapped up in that one that you don’t want to switch back, and the cycle continues. Morgan and Clara’s stories are wonderfully wound together, seeing the right things at the right time, creating a lot of depth and allowing us to experience everything along with them.
I think it’s time I figure out who I was meant to become before I started living my life for everyone else.
Grown-ups might not have their shit figured out any more than we do. They just wear more-convincing masks. That disappoints me.
The romances are both written in that way that Colleen Hoover does so well – with wit, humour and heart, and I was rooting for these relationships from the very beginning. And just as importantly, the relationship between mother and daughter really brings the feels. The realism of it makes it all the more heartbreaking, and the deep connection between Morgan and Clara is beautifully written, and I loved watching them work through this challenging stage in their relationship.
It’s a beautifully written story full feels, and I laughed, cried and loved along with these characters. They felt so real to me, their struggles felt real, and I feel in mad love with them as they all deal with the events of the book and the devastating fallout.
“I’m confident that I’ll never spend a single second of my life regretting you.”
A wonderful combination of adult romance, YA romance and contemporary fiction, this is a fantastic read and highly recommended.
5 stars.
Excerpt
“What’s your favorite movie?”
“Of all time?” he asks.
“Pick one from the past ten years.”
“I can’t,” he says. “There are so many great ones, and I love them all for different reasons. I love the technical aspect of Birdman. I love the performances in Call Me by Your Name. Fantastic Mr. Fox is my favorite cartoon because Wes Anderson is a goddamn genius.” He glances at me. “What about you?”
“I don’t think Fantastic Mr. Fox counts. It seems older than ten years.” I lean my head back and stare up at the ceiling. It’s a tough question. “I’m like you. I don’t know that I have a favorite movie. I tend to judge more on the talent than the story line. I think Emma Stone is probably my favorite actress. And Adam Driver is the best actor of our time, but I don’t think he’s landed the role of his lifetime yet. He was great in BlacKkKlansman, but I’m not crazy about some of the other movies he’s been in.”
“But did you see the Kylo Ren skit?”
“Yes!” I say, sitting up. “On SNL? Oh my God, it was so funny.” I’m smiling, but I hate that I’m smiling. It feels weird to smile when I’m so full of sadness, but this is how Miller makes me feel every time I’m around him. He’s the only thing that seems to be able to take my mind off everything, yet he’s the one person I can’t really hang out with.
Thanks for that, Shelby.
It sucks. I don’t like thinking about it, even though we’re together right now. But tomorrow at school, things will go back to how they always are. Miller will keep his distance. He’ll respect his relationship with Shelby, which will only serve to make me respect him even more.
And I’ll just continue to be in a depressing funk.
“I should go,” I say.
Miller hesitates before moving. “Yeah, I think my break was over ten minutes ago.” We both stand up, but I can’t get out of the aisle because he’s blocking my way, facing me, not making an effort to walk away. He’s just staring down at me as if he wants to say something else. Or do something else.
“I’m really sorry about what happened,” he says. At first, I’m not sure what he’s talking about, but then it hits me. I press my lips together and nod, but I don’t say anything because it’s the last thing I want to talk or think about.
“I should have said that the other day. At the funeral.”
“It’s fine,” I say. “I’m fine. Or at least I’ll be fine. Eventually.” I sigh. “Hopefully.”
He’s staring at me like he wants to pull me in for a hug, and I really wish he would. But instead, he turns and walks out of the aisle, toward the exit. I stop at the restroom on our way out. He grabs a trash can and starts to pull it toward the theater we just came out of.
“See you tomorrow, Clara.”
I don’t tell him goodbye. I walk into the restroom and don’t even bother pretending things will be the same at school tomorrow as they were tonight. He’ll avoid me while being all faithful and shit, and whatever. That’s okay. I need to stop interacting with him anyway, because as good as it feels when I’m around him, it’s starting to hurt when I’m not. And I don’t need another painful thing added to my already existing pile of excruciating feelings.
About Colleen Hoover
Colleen Hoover is the #1 New York Times and International bestselling author of thirteen novels and multiple novellas. She lives in Texas with her husband and their three boys. She is the founder of The Bookworm Box, a non-profit book subscription service and bookstore in Sulphur Springs, Texas.
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