Do we like Colleen Hoover?
Our score: 7 out of 10. Nothing harmful found in her own words or acts and a quick apology for a misstep, but the record I could verify is thinner than I'd like.
The latest noise is about her new job, not her words. Hoover was named a producer on Amazon MGM's adaptation of Ali Hazelwood's Love, Theoretically, and some readers weren't thrilled. Critics online say her books normalise abuse and pointed to how she handled the It Ends With Us film promotion, while others reckon the project is in good hands with its director and producer.
The best example of how she handles a blunder is the 2023 coloring book. A planned coloring book based on It Ends With Us, a novel about domestic violence, copped heavy criticism from readers. She posted an apology on Instagram saying she could see how it was tone-deaf, with no excuses or finger pointing, and her publisher Atria Books cancelled it.
On the harm test, I went looking for anything on trans people, women, migrants, vaccines or the climate and found nothing from her. No campaigning, no conspiracy slide, no grievance act. What the record does show is a lot of criticism of how her books treat heavy themes, which is a fair debate about craft and taste, not evidence of harm. I also found no pattern of working with people who push harm, though I couldn't verify her full slate of projects.
Her name got dragged into the Blake Lively and Justin Baldoni mess because she wrote the book the film was based on. She was a witness in that dispute, not a party, and Lively and Wayfarer Studios announced a settlement in May 2026, shortly before a trial was due. Court filings reportedly included texts attributed to her, but I couldn't confirm those, so I'm leaving them out.
Honest gap: I couldn't open enough pages to document her charity work, so that part of the ledger is thin here. Her own site says she co-runs a charity book event, but that's her word and I haven't checked it independently. Where the record is clean and the one real misstep was handled well, a 7 feels right.