The book Ugly Love by Colleen Hoover is a romance book that takes place in San Francisco in modern times. Ugly Love was published by Atria Paperback in 2014, in New York. This book is about two main characters named Miles Archer and Tate Collins. They are both in their early 20s. These two find themselves falling in love, yet one thing is holding them back from putting a “label” on their relationship, and Miles won’t say why he can’t do that.
Tate moves into her brother Corvin’s apartment so she can live closer to nursing school. She meets Corvin’s friend named Miles one day when he was hanging out with Corvin. Instantly, she falls in love with him, she feels a strong connection between them both, but Miles does not show much affection towards her. The more they were together, the more Miles would show his affection towards her, but it felt off to Tate. Miles made two rules for them; which was don’t ask about his past, and don’t expect a future. Although they did everything couples did normally together, he never said he cared for her or never said they could be more than friends. Tate was fine with this, and let herself get attached until she couldn’t handle it anymore and just wanted to know what happened to make Miles act this way and why he can’t get into a relationship with a real “label” on it. In this book, you get to hear the main reason why Miles has been acting off the whole book and refuses to fall in love with anyone else.
Ugly Love is a young adult book that focuses on relatable real-life romance stories. In this book, the two main characters, Miles and Tate, are both great characters in their own ways. Miles is a man who is trying to move on from his hard, traumatizing past, and begins to fall in love with Tate but he can’t do it for only one reason. Tate is a woman who moves in next door to Miles and falls deeply in love with him, but he won’t let her have a relationship with him, but when she asks why Miles just shuts her out and won’t let her know why. Tate stays patient with Miles and continues to wait until the day that he will open up to her, but by the time it has reached too long she can’t hold it in anymore. Overall, both of these characters have their ups and downs but no human is perfect.
When reading this book, there were some parts that I did not like. One of those being at the beginning the novel, which started off very slow and kind of confusing. I say this because the story kept switching back and forth from Tate’s point of view and Miles’ point of view. Not only was it switching back and forth but they would each be in different time periods. Miles’ story was from 6 years earlier, and Tate’s story was in the present. As you keep reading though, it starts to make more sense on why it went back into the future, which also answers the question to why Miles could not fall in love with Tate. The story was kind of slow the first couple chapters because it was going on with each and every detail of the story it was telling, but as I went through the chapters, it started to speed up and there was a lot going on in each chapter, which made the book much more interesting. Ugly Love is filled with many different events which helps make the book so exciting and surprising for the reader.
Despite the parts of Ugly Love I wasn’t a fan of, it also had so many good parts and small details about it. One of those includes how well the story developed as you kept reading. The book starts off kind of slow, but the more you read, the more events start to happen. This book is filled with so many ups and downs that, once you get a quarter through the book, there isn’t any part when there is not something going on. While reading, there were so many small quotes and messages spread that meant something. On page 142 it says, “God gives us the ugliness so we don’t take the beautiful things in life for granted.” This quote really stood out to me because it basically shows a lot about this book and why everything ties together at the end. I personally liked this quote a lot because it made me actually think about how hard life can get, but that’s fine because when good things come, it will be worth it and make us value it so much more.
Overall, this was a really good book and I totally recommend it for any young adult readers who are looking for a romance book, but also has a strong message to it. I loved being able to read this book and relating to the little parts and also learning from it. This book taught me to not take the small things for granted, and to enjoy them while they last.In addition, I learned to embrace every moment in the present and not just worry about the future and what’s next.
Ugly Love also taught me how when you meet a person who comes off as being rude or unemotional, you shouldn’t judge them so quickly, because there could be so much that they have gone through that you don’t know about. Once you gain their trust enough and they realize how they can talk to other people and not just hold it in, it makes such a difference. Overall, I give this book a five star rating, and I recommend this book for any reader who is interested in a romance book with a strong inclusive message.
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