Hopeless

Colleen Hoover embraces her identity as a romance writer, seeing the genre label as a way to reach a wide readership. After all, romances have been a mainstay in the publishing industry for generations, perennial fixtures on bestseller lists. The genre has enjoyed a significant increase in popularity among Gen Zers. Born roughly after 1997 and raised entirely within the reach of the Internet, social media, and video games, Gen Zers find in romances a comforting sanctuary from a complicated real-time world.

In a post-911 era defined by a 24-7 news cycle, Gen Zers are arguably more attuned than previous generations to the widespread political and social unrest that defines the globe. They have found in the romance genre a quieting world where characters find their way to emotionally satisfying relationships. Hoover, however, presents a variation on the genre: She uses the conventions of the romance novel to reveal how her characters, like Gen Zers, must face difficult truths, not run from them. Hopeless, for instance, introduces the moral dilemma of premarital sex and the dark issues of pedophilia, incest, rape, alcohol abuse, and teenage suicide.

In her determination to keep the romance genre relevant, Collen Hoover has found great success.