Book Review: "Regretting You" by Colleen Hoover

I’m fighting some sort of cold/flu thing and my sleep patterns are all messed up, so I read Regretting You in a few hours the other night and early into the morning. Nice to be crying when you can’t really breathe!!

Morgan was 17 when she gave birth to her daughter, Clara. She and her boyfriend Chris got married when they found out she was pregnant, and the course of her life was different than she imagined it would be. Although she wishes she would’ve been able to finish college and get a job, she doesn’t regret the years she spent taking care of her daughter.

Now, 16 years later, she wonders what’s next. Clara seems destined to follow in her footsteps in ways that make Morgan worry she’ll repeat her mistakes. It’s only when Chris gets involved that he can keep the peace between them, and try to keep Clara on the right path.

But when Chris is killed in an accident, it upends their lives in many ways, and Morgan isn’t really sure what to do now. Clara is testing her in every way and Morgan is trying desperately to protect her daughter from truths that might destroy her. Should Morgan sacrifice her relationship with her daughter to protect her, though?

As Clara falls madly in love with a boy that her parents thought was a bad influence, she is buffeted by feelings of anger, grief, and guilt. And Morgan finds herself turning to the one person she shouldn’t, but at 34, doesn’t she deserve a future, too?

"The day I found out I was pregnant, I stopped living life for myself. I think it's time I figure out who I was meant to become before I started living my life for everyone else."

Hoover once again delivers a story with rich character development, strong emotions, and situations that could happen to real people (even though you hope not). There aren’t a lot of surprises in the book but I couldn’t stop reading it, even as it kept getting later and later!

I don’t love it when the plot of a book turns on people’s assumptions and failures to communicate with one another—and boy, is that the case here so much—but Hoover gets you so wrapped up in these characters it doesn’t matter.

This is the fourth of her books I’ve read in the last few months. (I've also read Verity, It Ends with Us, and Ugly Love.) I’m thankful she’s written a bunch, because I am a huge fan!