NOVEMBER 9 – COLLEEN HOOVER

**Spoilers Ahead, Read On With Caution**

One of my ultimate ultimate u l t i m a t e favourite authors is Colleen Hoover, and she is a brilliantly fantastic writer who knows how to evoke too many emotions in one go. I enjoy reading her books so thoroughly, that I always accidentally read them too fast, and immediately want to reread them. I’m looking at you ALL YOUR PERFECTS, WITHOUT MERIT and IT ENDS WITH US.

Fallon meets Ben, an aspiring novelist, the day before her scheduled cross-country move. Their untimely attraction leads them to spend Fallon’s last day in L.A. together, and her eventful life becomes the creative inspiration Ben has always sought for his novel. Over time and amidst the various relationships and tribulations of their own separate lives, they continue to meet on the same date every year. Until one day Fallon becomes unsure if Ben has been telling her the truth or fabricating a perfect reality for the sake of the ultimate plot twist. 

Can Ben’s relationship with Fallon – and simultaneously his novel – be considered a love story if it ends in heartbreak?

I couldn’t even rewrite that blurb, you just have to read it for what it is; shear perfection. Fallon is the type of person I’d absolutely adore to be friends with. She’s snarky, funny and confident decisions in life; something I think I could personally learn from. And Ben is a natural charmer, not that we’d expect any less with it being a CoHo book… I mean, when the boy says stuff like “You can’t leave yet. I’m not finished falling in love with you.” I think I’d blush to my very soul if someone spoke to me like that, even looked at me with that meaning in them. I want to be loved that deep, but don’t we all?

The story follows a love story that takes time between Fallon and Ben. That being because they only see each other once a year, for one day. November ninth. It’s a tradition they set up from their very first accidental meeting, when Fallon’s dad was a dick, and Ben was just a stranger. Every year they decide to meet up at the same place, same time, and they just be in each others company. But we all no that all good love stories have a hard twist of pain somewhere in them. And Fallon’s was possibly the most painful to experience. You see, when Fallon was younger she was caught in a house fire, and ended up being hurt in the process. She was asleep when it happened, and woke up in the blaze. That’s not the hurt of her story, she learns to live with her scar, and make the pain that night still vibrates with inside her. The hurt is Ben. Because she didn’t even know he was capable of being in her story the whole way through, and yet he was.

“It took four years for me to fall in love with him. It only took four pages to stop.” 

One of the things I love most about this book is that it’s poetic. Hear me out okay? He’s an aspiring novelist, everything he writes, thinks, says, is constructed to be almost lyrical and well thought out. There’s an honesty and terrifying openness to him, he’s an unconscious poet. “In her darkness, she is silent. In my darkness, she screams.” Think about that statement for just a second, think about that meaning and depth; and tell me it’s not something to somewhat marvel. Reading Bens thoughts makes me want to crawl up inside his brain, and absorb it all. The light, the dark, the vision and fear; every last drop, until I see the world like poetry and motion too. Until I see someone how he sees Fallon. To love someone so much, that looking at them can cause a physical reaction from you, to know that their happiness is all you want for them, to know that sometimes, sometimes their happiness is brighter and more evolved when you’re not involved. To love them selflessly and blindly. To give up all pretences, and fronts and just be bare to your core. To love them wholly. 

“Because when you love someone, you owe it to them to help them be the best version of themselves that they can be. And as much as it crushes me to admit this, the best version of you doesn’t include me.”

I’ve read a lot of books in my time, and a lot have affected me, but NOVEMBER 9 is one that stays with me. Because it’s a love story that is both happy and sad, and neither. It’s an honest transition in time, and a masterful use of storytelling. 

I hope you read this book.