Book Review: Regretting You by Colleen Hoover

I found myself on a five-hour flight for a trip this summer and realized too late that I forgot to load some new books onto my Kindle. To be fair—this is a long trip and there were nine million details to remember beforehand, so I’m not too mad at myself for forgetting this one task. That, and I already had a few books loaded on my device. After scanning through the list of titles I had previously downloaded, I decided to read Regretting You by Colleen Hoover: a book I didn’t remember purchasing and had no idea what it was about.

The book follows 35-year-old Morgan and her 16-year-old daughter, Clara. Morgan got pregnant with Clara when she was only seventeen, married Clara’s father Chris, and spent the next 16 years dedicated to being a good mom and wife. Both women’s worlds are turned upside down when Chris dies suddenly in a car accident. The passenger in the car was none other than Morgan’s best friend and little sister, Jenny. Tying up the fallout from the car wreck unveils the long-standing and secret affair between Morgan’s husband and sister. The story details Morgan’s journey through grief and trying to find herself on the other side along with Clara coming of age in the turmoil of losing her father and beloved aunt.

I have to applaud Colleen Hoover for writing such wonderful and authentic characters in this story. I typically hate dramas since the main character will typically have some truth or belief which doesn’t make sense to the character arc and only exists to add drama to the plot. However, all of the characters’ motivations in Regretting You are totally believable and consistent with the characters’ personalities.

One of Morgan’s main inner conflicts is that she doesn’t want to tell her daughter Clara about the affair between her dad and aunt. Morgan has always been protective of her loved ones, so her decision to keep this major detail a secret makes sense for her character.

Even though I loved the main characters and storyline for this book, I’m not a huge fan of Miller, the teen boy who starts dating Clara. He’s a little too perfect and always does the right thing in every situation. Every character needs a few flaws to be believable, and things like a troubled past and absent father are interesting back-story, but not actual character flaws.

Overall, I really enjoyed this book and highly recommend it to anyone who loves a good family drama—especially if you don’t mind crying while squeezed between two strange men on a long flight.