November 9 is a young adult/romance novel written in 2015 by the New York Times bestselling, yet controversial author Colleen Hoover. The story is based around Fallon, a burn victim who is an aspiring Broadway actress, and Ben who is an aspiring novelist. This book opens with Fallon and her father speaking in a restaurant exactly two years after an unfortunate house fire that left Fallon scarred and took her away from the acting scene she was previously in as a teenager. Despite this incident Fallon takes the chance to tell her father she’s planning to move to New York to pursue a dream on stage as a Broadway actress but, this dream is highly discouraged by her father her told her that because her profession focuses on looks, she should find something else.
This conversation does not go unheard and here is where we meet the love interest, Ben who takes it upon himself to play as Fallon’s boyfriend in front of her father. After this we see Ben and Fallon decide to spend the rest of the day together, go to dinner, and just get to know each other. However, the two decided to not pursue a relationship due to Fallon’s commitment to Broadway and Ben’s dream of being a novelist but, they made an agreement to meet again on the same day in the following year with the stipulation they have no contact on any other day. The day they chose was November 9th.
Each year we see them, meet we also see Fallon begin to question Ben’s character, and for good reason. Come to find out that the house fire that took Fallon away from acting was not an accident, but Ben is responsible for it. As we begin to think Fallon is going to leave him behind and move on to live her life without him, she is convinced by her mother to give Ben another chance because he had expressed all of his trauma in a story he had written about them. Of course, at the end of the story Fallon apologizes to Ben for her reaction towards him and at the very end of the story we see Fallon and Ben meet once more. They finally pledge to love one another with a spoiler of a proposal happening the following year.
Now let’s talk about it. November 9th is a book that has caused a variety of emotions, with some saying they were brought to tears and others, such as myself, providing a few critiques. So, if you’re a Colleen Hoover fanatic, this may not be the review for you.
This book is yet again another classic Colleen Hoover book where the man stubbornly pushes his way into the woman’s life whether she rejects him at first or not and throughout this book we see Ben’s unacceptable and predatory behavior towards Fallon, beginning within the first few chapters. For example, the day Ben and Fallon met they decided to spend the rest of the day together. they decided to get dinner, however, Ben was not pleased with Fallon’s outfit choices. So, he of course took it upon himself to force a dress on her so she could show her scars regardless of her helpless cries and discomfort in that moment. Another example of this is when they first meet.
This type of behavior should not be romanticized, especially when it’s marketed to young women on such a large scale. We all know the saying “if a boy is mean to you, it means he likes you” and we also know this could not be further from the truth but when we idolize stalkish, possessive, and borderline abusive men We are giving a message to younger girls that this is the blueprint for what a man should do if he wants to be with you. However, this doesn’t only affect young women, but men, as well. The narrative Colleen Hoover gives her male character is detrimental to expectations on real life men. Are we hoping they become like these men we read about on paper? Are we expecting them to be possessive over our every move? Do they want to act this way? I hope the answers to these questions are no and in my case it most certainly is.
Books such as Colleen Hoover’s tell women that if a man does something harmful to you but is appropriately sad afterwards. it excuses his behavior. For some reason, no matter how horrible the love interest’s behavior is or how unreasonable his reactions to things are the woman always runs back. The real kicker in the story is the fact Ben had caused severe harm to Fallon, regardless of if it was intentional, and she at the end was the one to apologize to him because she wanted nothing to do with him after she found out.
I’m always one to support people reading and I love to see more people with books in school, but this new version of “romance” is nothing short of harmful and in all honestly, gross. Colleen Hoover and many other authors have unfortunately given us male characters who lack all sorts of self-control and women who lack self-respect. What an unfortunate time in literature we are in.
