Regretting You by Colleen Hoover - A Book Review
Morgan Grant and her sixteen-year-old daughter, Clara, would like nothing more than to be nothing alike.
Morgan is determined to prevent her daughter from making the same mistakes she did. By getting pregnant and married way too young, Morgan put her own dreams on hold. Clara doesn’t want to follow in her mother’s footsteps. Her predictable mother doesn’t have a spontaneous bone in her body.
With warring personalities and conflicting goals, Morgan and Clara find it increasingly difficult to coexist. The only person who can bring peace to the household is Chris—Morgan’s husband, Clara’s father, and the family anchor. But that peace is shattered when Chris is involved in a tragic and questionable accident. The heartbreaking and long-lasting consequences will reach far beyond just Morgan and Clara.
While struggling to rebuild everything that crashed around them, Morgan finds comfort in the last person she expects to, and Clara turns to the one boy she’s been forbidden to see. With each passing day, new secrets, resentment, and misunderstandings make mother and daughter fall further apart. So far apart, it might be impossible for them to ever fall back together.
Genre: Contemporary Romance
Themes:
- Friends To Lovers
- Family Tragedy
- Secrets
- Infidelity
At the end of March, I was definitely heading towards a book slump. I felt like everything I read during the month was mid at best. I did enjoy The Mindf*ck Series, but still nothing had hit the top spot like books had done in previous months.
Before the month had even finished, I picked out my first April read from my TBR jar and it revealed to be Regretting You by Colleen Hoover. I always find CoHo to be a great author to read when I’m feeling in a rut about reading. I always find that when I finish a book of hers, I’m pulled out of said rut and excited to pick my next book, by any author.
So suffice to say, when I saw the title of my tbr jar pick, I was excited for Colleen to work her magic.
Regretting You follows the family life between couple Morgan and Chris and Morgan’s sister Jenny with her partner Jonah, who’s also Chris’ best friend. The story initially introduces us to the four characters in their teenage years, where they spend every waking hour together as a group since graduating high school.
Through the early chapters, we follow the two couples navigating their early relationships to the adults that they later become. We see in their high school days that Jenny and Chris present as being the fun and wild side of the party, while Jonah and Morgan present as being the quiet and sensible individuals of the party. Making the whole “opposites attract” prominent between the couples.
Through the early chapters, it is implied that Jonah and Morgan have an unexplored connection which they avoid due to them being in respective relationships with each others sibling/best friend.
As the chapters progress, the story meets in present day where Chris and Morgan are now married and have a teenage daughter, Clara who is 17, while Jenny and Jonah are parents of a two month old baby boy, who was the result of a one night stand following the death of Jonah’s father, after Jonah had left town after Morgan’s pregnancy announcement 17 years ago.
The family rejoin in an evening meal, discussing Jenny’s return to work following her maternity leave with her son, in which she works as a nurse at the same hospital as Chris.
The following day, Morgan is met with a devastating phone call revealing that her husband had been involved in a car accident. When arriving at the hospital, Morgan is frantic to find out information regarding Chris’ condition and when attempting to call her sister, she’s met with voicemails. When Jonah arrives at the hospital, she’s relieved to pass over his son to him, that she’d been caring for prior to the incident, but Jonah arrives equally frantic. The pair converse in a frantic conversation, mistaking each other for being at the hospital for different reasons from why they are. Morgan believing that Jonah is there in support of her husband and his best friend, while Jonah believes Morgan is there for her sister and his fiancé. When the pair finally clear the misunderstanding, they learn that both Jenny and Chris have been in the same accident, which leaves them clawing at answers as to why they both were involved.
They are finally met with answers about Jenny and Chris’ conditions, when a doctor regretfully informs them that they both died from their injuries.
After their deaths, Jonah and Morgan begin mixed up with different scenarios as to why their partners were with one another when they died, whilst refusing to acknowledge the truth – Chris and Jenny were having an affair.
The story follows Morgan, Jonah and Clara in their navigation of life after the death of their partners and Clara’s father. In between this, the story glimpses at the beginnings of Clara and Millers relationship – a boy who she’s had a crush on for years and would regularly seek advice from her aunt Jenny. When Clara drives past him on a sweltering hot day, she can’t help but stop and offer him a ride, but in doing so, she becomes an accomplice to the gradual moving of a speed sign to allow Miller to be within the delivering distance of a local pizza shop. This setting in motion the start of their relationship.
The story follows each individual in their journey of grieve and navigating of learning the truth about Chris and Jenny’s secrets. Jonah and Morgan begin to lean on one another and with the revelation of their partners infidelity, they realise that Jenny and Jonah’s son is actually fathered by Chris. Clara begins to rebel with Miller, which causes a drift between her and her mother Morgan. Morgan further is against her new relationship with Miller, after Chris had forbidden Clara from being involved with him, due to Miller’s father’s history with the law, prior to his death.
Morgan struggles with being a single parent, responsible for parenting Clara who has become increasingly difficult following her father’s death and also due to her having a better relationship with her father than mother. She also struggles with her bond with Clara, who seemed closer to her aunt than her own mother. This further hurts Morgan, as she struggles to understand her feelings towards her husband and sister’s lies and betrayal – the two people she trusted the most.
Morgan and Jonah continue to navigate life after the death of their siblings and spouses, but whilst doing so, become closer with one another after sharing the same pain of being deceived. The sharing of grieve that brings them together, brings up old feelings which the pair ignored during their teenage years, due to their loyalty to their partners. The pair discuss the secrets of Jenny and Chris’ affair and how they will agree to keep it a secret from Clara and Jonah’s son.
After some time, Morgan and Jonah give into their feelings, despite Morgan’s apprehension. Only in doing so, are witnessed by Clara, who assumes they’ve been having an affair – claiming Jenny and Chris to be the victims, all whilst Clara feels responsible for their deaths after she messaged Jenny before the accident. Clara believed she caused Jenny’s accident, after messaging her asking if she’d ever been the other woman, after herself was almost the other woman with Miller and his previous girlfriend.
Morgan and Clara’s relationship becomes even more strained after she witnesses her mother and Jonah. This leads Clara to seek revenge that she thinks will hurt her mother – loosing her virginity to a boy she doesn’t approve of, unbeknownst to Miller.
After a drunken night, Clara drunkingly reveals to Morgan her worries that she played a role in her aunts death. The next morning Morgan approaches the subject with a sober Clara, but whilst doing so, accidentally reveals the real reason for Jenny’s death and how she wasn’t responsible – that Jenny and Chris were together during the accident. This leads Clara to question why they were together, when she had previously been told Chris had been picked up by Jenny after having a flat tire. Only Clara realises if that were the case, her father’s car would’ve been returned. This causes Clara to piece together the information before devastatingly realising that it was Jenny and Chris who were having an affair.
This leaves Clara devastated for both everyone involved, before realising who the father of Jenny’s son really is.
The family continue to navigate life without Jenny and Chris, whilst choosing to move forward with their lives. After Clara learns the truth about Jenny and Chris’ accident, her relationship with her mother Morgan improves, where Morgan approves of her relationship with Miller after having a change of heart about him, where he apologises for his involvement in Clara’s bad behaviour – whilst Clara approves of Morgan’s relationship with Jonah.
The family then begin to piece back together their lives, whilst adding new pieces.
I enjoyed reading this style of book, even though it had aspects of romance, it focused on other topics such as relationships, grief and death. The variety of Colleen’s writing is what I love most about her books, she doesn’t just write romance so when you read her book, you experience different themes, you otherwise wouldn’t have ventured into.
Even though I enjoyed this book, it’s not my favourite book of Colleen’s that I’ve read , but I can appreciate the storyline. I did find it at times slightly boring to read – for example, Clara’s perspective chapters. I found that when I got to them, I wasn’t interested in reading about what she had experienced and I think that’s to do with her age. She’s younger than me and I feel like I’ve moved past the teenage school romance stage of my life.
Before going into this book, I knew what the premise of the storyline was (thanks to a TikTok spoiler video), but aside from this, I still wanted to read it because the teaser/spoiler I did see, interested me to read it.
However, I didn’t realise that this spoiler/teaser was the main plot of the storyline. The spoiler in question was a video I saw which revealed Morgan in her confusion about why her husband and sister were in the same car together and therefore died with one another.
I think this spoiler took away my full experience of reading this book where I could experience the shock and emotions when certain aspects were revealed. When I eventually got to the part where Jenny and Chris’ affair is revealed, it wasn’t as gut punching because I knew it was coming up, so it wasn’t new information to me, or that it was shocking. As a result of this, I wish I had of experienced this story blindly so that I would’ve been able to experience the emotions that Colleen set for people to experience. I think if I had of read it blindly, it would’ve been another story of Colleen’s that would’ve had me gasping.
I always find side characters to be the most loveable, so it’s only fair I include my special mentions for my favourite characters of this book:
Lexie at the start with her one liners at the Grant dinner table.
Morgan because I felt for her the entire time I read this book and how she was always putting everyone’s needs in front of her own – she lived her life for others.
Miller and his grandfather – they were adorable together and had me laughing at all their interactions – I hope that his grandfather lives forever and I’m glad his death wasn’t mentioned at the end of the book because in my mind, he’s still alive.
Along with the things I did enjoy, I have to include things that I didn’t enjoy/what annoyed me.
The first thing that annoyed me was Clara’s attitude throughout the book and the way she acted towards her mother. I understand she’s a teenage girl going through the emotions and fighting with your mother is a typical teenage thing (can’t relate – me and my mam had a great relationship in my teens), but she just irked me so much with her interactions with her mother.
I felt like Clara was so hypocritical of her mother, always painting her to be the bad guy. I felt like she had much stronger feelings at the assumption that her mother was having the affair, rather than her father. Then when she learned the truth, I felt like her anger wasn’t on the same level as what she felt for her mother – felt like she had favourites. Although, I think she redeemed herself a little when she found out the truth and her and Morgan had a special moment in the movie theatre.
The second thing that annoyed me was the love letters that Morgan had found between Jenny and Chris and the built up that came – the anticipation that we would find out what were detailed within the letters; only for them to be torn to shreds and for me to be left hanging. WHY?! I partially think this was done because Colleen didn’t know what to include within them once it came to Morgan’s decision of opening them.
I read a review which mentioned the cover and after reading it, the cover of the book makes so much sense – Miller and Clara had a few interactions that centred around their hated for the colour orange. So of course Colleen used aspects of the story and incorporated it into the cover. The shreds of paper should’ve been my sign to realise I was never going to know what was written in those letters. I thought the plot needed expanding. I needed to understand and know more about Chris and Jenny’s affair. I was left with a lot of questions regarding the affair, which I think the letters would’ve answered. Morgan throughout the book constantly asked herself why she didn’t see it, which as a reader I would’ve also liked to have understood more about why and when it happened. Those letters would’ve helped with finding those answers and closing the story. I think the mentioning of the letters naturally leaves anyone wanting to read them.
I’ll always be a Colleen reader – she writes in a way that has me coming back for more. Some of her books are extraordinary and have me reeling in my emotions, whereas others are average – but the average ones will have me coming back for more. I 100% think Regretting You would’ve been a 5⭐️ read that had me bawling my eyes out, if I hadn’t of known what was going to happen.
My Rating: ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️
Georgia
♥
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