Regretting You

"Sometimes you have to walk away from the fight in order to win it."

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. 

Colleen Hoover is a queen. She is the first author I ever fan girled over, she is also the first and only author I've ever met. I own all of her books, and I follow her on all forms of social media. She also doesn't know I exist, but I'm okay with it. It feels like it's been FOREVER since she released a book, so I was so pumped about this one. It's not surprising that she killed it once again. 

I have a best friend that I bonded with through books. We haven't met, but we talk every single day, we have face timed, we send each other stuff through the mail, and she understands me like nobody else. We did a "buddy read" for this book, which consisted of us reading 5 chapters, stopping and discussing the chapters, and then reading 5 more. We cried over the book, we laughed over the book, and we talked about what we thought was going to happen next. It was so awesome to experience this with her, and it was so awesome that it was a Colleen Hoover book that we could read together. 

You never know what your going to get with a Hoover book, and this was no exception. Where some would call this a romance story, I didn't necessarily see it that way. Sure, there was romance, but the real story was the story between Morgan and her daughter Clara. They went through something unspeakable together, and this was the story of how they came out on the other side of that tragedy. 

Since the day I was born, every decision she's ever made for herself was made in order to benefit me. I've always known that about her. But I'm not sure I appreciated it until tonight. 

I think what I loved most about this book was that I could relate to both Clara and Morgan. I could relate to Clara as a teenager, because she did some things that reminded me of myself when I was younger, and I related to Morgan because she reminded me of myself, right now. Morgan sometimes felt like maybe she wasn't doing the whole mother thing right, and I totally get that. Every day I go to bed wondering if I have somehow ruined my kids. This was one of the most relatable books I've read in a while. 

Morgan felt like she lost a little bit of herself when she had Clara, and when she married her high school sweetheart. Some days she woke up and just felt like she constantly did the same things over and over again, and had somehow got lost along the way. It's easy when we become mothers to forget who we are, and who we used to be. Morgan just wanted to find a little piece of herself again. She was also one of the strongest book characters I've read in a long time. You need to go into this book blind, I always do that with a Colleen book, but you will be shocked. And you will admire how amazing Morgan is as a person, she handled everything that was thrown at her so well, even when she felt like she didn't. 

I didn't regret it that night, and I don't regret it now. I'm confident that I'll never spend a single second of my life regretting you."

I remember texting my Brittany (my book bestie) so many times about my frustration with Clara. I wanted to reach my hands into the book and shake her, and tell her to wake up, but then I remembered she was a 17 year old girl, and she was reacting to everything the same way any normal young girl would. She was going through a lot, and she was confused and conflicted. I hated that she started to push her mom away, and didn't really give her a chance to talk to her, but I also know at that age I would have been the same way. Colleen really did a great job capturing a teenage girl in this book. 

The male characters in this book were just as amazing as the females. I loved Jonah right away, I knew exactly how he was feeling about everything without Colleen even having to explain it outright to me. Miller was a little harder to understand, and at first I wasn't sure I could trust him. I learned to love him, and really see how amazing he was. 

This is the first time I've done this in a review, but here is a little bit of the text exchange between Brittany and I during our "buddy read." I'm hoping if you read some of our reactions you will go pick this book up, because it truly is amazing. 

B: Why is this book me

M: Dead, and also laughing emojis

B: I'm literally the mom AND the kid

M: I'm blowing through this now and I'm crying. Holy Cow I'm crying

B: Ahhhhh I'm on 28!

B: I wanna choke Clara lol but she is a typical grieving teenager

And DOESN'T KNOWWWW

M: I know. She is so frustrating. Those chapters were really tough. Like I know she was going through stuff, but she was so mean

M:Listen I'm on the last chapter and I love Miller. I'm in love with him. And I'm 100% confident you are going to love him too. No more doubts and I'm crying again. I'm a dang baby. 

B:I'm crying right now she just found out. 

M: Yes that's when I was crying too. 

At some point during this conversation Brittany sends me snap chat video of her pulling over into a Walmart parking lot to cry. (She had been listening to the audio version)

I'm telling ya'll this book is everything. Never sleep on a Colleen Hoover book. 

Overall, I'm giving this one 5 STARS. I don't think I've ever NOT loved a Colleen Hoover book. She is always the first author I recommend to people, and I don't see that changing anytime soon. She knocked it out of the park with this one. It was really relatable, and these characters went through a pretty traumatic thing, and the way they fought through the pain and came out on the other side of it was truly inspiring.