Author: Colleen Hoover
Publication Date: August 5, 2014
Publisher: Atria Books
Pages: 337
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When Tate Collins meets airline pilot Miles Archer, she knows it isn’t love at first sight. They wouldn’t even go so far as to consider themselves friends. The only thing Tate and Miles have in common is an undeniable mutual attraction. Once their desires are out in the open, they realize they have the perfect set-up. He doesn’t want love, she doesn’t have time for love, so that just leaves the sex. Their arrangement could be surprisingly seamless, as long as Tate can stick to the only two rules Miles has for her.
Never ask about the past.
Don’t expect a future.
They think they can handle it, but realize almost immediately they can’t handle it at all.
Hearts get infiltrated.
Promises get broken.
Rules get shattered.
Love gets ugly.
Something you might already know about me is I don't review many contemporary romances. If I do, they're always going to be adult or new adult romances - I just can't handle YA romance with no fantastical elements! Even so, these reviews are few and far between. New adult romance, in particular, has a certain characteristic that seems to apply to almost all of them. They all have a ridiculous amount of unnecessary angst and drama. I mean, I get why, so maybe it isn't entirely unnecessary, but it's at least unbelievable. What I'm trying to say is, Ugly Love was a little out of my comfort zone. Seeing it all over Instagram for months finally broke me, though, and I gave it a try. And then I had to sit on it for awhile to decide how I really felt.
Ugly Love is pretty much your typical NA romance. Girl meets boy, girl has tons of drama, boy has tons of drama, they fall in love, they can't be in love, but they are anyway, etc. In this way it was totally predictable and unsurprising.
Tate and Miles are the main characters of this angsty romance. Miles is an airline pilot with a dark past that makes him extremely undatable. Tate's life is significantly less dramatic. She's mostly just really busy with school and work and doesn't seem to have the time to make a relationship work. But these two meet and sparks fly all over the place. What's a couple to do? As you probably gathered from the synopsis, they work out a deal that involves physical feels only - no hearts allowed! And, as you probably gathered from the synopsis, this doesn't quite work out.
Tate is an alright gal. I liked her for the most part although there were several moments when I wanted to knock some sense into her. Miles, on the other hand, I really couldn't get down with. I'll never understand what it is with book characters who think they have the right to treat everyone around them like crap just because they have a rocky past. It's really not okay. And this is where the book lost me.
Similarly to Beautiful Disaster and Obsidian, Ugly Love's main man is a total jerk to the female love interest of the story. And for the same reason I couldn't stand those two books, I really had a huge problem with Miles. Not only was he an ass to Tate on a regular basis, but his "deep dark secret" wasn't believable as something that would make him swear off women forever. At least in my opinion... There was some character growth by the end. Miles does finally let go of the chip on his shoulder, but really Tate never should have stuck around as long as she did.
The writing was also really weird in this book. Granted, I did listen to the audiobook. But I did go pick up a physical copy just to see. Colleen Hoover attempts to do some kind of weird (really freaking weird) poetry thing with Miles' flashbacks and it just really doesn't work at all.
In summary, the premise of the story was a little unbelievable to me, the male lead was behaved like a jerk for the majority of the book, and the writing was really strange. I didn't completely hate it because I did enjoy Tate the secondary characters in the book, but I really don't see what all the fuss was about with this one. I might go see the movie just to see if they do it any better in that medium, but I'll probably wait for some reviews first.
Notes on the Audiobook
I did enjoy Grace Grant and Deacon Lee as narrators and would certainly listen to something else by them!
