Confess
by Colleen Hoover
Publisher: Atria
Publication date: March 10, 2015
Genre: New Adult Romance
Rating:
Auburn Reed has her entire life mapped out. Her goals are in sight and there’s no room for mistakes. But when she walks into a Dallas art studio in search of a job, she doesn’t expect to find a deep attraction to the enigmatic artist who works there, Owen Gentry.
For once, Auburn takes a risk and puts her heart in control, only to discover Owen is keeping major secrets from coming out. The magnitude of his past threatens to destroy everything important to Auburn, and the only way to get her life back on track is to cut Owen out of it.
The last thing Owen wants is to lose Auburn, but he can’t seem to convince her that truth is sometimes as subjective as art. All he would have to do to save their relationship is confess. But in this case, the confession could be much more destructive than the actual sin…
This author has been on my radar for a while now. I’ve read some of her books and have enjoyed them all. Even when the author writes a relationship that I don’t like, I still end up feeling for the characters separately. She has a way of writing something so real that even though certain things may bother you within the story, you still want to see the best for the characters. That was this story. Confess had some questionable things take place that dealt with cheating, but I still wanted to see the best for the characters. Even though these two only knew each other for a span of like a week when you added all the hours up, I was still attached to them as a couple. Plus, their heartache and the stuff they went through made me feel for them on a deep level. So, while the author wrote about something that would normally have me closing the book and calling it a day, I found myself pushing through it because I really wanted to know what would happen with the characters. To me, that’s when you know you have a great author. When they are able to take something that would normally turn you completely off, but yet they manage to keep you reading.
One of the things I love about Confess is that all the confessions in the book are real. The book starts off with the author thanking brave readers for sending in their confessions for her to use in the book. I won’t lie, some of them are pretty awful. Like, I kind of wish the author made it up for the story instead of it being real. However, having real confessions gave so much depth to the story. So, when Owen (an artist) gets a confession, it’s really a reader’s confession. My second favorite thing about this book is that the author commissioned artwork for this book based off of the confessions. So, when Owen creates a painting inspired by the confessions he gets, those paintings are real and are included in the book! To see something so real get incorporated into a novel like that just brought the story up to a whole new level.
The story itself is great, and I’m starting to feel like I need to dive in and fully immerse myself in the CoHo craze because this author knows her stuff. Even when she writes about topics I loathe, she’s still able to keep me reading the book. I always end up feeling for her characters and whether or not I like their decisions, I want to see them happy in the end. I love that the book revolves around these confessions but also has two separate developing stories for Auburn and Owen. I don’t want to tell you what these two separate stories are because I don’t want to ruin the surprise for you when they are revealed. There’s also a huge secret that Owen is keeping from Auburn that she never learns about in the book, but the readers are clued into it at the very end and it seriously turned me to mush. Now that I’ve finally read the book, I plan to watch the show to see how it all plays out on screen. I’m also curious if they used the original artwork that the author had commissioned and the confessions she got, or if they do something different with them.
Favorite quote…
“There are people you meet that you get to know, and then there are people you meet that you already know.”
I’m curious about this one. Her books don’t usually work for me but this sounds different. I didn’t know the confessions were real either.
For What It’s Worth
One of these days…soon…one day. Sigh. Maybe just see it on screen
I am glad to hear that you enjoyed this book so much here. I don’t think this author would work for me but I do know many just love her work. So lovely review.
That sounds really good. Thanks for the great review.
I really enjoyed this one when I tried it too! I saw the TV show not a long time ago and liked it as well
I need to get to this book! I have loved all the other CoHo books I’ve read and I’m sure I’ll like this one too. Great review!
I do need to try one of her books someday!