Introduction
Released November 10th 2015, November 9th is another one of Colleen Hoover’s beloved fiction, romance novels. At 310 pages, over time this book has become one of her most popular novels set in sunny Los Angeles. This story follows two young teens as they grow up over a five year period only seeing each other once a year. This book captures the heartbreak that comes with finding yourself as well as overcoming insecurities.
Storyline/ Plot
November 9th follows 18 year olds Fallon and Ben over a five year period as they navigate life, falling in love, grief, and discovering horrific truths about past events and how the pair are linked together by their traumas.
Fallon is an ex child actress, who suffered an accident at age 16; a house fire that left over 30% of her body scarred, as well as cutting her bright future as an actress short, the fire ruined every ounce of self confidence Fallon had. 2 years to the day after the fire Fallon meets up with her dad for lunch (who she blames for her scars as well as her nearly dying), her father seems to be almost oblivious to the significance of the day for Fallon as the meeting quickly turns sour.
After hearing the conversation, aspiring author Ben slips into the booth where Fallon and her father are eating and improvises being in a relationship with Fallon to prove a point to her obnoxious father. Fallon shockingly goes along with this strange boy who seems to be helping her out, but can’t help but think he has a suspicious nature about him.
As time goes on Fallon and Ben progress to spend the whole day together until Fallon leaves for New York in order to spark up a career and find herself without anything from her past around to haunt her. One rule she sticks to from her mother: Do not fall in love until age 23.
Due to this rule Ben and Fallon agree to meet up on November 9th every year for the next five years with no contact inbetween, they would meet up in the same restaurant at the same time and spend the day together. Over the course of the five years they would date other people, do what they had to do and Ben would write his first novel based off of the pair and their arrangement.
Everything seems to be going well for the first few years, until everything come crashing down on Ben and Fallon with secrets being revealed, ruining everything they have built up, with grief and heartbreak will Ben and Fallon get a happy ending?
Writing style
Like a lot of Colleen Hoover books, November 9th is based on real-ish scenarios. November 9th is a day both Ben and Fallon try to avoid every year, an anniversary of something they both wished hadn’t happened. With this technique it makes all of Colleen’s books so easy to read because they are realist books, the things the characters experience are real things that happen. This is why her characters are so easy to relate to and connect with. In every book of hers Colleen also drops little clues of the links between characters throughout so that it all makes sense at the end which makes her books really well rounded throughout.
Pros/ cons
The concept of meeting up every year on the same day with no contact is really cool and unique which works well with engaging the reader as you constantly want to know what changes year by year. The dynamic of Ben and Fallon is also written really well and the two of them progress well throughout the book too which makes it easy to read. I personally enjoyed the story overall but I did find some things quite repetitive sometimes and didn’t really connect with the characters as much as I did in previous books.
Conclusion
Overall I gave this book three stars. It was a nice story with an interesting concept but I just didn’t really feel anything for the characters as much as I had with other characters in past books. Their background stories were sad and I thought they connected well but that is about it. As much as I liked the book as a whole I personally can’t see myself picking it up again.