Layla

- Colleen Hoover

Albany, WA

September 20, 2022

Goodreads Book Blurb:

When Leeds meets Layla, he’s convinced he’ll spend the rest of his life with her—until an unexpected attack leaves Layla fighting for her life. After weeks in the hospital, Layla recovers physically, but the emotional and mental scarring has altered the woman Leeds fell in love with. In order to put their relationship back on track, Leeds whisks Layla away to the bed-and-breakfast where they first met. Once they arrive, Layla’s behavior takes a bizarre turn. And that’s just one of many inexplicable occurrences.

Feeling distant from Layla, Leeds soon finds solace in Willow—another guest of the B&B with whom he forms a connection through their shared concerns. As his curiosity for Willow grows, his decision to help her find answers puts him in direct conflict with Layla’s well-being. Leeds soon realizes he has to make a choice because he can’t help both of them. But if he makes the wrong choice, it could be detrimental for all of them.

Genres:

My Review:

waste of time:

☆☆☆☆☆ 1/5

By now, I’m regretting my CoHo readathon decision. There were a couple of decent ones and a few average ones, but mostly just bad bad bad. If I ever needed to learn a lesson about following trends, I have well and truly learned it by now.

Layla is just weird. Not in an interesting or intriguing way, but in a ‘why does this exist‘ way. It’s not romantic or sweet or contemplative. It’s not thrilling or scary or heartbreaking. It’s like a writing exercise taken too far and should never have been published. What is the demographic of people who would like this book? The characters are unrelatable and aloof. The story is told in circles; instead of making it thrilling, it’s repetitive. The love story is bland, as is the smut. If I had to read ‘pushed into her‘ one more time, I think my eyeballs would’ve fallen out from the excessive amount of rolling that’s taken place. Leeds seems to be trying to convince us that Layla is this unique butterfly that cannot be tamed or explained, but she sounds like an untethered lost person without a life of her own. Who else moves to a new state with a stranger and starts living with them after a few days in a B&B in the middle of nowhere? All it takes is a bad dance, a fake drugging, and a Spider-Man kiss in a pool and true love exists.

Spoiler

By the end of Layla, it sounds like Leeds spent more time with the fake Layla than the real one, but it’s okay; they’ll move to a new state and start again and this time it’ll work.

I should’ve DNFed this. I wanted to—so bad, so many times. I kept hoping for a multiple personalities psychotic break twist way past the time it would’ve been feasible. I always want Hoover to go so much darker than she does, and then for some reason, I’m surprised when it ends up being tame mainstream nonsense.

I’ve got one more CoHo to go (I’m skipping the second anthology containing one of her stories because of how bad the first one was – I can’t do that again), so I think I’ll survive the experience. I don’t think I’ll look back on it with any fondness, but hey, several of these terrible books were rereads that I barely remembered, so time is a fickle, tricky bastard and who knows what the future holds.

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