Series Review: Maybe by Colleen Hoover

Series Review: Is this series worth your time? Does it get better as the novels progress? Or does it get worse? Find out below:

booksynopsis

Synopsis for Maybe Someday (from Goodreads):

At twenty-two years old, Sydney is enjoying a great life: She’s in college, working a steady job, in love with her wonderful boyfriend, Hunter, and rooming with her best friend, Tori. But everything changes when she discovers that Hunter is cheating on her—and she’s forced to decide what her next move should be.

Soon, Sydney finds herself captivated by her mysterious and attractive neighbor, Ridge. She can’t take her eyes off him or stop listening to the passionate way he plays his guitar every evening out on his balcony. And there’s something about Sydney that Ridge can’t ignore, either. They soon find themselves needing each other in more ways than one.

A passionate tale of friendship, betrayal, and romance, Maybe Someday will immerse readers in Sydney’s tumultuous world from the very first page.

breakdown

SERIESous’ Top Picks:  Favourite Author, 2015 Favourite Read
Series: Maybe
Author: Colleen Hoover
# of Books: 2 (Full Reading Order Here)

Maybe Not is a companion novella with different characters as the leads but read AFTER Maybe Someday!

Book Order: Companion + Direct Sequel
Complete?: Yes
Genre: New Adult, Romance, Contemporary, Music
Heat Rating: warm
Point of View: First Person, Alternating (#1); Single (#1.5), Multiple (#2)
Source & Format: Public Library–eBook (#1-1.5); Scribd–Audiobook (#2)

thoughts

**This post was originally published as a Series Review of the first few of the series. It has now been updated to include the newest publications in the series.**

My Expectations/Why I Picked it Up:

This has been the year of Colleen Hoover for me. Ever since I read her Hopeless series, I’ve been steadily adding her books to my TBR list and making sure I have her books on hold at the library. With her writing, I know I’m reading a Colleen Hoover book but I don’t feel like I am reading a regurgitation of her previous books. Which is really important to me as a reader because I find quite a few authors have an almost formulaic style to their characters and plots which gets boring to read after awhile. But with Hoover, something always surprises me and Maybe Someday was no exception!

The Concept & The Plot:

Maybe Someday was just a fantastic book! Given the synopsis, it doesn’t seem like anything special but there is so much more under the surface. And I mean so. much. more. It’s really hard to talk about without spoiling everything –and I’m having a hard time writing about how impressed I was with this book! But I’m going to try…

I also want to give huge props for providing audio versions of the songs from the book. It just adds another layer to the book and makes it come to life, especially if you listen to the songs as they appear in the book. It’s one thing to make and include a playlist of popular songs at the end of your novel, its a completely other thing to make a SOUNDTRACK of all the original songs included in your book! You can find all the songs here (don’t worry, they aren’t spoilers!). Just supremely well done and it’s what makes me give this book such a high rating (well that and the fact that it is just plain awesome even if you forget about the soundtrack!).

The Characters:

Where this book really wins is with the characters: and not just the leads. Given the initial plotline, this book could have been a mess of over the top drama, sex and angst but it never goes in that direction. Not only is there hardly any sex (so the sex scenes don’t overshadow the relationships) but everyone handles the situations in an extremely mature way. I mean in a “let’s talk about this and our feelings” kind-of way instead of a “I hate the world” angsty kind-of way. I never got annoyed with this characters and respected them for how they handled everything. They made it so easy to read this book and root for them throughout the novel.

The Romance:

And while the romance plays a huge role in this book, there is a considerable amount of time dedicated to character growth–as a new adult novel should have. What 22 year knows exactly what they want out of life? I know I sure don’t and I really appreciated Sydney’s desire to find herself instead of being consumed by her romantic life. It just made for a nice treat that she had this romantic relationship developing on the side.

The Novella:

It is important to know that you should read the novella, Maybe Not, AFTER you read Maybe Someday or else you will read major spoilers despite the fact that it follows two different characters. It is a little confusing because Maybe Not starts before the events of Maybe Someday but eventually the events overlap. However, it does have spoilers and it really won’t mean as much to you unless you are introduced to these characters before you read their story. I do recommend you read it right after Maybe Someday because it explains some of the little events that happen in the first novel plus, after you meet these characters you just really want to read their story anyways 😉

And once you finish the novella continue on to:

updates

–July 21, 2020– Book #2: Maybe Now

I’m a little embarrassed that I didn’t even know this book existed until I saw it on Scribd!

I liked this a lot and I think, like the first book, it brought up a lot of topics that people don’t want to explore in books or relationships. And while they aren’t fun conversations to have, I liked how these characters handled the various subjects.

I think it just brings everything into closure for this group of people and I couldn’t ask for more honestly!

Series Rating: 4.5/5

Maybe Someday 5/5 | [Maybe Not 5/5] | Maybe Now 4/5

overall

This is probably an inflated 5/5 rating because I just loved the execution of this novel! You can tell Colleen Hoover puts everything into her books and it shows. It was so refreshing to read about characters who had a genuine connection, who weren’t jumping into bed with each other as soon as they lay eyes on each other and actually mature into adults. A great book for Colleen Hoover fans to read but an even better book for people who want to read a Colleen Hoover book!

Read if You Like: character focused novels, sweet love stories
Avoid if You: don’t like/can’t tolerate love triangles*

*I’m not the biggest love triangle fan but I found this one wasn’t an all consuming, immature one so I really didn’t mind it.
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Comments 8

  • Great review! After reading your review, it has made me more impatient and frantic, I need to get my hands on this book asap.

  • I totally agree with you on how some authors have this plot formula on some (if not all) of their books. I think that’s primarily one of the main reasons as to why I have yet to pick up a single Colleen Hoover novel 🙁 But after reading this review, I feel a lot more confident to picking up a series of hers, especially this one ^_^ Thank you very much ^_^

    Awesome review!!!

    • Definitely give Hoover a shot! I know that when I read her books that there is going to be a great unexpected twist but I always end up surprised anyways. It seems like her books are really hit or miss with readers but I think it depends on how much you enjoy the New Adult genre and how much exposure you’ve had to it. I read a LOT of NA and Hoover’s books are definitely up there on my favs list.

      Let me know if you read anything by her. I think you’ll enjoy it–we seem to have pretty similar reading tastes 😉

  • Having just finished Aguirre’s 2B trilogy, I feel myself itching for more New Adult novels. Your review of this series definitely makes me want to give it a shot, especially since I’ve had Slammed on my TBR for ages. Not to mention that you liked this one a lot better than the 2B series. Okay, you convinced me! ::adds to TBR::

    • Haha The 2B Trilogy is a great series to introduce someone into the New Adult Genre but as a “seasoned” NA reader, it just didn’t have the same intensity as other novels that I’ve read.
      I hope you like this one, I think it’s really great! 😛

      • That’s funny you say that because I was trying to pick 5 comparable new adult titles for my “other books you might like” section and I couldn’t come up with that many. I didn’t think I was such a newb, but the evidence doesn’t lie, lol. Now I’m especially excited for your recommends because evidently I’ve only just scratched the surface! I want the intensity lol.

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