Title: Layla
Author: Colleen Hoover
Published: 2020 (Montlake
Genre: Thriller/Paranormal
Leeds is part of a band that is playing at a wedding when he meets Layla. They fall in love and move in together. But when an enraged obsessed fan shoots Layla, things aren’t the same. Desperate to get back to normal, Leeds rents the mansion where they first met in hopes of re-setting their lives. Instead, a mysterious presence threatens the couple’s very identities as they try to get back what is theirs.
Layla is the third book by Colleen Hoover that I’ve read and definitely ties with Verity in terms of terrible subject matter. In Layla, Hoover seems to justify the abuse Leeds does towards the title character by making Layla “possessed.” Because she is obsessed, he is in the right when tying Layla up, drugging her, and even drowning her in the pool in order to get the correct “spirit” back into the body.
I get the feeling that because her parents were in an abusive relationship, Hoover is fixated on similar characters throughout her works. I doubt that she’d ever admit to that, but it certainly comes across as that. I wouldn’t consider her to be the next literary genius of our time.
Rating: 1 Star.
Ashley French 