I’ve been wondering about this. Colleen Hoover is well known as the sort of poster girl for sloppily written, baffling and aggressively mediocre books.
What was the equivalent to her in previous times? Like the Romantic or Modernist period?
During the the 1890s, what book was considered “embarassing” or super low brow to be caught with (in the same way the book community largely treats It Ends With Us)?
Not nearly as low-quality as Hoover, but I was amused to learn how many great classics were considered cheap pulp fiction in their time.
Even people like Alexandre Dumas (3 Musketeers, Count of Monte Christo).