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)?
I wonder if Grace Livingston Hill would be categorized like that? Same basic plot, over and over, same type of characters (upstanding young man, sweet wallflower girl, villain is usually a fast girl who wears lipstick and has a bob or a man who encourages the girl to drink). I have a whole shelf full of them and still reread them for the nostalgia.