Love-Bombing, Gaslighting, and Hoovering: A Psychological Study of Selected Romance Novels by Colleen Hoover

The romance novel, as a genre, has been unjustly ignored or unwisely underestimated by many critics out of prejudice and/or ignorance even though it has been extensively admired by readers. This paper focuses on two contemporary American romance novels: It Ends With Us (2016) and its sequel It Starts With Us (2022) by Colleen Hoover. This paper defends this genre, refuting the two main claims established to denounce it: the unrealistic aspect of romance fiction and the familiarity of the plotline of it. In the light of the psychoanalytical and literary theory, this paper highlights how Hoover widens the parameters of the romance novel, creating a romance story which introduces realistic, psychological terms such as: love-bombing, gaslighting, silent treatment, and hoovering used by psychologists. Moreover, it inspects the unconventional resolutions of the plotlines of the two chosen novels. Hence, this paper fills in the gap of critical attention to a crucial genre as romance fiction and celebrates its essential significance.