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Angsty Romance (Colleen Hoover Readalikes)

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Angsty Romance (Colleen Hoover Readalikes)

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The Incredible Appeal of Colleen Hoover

I think anyone working in libraries has probably realized by now that Colleen Hoover books are massively, MASSIVELY popular with readers at the moment. The requests for her books and similar books literally are coming constantly, for well over a year now. So it would seem that this popularity has come to stay, for now at least. Part of the popularity stems from the fact that Colleen Hoover, or CoHo as she's often referred, and her books continuously trend hard on #BookTok (TikTok's book lover community). She writes angsty romances with high drama and emotional devastation, and she writes them in simple language that allows for a reader to move quickly through the book. Chapters are short and quick, so the pace of the read feels easy and breezy, which appeals to many readers, especially readers who may not be interested in complex world-building or high complexity in the narrative structure. The simpler and fast paced narrative style, combined with the high drama and emotionality, and the "messy romance" aspects work together to create a reading experience that is acting very much like catnip to many readers. They read one and cannot get enough. It is an absolutely incredible thing to witness, because these books are actively engaging readers who may not have previously felt compelled to read much at all, let alone multiple books in a row. They are definitely contributing to a renaissance of reading, and I believe they are especially successful at tempting infrequent readers back into a more frequent reading lifestyle. Which is AMAZING!

So, whether your particular library has CoHo books or not, I think we can all agree that there is considerable demand in most libraries (school and public) for more and more books that are similar to CoHo, and to that end I've compiled the following book list of "readalikes" that may help you locate more books to stock in your library if you are looking to add things that would appeal to readers asking for CoHo or asking for books like CoHo's.

A List of Rom-Drams

This list focuses primarily on selecting titles which incorporate angst, emotional devastation, tearjerker qualities, etc as well as a significant love story plot point, as those seem to be the characteristics that appeal most to CoHo fans. The titles on this list, then, are not what I would consider "rom-coms." I think of them as "Rom-drams" because they are more dramatic than comedic. 🙂

Actually quite a few of these aren't even what I would really consider to be traditional "romances," because they don't end in the HEA (happy ever after) that is necessary to be considered a true romance. These are more correctly termed "love stories," and so they do include considerable love and relationship based plot lines.

Side Note

**Most of the options I selected to include here skew towards YA, since most of my blog readers are school or young adult librarians, but I know that quite a lot of public librarians also read the blog so there are one or two "new adult" or adult leaning titles included as well. The needs of every library community vary greatly, and the themes or stories that are relevant to your particular community may vary, so be sure to complete your standard due diligence on each title before purchasing it.

The List!

Here is the Canva Template Link to the Visual Booklis t Poster*

*You are welcome to reuse the poster noncommercially!

Always Isn't Forever by J.C. Cervantes (2023)

Every Other Weekend by Abigail Johnson (2020)

If He Had Been With Me by Laura Nowlin (2013 but trends on BookTok now)

Some Mistakes Were Made by Kristin Dwyer (2022)

What Beauty There Is by Cory Anderson (2021)

All My Rage by Sabaa Tahir (2022)

Chaos Theory by Nic Stone (2023)

Nothing Burns as Bright As You by Ashley Woodfolk (2022)

One True Loves by Taylor Jenkins Reid (2016)

When We Were Infinite by Kelly Loy Gilbert (2021)

Song of Achilles by Madeline Miller (2011)

The Summer I Turned Pretty by Jenny Han (2009)

The Way I Used to Be by Amber Smith (2016)

You've Reached Sam by Dustin Thao (2021)

Symptoms of a Heart Break by Sona Charaipotra (2019)

We Were Liars by E. Lockhart (2014)

I Wish You All the Best by Mason Deaver (2019)

They Both Die at the End by Adam Silvera (2017)

Ander & Santi Were Here by Jonny Garza Villa (2023)

We Are Okay by Nina Lacour (2017)

All the Bright Places by Jennifer Niven (2015)

History is All You Left Me by Adam Silvera (2017)

The choices here are subjective, of course, so you may disagree with some of the selections as not being a match for the theme, and that's totally ok! I included the editable template link above so you can adjust and change the visual booklist poster to best fit your needs!

Happy Reading!

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Book List: Angsty Love Stories for Fans of Colleen Hoover (Free Download)

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The Incredible Appeal of Colleen Hoover I think anyone working in libraries has probably realized by now that Colleen Hoover books are massively, MASSIVELY popular with readers at the moment. The requests for her books and similar books literally are coming constantly, for well over a year now.

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YA Readalike Posters - Various Topics by Kelsey Bogan

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YA Readalike Posters - Various Topics by Kelsey Bogan

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Created by Kelsey Bogan. Free to edit & reuse non commercially!

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**My readalike posters are available for free near end of post**

Displaying the Readalike Lists

I'm sure that by now most of us have seen the post from last spring where fellow librarian Melissa Corey (twitter @melissacorey) posted her awesome idea for repurposing an old desk organizer as a new for sharing visual book lists. The tweet went viral, as so many librarians and teachers saw how practical and fun the idea was. Melissa also was very generous in providing her book menus for free to anyone who wanted to replicate the idea. You can find Melissa's downloads on her website Visual Book Lists.

As soon as I saw Melissa's tweet and lists I knew I wanted to replicate the idea in our library. I've always been a big fan of readalike lists and posters, and I'm always looking for a new way to use them and ensure they are useful to my students. Several years ago I wrote a blog post called "Reading Recs Via a "What To Read Next" Wall" where I shared some of the readalike posters I had made to help my students. Since then I've updated my wall, using a new strategy where the posters are larger and easier to swap books out on each list. I also love doing tiktoks and instagram posts that function as "what to read next" or "readalike" lists.

So when I saw Melissa's method for sharing/displaying book lists I knew I wanted to try it too! I was initially a bit put out by the cost of the desk organizers and had planned to DIY one using a cookbook stand and a regular binder instead of using an official desktop organizer, but then one of our AMAZING school administrative assistants unearthed an old desktop organizer that she found somewhere in the school for me, so now I actually get to use both versions. One will be at the circ desk and other will be on the other side of the room in our nonfiction section!

For my DIY version I just purchased an inexpensive clip on cookbook stand and used a binder I'd already had at hand. You can see that one below!

The Posters

You'll notice in the pictures below that for my readalike posters I've opted to add both the navigational info to each book (the call number and section) as well as a QR code that, when scanned, will take students to the Destiny Discover record for the book. I've chosen to add these bits of info to help facilitate easy access to the books. This way if the student sees a book cover and title that seems interesting they can either take the call # listed right below it and quickly find the book in order to see if its synopsis is interesting OR they can easily scan the QR code in order to learn more about each book. Its a bit time consuming to add this info but I think it will be worth it. On the template link below I've already removed our QR codes but I have not removed our call #s so if you reuse my posters make sure you change or delete that part!

You'll also notice that most of my posters have a pretty small # of books on each one, most have only 6 recs on each page. This was purposeful, as I've found that many students can get overwhelmed with too much choice or too many options so I'm trying to see if the smaller amount of recs on each page proves helpful to some of those students.

I plan on creating more of these throughout the year and I will share additional ones in future posts!

You are welcome to access my posters via the template link below. You are welcome to edit, change, and reuse them noncommercially. If you create new ones then I hope you'll consider sharing them for free with others and perhaps adding your link to the free documents to this padlet for sharing readalike posters.

Want More Freely Reuseable Readalike Lists?

The wonderful Lisa Krok (twitter @readonthebeach) has generously created and shared more readlike lists, which are available here via canva template.

I have now created a shared padlet where anyone can add links to more freely re-useable readlike style book lists. I hope you'll feel welcome to add yours to the list should you end up creating your own! Access Padlet

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My readalike posters are available for free near end of post** https://videopress.com/v/PJ9pqfGT?resizeToParent=true&cover=true&preloadContent=metadata&useAverageColor=true Displaying the Readalike Lists I'm sure that by now most of us have seen the post from last spring where fellow librarian Melissa Corey (twitter @melissacorey) posted her awesome idea for repurposing an old desk organizer as a new for sharing visual book...

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Readalike Posters for YA Books with Shorter Page Counts

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This blog post has the editable templates & readalike posters I made for “short books” for my high school students. I think there are 4-6 different posters available

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Pretty much every teen, YA, or high school librarian I know has eventually run into the same problem with the YA books being published and that is this: the books are getting sooooooo big! Its becoming common for YA books to be 400 pages or more, and to be installments in larger series rather than standalones. Many readers do, of course, love to immerse in a big ole book, but I fear that many, many, MANY of our teens are being left behind in this trend. As a high school librarian I do not see that the majority of my students prefer, or are even open to, choosing books that much exceed 300 pages. I see a lot of students pick a book, when its time to choose for independent reading, based almost entirely on the number of pages, rather than the theme or content. Sometimes this is because their schedules are so busy as as to not allow for time to read larger books, or it sometimes is because a larger book is intimidating and perhaps their reading endurance isn't quite up for that yet. Regardless of the reason, its totally valid! To that end I've created some "readalike posters" for my students to help guide them towards great shorter books.

How to find the short books in your collection

If you use Follett Destiny you can run a report that will let you sort by page count(ish)! Just go to "reports" and the "report builder." Create a report that includes the book's title, author, and "extent information." Filter or Limit as you'd like (for instance I was only wanting to find prose fiction so I created a "copy" report rather than a "title" report so that I could then limit the results to only include books whose call # started with an "F" so that my report would not include our graphic novels, memoirs, or nonfiction.) Run the report as an excel document and then you will be able to "sort" the excel sheet by the "extent" column and can easily find the books with smaller page counts currently in your collection!

You are welcome to reuse these readalike posters if you want.

Books Under 250(ish) Pages

Abby Spencer Goes to Bollywood by Varsha Bajaj

Adrift by Paul Griffin

Batman: Nightwalker by Marie Lu

Be Not Far From Me by Mindy McGinnis

Warm Bodies by Isaac Marion

The Boy in the Black Suit by Jason Reynolds

Bunker 10 by J.A. Henderson

The Bunker Diary by Kevin Brooks

Dear Martin by Nic Stone

The Taking of Jake Livingston by Ryan Douglass

Summer of Salt by Katrina Leno

Speak by Laurie Halse Anderson

Skyjacked by Paul Griffin

We Were Liars by E. Lockhart

Every Heart a Doorway by Seanan McGuire

Exit, Pursued by a Bear by E. K. Johnston

Game Change by Joseph Monninger

Hold Stil by Nina LaCour

I'm Not Dying With You Tonight by Kimberly Jones and Gilly Segal

No Safety, In Numbers by Dayna Lorentz

The Marrow Thieves by Cherie Dimaline The Perks of Being a Wallflower by Stephen Chbosky

Books Under 320(ish) Pages

Bad Call by Stephen Wallenfels

Barely Missing Everything by Matt Mendez

Camp Valor by Scott McEwen

The Dark Descent of Elizabeth Frankenstein by Kiersten White

The Education of Margot Sanchez by Lillian Rivera

A Cuban Girl's Guide to Tea and Tomorrow by Laura Taylor Namey

The Closest I've Come by Fred Aceves

Darius the Great is Not Okay by Adib Khoram

Dreadnought by April Daniels

Even if We Break by Marieke Nijkamp

Goth by Otsuichi

The Gravity of Us by Phil Stamper

Hard Wired by Len Vlahos

The Inheritance Games by Jennifer Lynn Barnes

Game Changer by Tommy Greenwald

Hearts Unbroken by Cynthia Leitich Smith

Here the Whole Time by Vitor Martins

Here to Stay by Sara Farizan

How it All Blew Up by Arvin Ahmadi

Girl Made of Stars by Ashley Herring Blake

How We Fall Apart by Katie Zhao

I Am Not a Serial Killer by Dan Wells

I am Still Alive by Kate Alice Marshall

In Deeper Waters by F. T. Lukens

Instructions for Dancing by Nicola Yoon

Long Way Down by Jason Reynolds

The Naturals by Jennifer Lynn Barnes

Love is a Revolution by Renee Watson

Not Your Sidekick by C.B. Lee

The Obsession by Jesse Q Sutanto

Pride by Ibi Zoboi

Primal Animals by Julia Lynn Rubin

Running with Lions by Julian Winters

Light at the Bottom of the World by London Shah

Sadie by Courtney Summers

Sanctuary by Paola Mendoza and Abby Sher

She Drives Me Crazy by Kelly Quindlen

A Spark of White Fire by Sangu Mandanna

Let's Talk About Love by Claire Kahn

This is Our Story by Ashley Elston

This is Where It Ends by Marieke Nijkamp

This is Why We Lie by Gabriella Lepore

Tyler Johnson Was Here by Jay Coles

The Upside of Falling by Alex Light

A Very Large Expanse of Sea by Tahereh Mafi

Words on Bathroom Walls by Julia Walton

You've Reached Sam by Dustin Thao

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Readalike Posters for YA Books with Shorter Page Counts

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Pretty much every teen, YA, or high school librarian I know has eventually run into the same problem with the YA books being published and that is this: the books are getting sooooooo big! Its becoming common for YA books to be 400 pages or more, and to be installments in larger series rather than...

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My version of Melissa Corey's Canva template for October with HS books from our library. https://bit.ly/3RWqzUR

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Some of these I got directly from Melissa Corey (twitter @melissacorey), some pieced together from other places.

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If you liked All the Boys & Romance/Fantasy

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If you liked All the Boys & Romance/Fantasy

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I am a beginner at Canva--so hopefully you can make copies of this! Also- it is not very artistic--there is a learning curve! Happy Reading!

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This site is where Melissa Corey generously shares her many visual book list posters, there are a lot to choose from!

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I adapted this from Melissa Corey's Quick Reads template, changing a few titles so that it will all be for middle grade. (I swapped out a few YA titles.) I hope this is the correct link to share it!

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Novels in Verse Teens and Tweens- Book List

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Novels in Verse Teens and Tweens- Book List

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Check out this design designed by Lisa Krok.

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TheNextGenLibrarian If You Liked…template link from Canva. I’m always updating these so you might want to come back to grab a new copy every once in a while!

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TheNextGenLibrarian If You Liked…template link from Canva. I’m always updating these so you might want to come back to grab a new copy every once in a while!

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Part 2 of TheNextGenLibrarian's If You Like...book recommendations

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Part 2 of TheNextGenLibrarian's If You Like...book recommendations

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The template that inspired the format of most of these originally came from Kelsey, so here we are coming full circle! This link will give you a template, so feel free to make any and all changes necessary for your collection.

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Created by Elizabeth Hoskins. Free to edit & reuse.

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Created by Shannon Will, follow me on IG- @arcadiahighlibrary :)

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Created by Bernadette Pasek, feel free to make your own copy and reuse.

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Created by Bernadette Pasek, feel free to make your own copy and reuse.

Just updated, the link should work now.

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Check out this Real Estate Flyer designed by PASEK BERNADETTE.

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Created by Bernadette Pasek, feel free to make your own copy and reuse.

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Check out this Real Estate Flyer designed by PASEK BERNADETTE.

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Created by Bernadette Pasek, feel free to make your own copy and reuse.

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Check out this design designed by PASEK BERNADETTE.

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Created by Bernadette Pasek, feel free to make your own copy and reuse.

Just updated, link should work now.

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Created by Bernadette Pasek, feel free to make your own copy and reuse.

Just updated, link should work now.

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Created by Bernadette Pasek, feel free to make your own copy and reuse.

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15 Different Booklists - Canva Template Link from Lindsay Cesari

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15 Different Booklists - Canva Template Link from Lindsay Cesari

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Includes editable templates, as I like to add call numbers under each title - which probably won't be the same for your school.

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Canva Link: https://www.canva.com/design/DAEdtQVxp1c/Lgq4PloJxeK7bsV46q0BUw/edit?utm_content=DAEdtQVxp1c&utm_campaign=designshare&utm_medium=link2&utm_source=sharebutton

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The Jbrary blog has shared over 35 book menu / visual book lists for K-12. The blog post includes a link to the templates in Canva so they can be customized.

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YOU, yes you. You gems of the online community who take the time out of your day to say something thoughtful to another person (me!). The comments on my last post had me bawling in the best way. Thank you all from the bottom of my heart for your kind words and feedback. I heard you and I'm making good on my commitment to not overthink things. Since I'll be blogging more regularly I encourage you to subscribe so posts are delivered straight to your inbox. Just fill in the the box on the right of your screen (location may differ depending on device) with your email and click subscribe.

I thought I'd jump back in by sharing something that has filled me with pure joy. Something that makes me happy every time I walk by and see families crowded around flipping through and snapping pictures. Introducing the Book Menu!

I first got the idea to try something like this from Teen Librarian Toolbox. I liked it immediately. A visual reader's advisory tool to help families discover all our collection has to offer? Yes please!

I thought it would work at my library because we have a community of voracious kid readers. We get asked all the time for reading recommendations, often by kids who have read all the popular titles. I also know caregivers here use our website and app and will often place holds by themselves. I wanted something that would empower our readers to use our collection in a self-sufficient way, while also promoting the library as a place where they can get amazing recommendations.

My goals for the Book Menu (you know, in case you want to do this too and are asked to write up a rationale):

To visually draw children into the browsing process with colourful, graphically appealing "menu items."

To promote our collection and increase circulation by exposing families to hidden gems.

To identify ourselves as a place where families can get recommendations that meet the interests of their child.

To encourage kids and families to come to the information desk to ask for help in finding something they are looking for.

To promote other services such as programs by including program posters as "menu items."

To serve as a passive reader's advisory tool when information staff are helping other people (which often happens on the busy weekends and after school hours)

Here's how to create one.

Step 1: Gather Your Supplies

All you need for a Book Menu is a desktop reference system. Here's the one I bought. It's not the best but it gets the job done. It's a bit wobbly and the covers are a little hard to see out of. I put cardstock paper in between each list to make them more visible. If you have the money, invest in a high quality one! I also used really strong tape to secure it to the shelf so people wouldn't pick it up and move it around.

Step 2: Make Your Lists

I decided to focus primarily on chapter books and graphic novels with some nonfiction thrown in there. Picture books are more browsable, and we get more questions from school-age readers. It's also the collection my staff are less comfortable answering hard reference questions about because they often haven't read the books. If I had space in my teen area I would make a separate Book Menu just for them. You can make lists about any topic and any part of your collection!

Here's my gift to you: the Canva template for the 35+ lists I've already created. You can edit them to your heart's delight! If you have a paid Canva account you can make these even better; I was stuck using free images and fonts.

A huge shout out to Karen Jensen at Teen Librarian Toolbox who kindly sent me her Canva templates when I was getting started. I also adapted some of the lists on Visual Book Lists, another amazing resource.

Here's some of the lists you'll find in my template.

Genre Based

So You Like...

For the K - 3 Crowd

For Special Days and Months

Step 3: Find a Place to Display

Next you need to figure out where to put the Book Menu. I cleared a space at the beginning of the chapter book section because that's what my book menu focuses on. Mine takes up an entire shelf. You could also put it on a display space or on your information service desk (that could be a cool talking point when patrons come to the desk!)

Step 4: Update Your Lists and Get Creative

I try to rotate the lists every month, adding seasonal lists and switching the order to keep it fresh. If anyone creates lists for upcoming seasonal events, please share them in the comments!

Another feature I recently started is called Reader Spotlight. Kids can fill out one of the forms and I create a list based on their recommendations. My goal is to create a community of readers.

One thing I haven't been able to do based on limitations of my library is put QR codes on each list so families can scan it on their phone and be taken directly to the booklist on the library's website. How easy for them! If you can use QR codes, DO IT.

So that's the Book Menu, my source of pride and joy. Have you ever done anything like this? Do you have other creative ways to do reader's advisory? What lists should I make next? Please share your thoughts in the comments!

(p.s. I am trying out a new widget which allows people to react to comments with emojis. Feel free to try it out.)

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Learn how to create a book menu for school-age kids at your library. Over 35+ list templates included.

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Check out this design designed by Lindsey.