Book Review | Confess by Colleen Hoover

Goodreads Summary:

From #1 New York Times bestselling author Colleen Hoover, a new novel about risking everything for love—and finding your heart somewhere between the truth and lies. 

Auburn Reed has her entire life mapped out. Her goals are in sight and there’s no room for mistakes. But when she walks into a Dallas art studio in search of a job, she doesn’t expect to find a deep attraction to the enigmatic artist who works there, Owen Gentry.

For once, Auburn takes a risk and puts her heart in control, only to discover Owen is keeping major secrets from coming out. The magnitude of his past threatens to destroy everything important to Auburn, and the only way to get her life back on track is to cut Owen out of it.

The last thing Owen wants is to lose Auburn, but he can’t seem to convince her that truth is sometimes as subjective as art. All he would have to do to save their relationship is confess. But in this case, the confession could be much more destructive than the actual sin… 

This book is a spiral of emotions and events! It took me by surprise and I never expected to love this book the way I did. I always find it difficult to talk about a book that I love so bare with me here.. I'm already writing this review weeks after reading this. 

"Tonight, everyone’s focus is on my art, but my focus is on her. She’s the most interesting piece in this entire room." 

I cannot talk about this book without being spoilery, I personally went into this book knowing two things: 1) The cover is gorgeous and the title is intriguing. 2) It's revolving around art and has the paintings in the book. If you want to know why the title is called "Confess", you can highlight the following, but to me, it was amazing discovering it by myself so I wouldn't recommend it, but basically: Owen has an art studio where he has a mail slot outside for people to write confessions anonymously and slip them through. He then goes through the confessions and gets inspired to paint a painting out of a certain confession and by the end of the month, he sells these paintings with the confession as the name for the art. Isn't this the best idea for a book you've ever heard of?!! I absolutely LOVED it!!! 

"I’ll love you forever. Even when I can’t." 

This wasn't an insta-love, but I felt like the romance - or the attraction to be exact - escalated quickly. I didn't hate it, but I was so confused at the beginning, I thought I skipped some pages or something haha. As you might know from reading previous Colleen Hoover books, she incorporates art with tragedy and in this one, the art and the mystery that she clearly states in the first chapters have you on the edge of your seat and on the lookout for answers the whole time. I was reading this with wary, judgmental eyes and I loved every single page of it.  

"It’s amazing how much distance one truth can create between two people." 

Owen is not your typical fluffy contemporary main character, he is more than that. I think it's because of the book being a new adult book and not a young adult one, but Owen was very mature. He is a very sacrificial person, mysterious and caring. He usually handled things the right way and I loved that about him, he was simply a good person. Of course, he is a hot dude with an amazing personality, but the thing that makes him more and more sexy in my eyes, is that I envisioned him as Johnny Depp. Whenever I think artist, I think long dark brown hair pulled into a pony tail with a scruffy beard and Johnny Depp glasses. Am I right?!! Is it just me?.. 

"I want you to remember how it feels when I look at you." 

Auburn was a very strong character, I admired her personality to a strange extent. She was the definition of a determined, dependent woman. Although she usually didn't have things her way, but she fought to get what she wanted and she was very smart as well. 

"She’s like a light, unwittingly brightening up the darkest corners of a man’s soul." 

Of course, Colleen Hoover's writing is phenomenal and I can't stress on that enough. I fall in love with her books more and more and I cannot wait to read every single book she has ever written or will ever write. 

"I don’t feel lost in him at all, because it’s the first time I’ve ever felt like someone truly found me." 

That's all I have to say about this one, if you liked Maybe Someday, I know for a fact you'll love this one! GO READ IT. I highly recommend it. 

SPOILERS 

(highlight to view)

Oh man, Owen.. I love love him and I love you as well Auburn. Their relationship was perfect from the start and I loved their chemistry. I connected to these characters even though they're adults and I'm only 18. Colleen's characters are so real and genuine and you can never not fall in love with them. 

Let's start from the beginning, I'll try to make this in a chronological order for once in my life..

Adam. Adam. Adam. For starters I love the name Adam, and I fell in love with the character. I was so emotionally involved in the story from the beginning when they were both fighting for their love because they were too young and he was dying. I loved that they had sex so early even though it was kind of irresponsible, but I loved it. Young, irresponsible love is what I live for (plus they're teenagers, cut them some slack). The consequences of it weren't so bad - the pregnancy, of course - at least she had a part of Adam with her forever and that to me is beyond amazing. I was firstly so shocked when I found out that she was pregnant, that was totally unexpected. Then again, Colleen Hoover foreshadowed this when they were in the kids isle at (target? Was it target?) and she chose a blue tent because "He loves the color blue." and Owen was like... who the fuck is he?. He is her son!! That was adorable. 

The thing that tore at my heart was the custody battle. Lydia is such a bitch from taking away her son from her to not remembering her birthday and not showing up to the bar with AJ. I thank Trey for being such an asshole, because if it wasn't for him, Auburn wouldn't have taken her son which is the rightful thing to do. 

Owen taking the blame for his dad wasn't stupid. To me, that is one of the noble things that one could do. Also, not telling Auburn about it was incredible. I, for one, have personal stuff that involve my family that I can never tell anybody - as I'm sure most people do - and I totally understood where he was coming from. It was hard enough for him to stay away from Auburn as it was for her. I love forbidden love and it was slightly so because he needed to stay away from her to go to jail and she needed to stay away from him because of Trey's threats. 

I didn't once take Auburn's ass-kissing to Lydia and Trey for weakness. She said it a lot and I'll say it again, a mother has to do anything for the sake of her child and I admired that beyond words. I know that I won't relate to that as much as I would like (because duh, I'm not a mother), but I love love kids and I'm a firm believer that a mother-son/daughter relationship is stronger than any relationship ever. I respected Auburn for taking so much shit for her child's sake and actually taking a stand in the end and doing something about it. I loved her determination and the lengths of where she would go to claim her child back. 

Trey was a great addition to the story, even though I hated him - which you're supposed to. The fact that he actually attacked Auburn and black mailed her by using her son against her was a new kind of low. I needed Auburn to report him though, instantly. He needed to be stopped and I think she was smart when she recorded him. I wanted somebody to do that all along and when she did I was like "THANK YOU!" 

The ending was beautiful and I loved how everything wrapped up. I loved how the painting that Adam gave to Auburn (or the one that Owen shipped to Auburn on behalf of Adam) was actually Owen's first ever painting. I loved how Adam practically gave Owen his consent and wished that someday Auburn would find the love she deserves after he passes away. I loved loved loved everything about the last couple of chapters and they had me in tears. I LOVED THIS BOOK MORE THAN I CAN ACTUALLY PUT INTO WORDS AND I LOVED ADAM FOR DOING THIS. 

When AJ and Owen bonded in the tent, I knew that he would make a great dad and I wanted the three of them to be a happy family together - and they did! I'm never a happy ending kind of girl, but this one had me in happy tears and gave me warm fuzzies! 

Have you read Confess?! (You should if you haven't btw) tell me what you think down below! 

Happy reading everybody!