Forgive Me BookTok, For I Have Pranked

I have a confession to make. To the citizens of BookTok, I sincerely apologize. I have committed the ultimate prank against you. I have broken the trust between author and reader, tricked you into loving joke writing, and for that I am sorry. 

Actually I’m not that sorry, because this was hilarious and you were duped beyond my wildest dreams. You made purposefully horrible writing a booming franchise. You all thought a real, rational, professional person would write “We both laugh at our son’s big balls” unironically, and that’s on you.

I realized early in my professional career with Colleen Hoover that she wasn’t actually reading my ghostwritten editions. She pumps out one book every six months, she can’t pay attention to all the details. So I decided to have some fun with it. It started off innocent, just some things to entertain me, inside jokes. Throw away lines as we built our first manuscript. I thought she’d notice in our first round of editing. But she didn’t. I wanted to see how far I could go.

Guys I got so far. This is nonsensical! You’re buying these? Yeah, she’s getting called out for the movie nonsense (NOT my fault!), but I made her rich! With this! The florist’s name was Lily Bloom. Middle name Blossom. I really thought she was going to catch me there. But she didn’t, and my growing prank empire won another secret battle. 

One of my favorite things about this job, and my secret mission, is that the reviews don’t affect me. Most writers shouldn’t read their worst reviews, it’ll demotivate them, ruin the spark. But not me! Oh, it’s only fuel in the fire, baby! I know it’s bad. Isn’t it hilarious? Sometimes I just scroll Goodreads over breakfast to start my day off with a laugh. 

“This was… stupid?”

“and to think trees were cut down for this atrocity to be printed out.”

“coho male leads seek therapist first before hitting on women challenge (impossible)”

“Writing: offensively bad/5 | Plot: nonexistent/5 | Ending: abysmal/5” 

I really appreciate your feedback, I’m glad I’m reaching my audience of logical readers. Reading the five star reviews is harder. 

“colleen hoover put her whole colussy into this one…”

“I don't think I deserve to write a review for this book.”

“Mrs Colleen Hoover does it again friends, she’s just so amazing I wonder how she comes up with ideas like this to write amazing books.”

Makes me sad that I’m tricking the world’s most vulnerable population. 

Not that sad though. 

I’m convincing her to write more insane things every day! We’ve got a list of novel ideas ready to write, and you can be sure I’ll be inserting more outrageous lines than ever in her upcoming works. You thought my Verity epilogue was bad? Your proverbial goblets will overflow with pick me girls and creepy boys! Unrealistic dialogue, even more unrealistic love stories! Names that sound like a twelve year old’s first stab into novel writing! Adults and teens alike ruining their lives for a, at best, mediocre man!

The only thing I’ll really apologize for is finding the people who read this kind of stuff and feeding them more and more. They’ve mutated, just like the Very Hungry Genetically Modified Caterpillar. But I’m getting money, and a little giggle for my troubles. 

It Starts With Us… it being pranks. Us being me. 

Happy reading!