Too Late by Colleen Hoover: book review

Too Late (2016) comprises first person narratives – a sequence of events from different points of view.

There are few characters. Three are key to the plot. Sloan is a 20-year-old student living with Asa for about two years. She is supposed to represent a strong woman, but she is wimpy and whiney in my opinion. Asa is a needy, extremely jealous, manipulative unfaithful man madly in love with Sloan. He keeps track of Sloan by his mobile phone GPS system. He’s a horrid character.

Carter is a student in Sloan’s class. Carter is not his real name. He tells Sloan that he is 22, but he’s really 25 years old. His only duty is to ‘bust the largest campus drug ring in collegiate history.’ Yes, he’s an undercover cop.

Sloan is surprised to see Carter in Asa’s house – they are ‘doing business.’

One day Asa’s GPS tracker notices that Sloan is not where she said she’d be. She is with Carter.

The title, Too Late, comes from many events, and also the line: ‘It’s a little too late to change your mind.’

Simply put, the style and characters are simple. There is no complicated plot, so readers don’t need to think too much. The format is a little unconventional and disjointed. There is 60% storyline and 40% epilogue (what happens after the story). Except that the epilogue comprises a prologue (set two years before the events take place) followed by an epilogue to the epilogue. To have a prologue after the epilogue, and two epilogues is just too experimental – and it’s not effective. Not my favourite book, and possibly my least favourite, but it was free.

MARTINA NICOLLS is an international aid and development consultant, and the author of:- The Shortness of Life: A Mongolian Lament (2015), Liberia’s Deadest Ends (2012), Bardot’s Comet (2011), Kashmir on a Knife-Edge (2010) and The Sudan Curse (2009).

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