I’ve been wondering about this. Colleen Hoover is well known as the sort of poster girl for sloppily written, baffling and aggressively mediocre books.
What was the equivalent to her in previous times? Like the Romantic or Modernist period?
During the the 1890s, what book was considered “embarassing” or super low brow to be caught with (in the same way the book community largely treats It Ends With Us)?
Look at the bookshelves in historic houses if they still have the collections. So many books I’ve never heard of, so many authors too.