53 pages • 1 hour read
Colleen HooverHeart Bones
Fiction | Novel | Adult | Published in 2020A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more.
Background
Authorial Context: Colleen Hoover
Hoover, a prolific author with more than two dozen books currently in publication, writes for both adult and young adult readers. Hoover is a lifelong storyteller who put her creative impulses on hold as she and her husband raised three children. She returned to writing with the intention to only share her stories with her inner circle, and she discovered it was fairly simple to self-publish her early romances. However, these novels were soon picked up by major publishers, paving the way for her to become the bestselling romance author in American literature by the early 2020s. Heart Bones was originally self-published before being picked up by Atria Press in 2023, accounting for the novel’s two dissimilar book covers.
There are common characteristics within Hoover’s literature that appear in Heart Bones. As in It Ends With Us, her best known novel, and most of her other titles, the characters in Heart Bones are meant to be realistic, flawed, hopeful, and evolving. Other thematic elements in Hoover’s novels include extreme conflict—even violence—between characters, financial difficulties, and societal obstacles such as injustice and inequality. These themes are reflective of Hoover’s youth, in that she lived in a trailer park as a child and witnessed domestic abuse between her parents before her mother left and raised her as a single mom.
Geographical Context: The Texas Gulf Coast
Though the author lives in the small East Texas town of Sulphur Springs, her narrative is set in the landscape and history of the Texas Gulf Coast, especially the area between Houston and Galveston, and particularly focusing on the Bolivar Peninsula. This strip of land, which is part of a long line of barrier islands, sits to the southeast of Galveston Bay. It is accessible both by Interstate 45 and, as frequently mentioned in the narrative, by regular ferry service. This area is historically well known for legendary disasters, including a series of hurricanes in the early 20th century and the 1947 explosion of a ship full of fertilizer, categorized as the largest industrial accident in US history. Hurricane Ike has a large impact on the story. In 2008, it devastated Galveston and, key to the narrative, destroyed many of the expensive vacation homes along the coast. Hoover weaves the aftermath of the hurricane into her narrative, such that the misfortune of Samson can be tracked directly back to the storm.
The other aspect of the Texas Gulf Coast that figures strongly into the narrative is the cultural upheaval it creates for Beyah, who has spent her entire life in a trailer park in Kentucky. She is unprepared for the awesome beauty, sensory experience, and mystery of the ocean. Hoover portrays her as someone who has been transported to an entirely different world, one in which Walmart is not the premier location for clothing purchases and seafood, formerly a rarity, is a common meal. The unique coastal culture participates in breaking down Beyah’s layers of isolation.
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