Romance? Thriller? Ghost Story? Yes, But Also No

Hi darlings, i'd pour an extra large glass of wine before tucking into this book...

Layla by Colleen Hoover is… well. A book I read with increasing confusion, occasional laughter, and the kind of expression that says, “surely this cannot be serious.”

On the surface, it promises a romantic thriller with a supernatural edge. In reality, it feels like three different genres got locked in a room together and none of them agreed on the plot.

The story follows Leeds, who meets Layla at a wedding and immediately falls into that all-consuming, Colleen Hoover-style intensity of love where emotions arrive at 100% volume. Everything is dramatic, heightened, and very sure of itself. Until, of course, Layla is attacked by Leeds’s ex and ends up in a coma for weeks.

When she wakes up, she is not quite… herself.

And from there, things begin to wobble.

Leeds takes her to a secluded bed-and-breakfast in the hope that love, isolation, and vibes will somehow restore her to normal. Instead, the house becomes the site of increasingly strange occurrences. Lights flicker, things feel off, reality starts to blur, and suddenly we are in a story that is trying very hard to be eerie, but often lands closer to “confused haunted Airbnb listing.”

There is a constant push-and-pull between emotional devastation and supernatural mystery, but instead of blending, they mostly trip over each other. One moment we are in deep romantic anguish, the next we are wondering if the house is haunted, and then we are back to emotional monologues that feel like they belong in a completely different book.

And then there’s the infamous “ghost situation.”

Because yes. At some point, the story introduces a spirit named Willow who begins inhabiting Layla’s body so Leeds can still “be with her.” I read that sentence in real time and genuinely paused, because it felt like the book had quietly shifted into a completely different universe without warning.

Leeds, meanwhile, commits fully to this situation in a way that is both sincere and increasingly surreal. He is in love with Layla, then not Layla, then Layla-but-also-not-Layla, and at no point does the narrative seem interested in how objectively unhinged that premise is. It’s played with such seriousness that it loops back around into accidental comedy.

You want to feel swept up in the romance. Instead, you’re sitting there thinking, “so we are just… doing ghost romance now?”

The pacing doesn’t help either. The story constantly feels like it is building toward something, only to veer off into another emotional spiral or paranormal detour. The tension never quite settles into anything cohesive. It’s more like watching someone repeatedly almost tell you a secret, then changing the subject.

Leeds himself is written with extreme emotional intensity, the kind where every internal thought is a full existential crisis. He is devastated, devoted, confused, grieving, longing, and spiralling at all times. Which, on paper, should feel gripping, but instead often feels like emotional overexposure. After a while, everything is heightened to the same volume, so nothing really lands.

Layla as a character becomes more of a concept than a person. First she is a love interest, then a mystery, then a vessel for something else entirely. The emotional grounding that should make the romance meaningful starts to dissolve under the weight of all the twists.

And the horror element, which could have saved everything, never fully arrives. The supernatural aspects feel undercooked, more atmospheric suggestion than actual dread. There is no slow creeping fear, no tightening sense of unease, just occasional “spooky” events that feel more like interruptions than escalation. Instead of haunting, it often feels oddly staged, like the book is trying to convince you something terrifying is happening without fully committing to making it feel real.

What makes it most difficult to fully invest in is that it never quite decides what it wants to be. Romance, thriller, ghost story, psychological mystery. It hovers between all of them without fully landing in any, which leaves the whole experience feeling slightly unanchored.

By the end, I didn’t feel emotionally devastated or thrilled or haunted. I mostly felt… puzzled. Like I had just watched a very serious performance of something that didn’t quite know it was also absurd.

So while I can see what it was aiming for, it never fully got there for me. The tone is too uneven, the premise too far-fetched in its execution, and the emotional impact too diluted by constant genre shifting.

It’s not unreadable, but it is deeply strange in a way that makes it hard to take seriously.

Rating: 2/5