It Starts with Us by Colleen Hoover
Published 2022 · 78,000 words · about 5 hours at an average pace · Literary Fiction, Romance
How hard is It Starts with Us to read?
It Starts with Us scores 14 out of 100 for difficulty on ReadingRate, making it relatively accessible. The score is a weighted composite of nine measures: four of how hard the prose is to parse, five of how hard the meaning is to extract.
- Vocabulary: 15 out of 100
- Simple, accessible vocabulary throughout.
- Sentence structure: 15 out of 100
- Abstraction: 15 out of 100
- Concrete emotional situations. No abstraction.
- Information density: 25 out of 100
- Light pacing. Emotional rather than informational density.
- Narrative indirection: 15 out of 100
- Alternating POVs but linear timeline.
- Symbolic density: 100 out of 100
- Minimal symbolic layering.
- Ironic distance: 50 out of 100
- Earnest and emotionally direct.
- Resolution withholding: 15 out of 100
- Low stakes compared to the first novel. Outcome largely expected.
- Structural complexity: 15 out of 100
- Simple alternating-POV structure.
How It Starts with Us is regarded
It Starts with Us holds a literary regard score of 18 out of 100, weighing its place in the canon, its critical reception, its influence on other writers, and the standing of its author. Regard is measured separately from difficulty: a demanding book is not necessarily an admired one.