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Maybe Someday by Colleen Hoover book cover
🌶️🌶️ 2/5
Maybe Someday
Colleen Hoover

Maybe Someday

2014 · 375 pages · Angsty Contemporary · Standalone
Feels like: walking home at 2am with a song stuck in your head and realizing the song is about someone you shouldn't be thinking about.
"This is the CoHo book people argue about the most — not because it's bad, but because it's the one where she refused to make the moral choice easy for you."
Mood
🎭 Moral gray zone
Spice
🌶️🌶️ 2/5
Pacing
⏳ Slow burn
Length
📖 375 pages
Ending
💛 Earned HEA
Format
📚 Standalone

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Quick verdict

Use this profile to decide whether Maybe Someday fits your current mood, heat comfort, trope cravings, and time commitment before you pick it up.

  • Best starting clues: 375 pages, Spice 2/5, Angsty mood, Musician trope.
  • 4 book profile links help you compare before choosing.
  • 2 related guide links keep the craving going.
  • Shopping and format links appear only where usable outbound data exists.

Reader fit

375 pages

Read if

  • Readers checking whether Maybe Someday fits before committing.
  • Readers currently craving an angsty mood.
  • Readers who care about musician signals.

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Read if / skip if

Read if

  • You want angsty energy.
  • You are actively looking for musician.

Skip if

  • You need live price, inventory, narrator, or subscription data on the page today.

Mood breakdown

Use these mood cues to decide whether this path feels dark, cozy, romantic, emotional, or easier to save for later.

  • Angsty

Spice breakdown

  • Spice 2/5
  • Use this as a comfort-zone clue before you commit.

Trope breakdown

Follow these trope cues when you want the same emotional engine in a different book or guide.

  • Musician
  • Forbidden Love
  • Slow Burn
  • Roommates

Pacing and commitment

  • 375 pages
  • moderate commitment
Weekend Timeline

How Maybe Someday actually reads.

375 pages. Pair it with the soundtrack — Hoover literally wrote this book to be scored.

Friday night
You meet Sydney on the day her life falls apart — boyfriend cheating, best friend complicit, rain, apartment keys, the whole reset. You meet Ridge through a window, then through music he writes and she sings along to without knowing. By page 50 you are in.
Saturday morning
Sydney moves in across the hall, discovers Ridge is deaf, discovers they write songs together now, and discovers he has a girlfriend named Maggie. This is where most readers start texting a friend: "okay but what is she going to DO."
Saturday afternoon
The middle is built on rules. Sydney and Ridge write songs. They stop touching. They start touching. They stop. The restraint is the point. You're rooting for something you also feel guilty about rooting for — Hoover knows exactly what she's doing.
Saturday night
Maggie's storyline reframes everything. The final quarter turns the moral question inside out, and by the last page you've been handed an HEA that actually cost something. You'll listen to the soundtrack on a loop for a week.
The Spice Roadmap

Where the heat lives.

Spice 2/5 — the book's tension is almost entirely the things they don't do.

0–25%
Proximity ache. Sydney and Ridge sharing a wall. Writing songs through a notes app. Looking. Not looking. Hoover builds the entire ecosystem before anything happens.
25–50%
Rules. They make boundaries. They half-keep them. A hand on a knee lasts too long. Ridge turns off the lights in his head. This is where readers either fall or bail.
50–75%
The breaking. The rules start failing one line at a time. There's a kiss that reads like a confession. Longer scenes of restraint, no explicit sex — the heat is all in the refusal to name it.
75–100%
Release. After the book does the emotional work, there's one late-book scene that finally lets the tension go. Fade-to-black, tender, earned. It's not a 4/5 book — it's a 2/5 book that feels like a 4/5 because of everything withheld.
TL;DR: Spice 2/5 — this is a restraint book, not an explicit one. If the longest hand-hold of your life sounds like a vibe, you'll eat it alive.
Before & After

What Maybe Someday does to you.

Before you read it

You thought CoHo was all explicit emotional carnage
You thought "clean romance" meant low stakes
You thought cheating plots were always tacky
You thought books and music couldn't really merge
You thought you knew which couple to root for from chapter one

After you read it

You know she can wreck you on spice 2 with nothing but longing
You know restraint is hotter than access when the writer commits
You understand why Hoover wouldn't let this one be simple
You've played the Griffin Peterson soundtrack more times than you'll admit
You know the Maggie reveal is why people still defend this book
Custom Fit Notes

Why Maybe Someday gets this profile.

A page-specific read on fit, heat, pacing, and commitment.

Best reader match
Maybe Someday is strongest for someone craving a contemporary romance read centered on music.
Commitment check
375 pages, fast pacing, and a full-weekend read. This is the time investment Colleen Hoover is asking for.
Heat and tone
Spice 2/5 means warm without becoming the whole point; the close aims for a happily-ever-after promise.
Why it is not interchangeable
Maybe Someday is book 1 of Maybe Someday, so context matters before you jump in. Expect quick-moving once it catches movement rather than a generic shelf pull. Reader signal: 4.2/5 across 350+ ratings.
Deep-Dive Reading Guide

The full spoiler-free profile for Maybe Someday

Maybe Someday by Colleen Hoover is not just a title to file under Contemporary Romance. A better way to read this page is as a decision brief: what kind of attention does the book want, what kind of mood does it reward, and what kind of reader is most likely to finish satisfied? The surface facts matter because they shape the experience before the first chapter even has a chance to win you over. 375 pages is a different promise from 180 pages. Spice 2/5 is a different promise from a closed-door read. Fast pacing sets an expectation for how quickly the book should start paying you back.

For romance readers, the central test is emotional payoff. The page should tell you whether the attraction, obstacle, and relationship movement are enough to justify the time. With Maybe Someday, the key signal is Music: that is the promise you should measure every chapter against. That does not mean every chapter has to be loud. It means the book has to keep proving why its particular mix belongs together. When a page says Maybe Someday is a contemporary romance read with Music, the practical question becomes simple: do you want that specific recipe, or do you only want the broad genre? Genre gets you into the bookstore aisle. The deeper profile tells you whether this is the copy you take home.

Maybe Someday has a 4.2/5 reader signal across 350+ ratings, so the useful question is not whether anyone likes it. The useful question is whether its particular mix of length, heat, pacing, and mood matches the book you actually want tonight. Ratings can be helpful, but they flatten the reason readers respond. A five-star reader may love the exact thing a two-star reader cannot stand: the burn rate, the length, the relationship logic, the violence level, the interiority, the ending style, or the way the author spends time. This guide treats those details as the real decision points. The goal is not to prove that Maybe Someday is universally good. The goal is to make the match honest.

Maybe Someday is book 1 of the Maybe Someday series, which changes the reading decision. A series book asks for more than one night of attention. It asks whether you want to carry names, conflicts, relationships, and unanswered questions forward after this page is closed. If you are choosing a book late at night, that distinction matters. A standalone can be a clean mood solve. A series entry is more like opening a door and agreeing to keep walking. Even when the page does not spoil plot details, it can still tell you what kind of commitment the book is asking for: the emotional energy, the number of pages, the heat level, the pacing style, and the likelihood that you will want another book queued up when you finish.

The best fit for Maybe Someday is a reader who wants romantic energy without needing the page to pretend the book is something else. If you want warm without becoming the whole point heat, quick-moving once it catches movement, and a happily-ever-after promise, the profile is pointing in the right direction. If you want a completely different shape, this is where the page should save you time. A good recommendation page is not only a sales pitch. It is also a filter. It should make the wrong reader feel free to skip without guilt.

Length is part of the story. At 375 pages, Maybe Someday is a full-weekend read, which changes how you should approach it. A shorter book can win through compression: one sharp premise, one clean emotional curve, one sitting where the mood stays intact. A longer book has to earn its space by making room for escalation, character pattern, context, or a fuller atmosphere. The reading-time estimate of about 6h 53m is not just a number. It is a reminder that this book is asking for a particular kind of evening, weekend, or week.

Pacing is the second major signal. Fast pacing usually means the book is not only about what happens, but when the book decides to spend or withhold momentum. If the page says Maybe Someday is quick-moving once it catches, read the opening with that in mind. Do not ask a slow-burn book to behave like a chase scene by chapter two. Do not ask a fast book to stop and build a museum of lore. The real question is whether the pacing matches the kind of pleasure the book is promising.

Spice level is another form of reader expectation, especially because many books get recommended across audiences with very different comfort zones. Spice 2/5 means warm without becoming the whole point. That should tell you whether the intimacy, if any, is likely to be a side note, a relationship engine, a tension release, or a major part of the appeal. A low-spice book can still be intensely romantic or emotionally charged. A high-spice book can still have plot discipline. The number is not a moral score; it is a fit score.

The ending label matters because it affects the aftertaste. Maybe Someday points toward a happily-ever-after promise, and that is the emotional contract you are walking toward. Some readers want closure. Some want a cliffhanger because the unresolved energy is the fun. Some want a darker landing because neatness would feel false. If you have ever loved most of a book and then felt betrayed by the final twenty pages, this is the detail to check before starting.

The most useful way to read Maybe Someday is to watch for whether Colleen Hoover's choices reinforce the same core promise: Music. In a strong fit, the tags should not feel pasted on. Mood should show up in scene rhythm. Pacing should show up in chapter pressure. Heat should show up in the emotional math, even when the book is low-spice. The ending should feel like the book has been training you for that landing, not like a random turn added because the genre needed one.

Opening promise

The first useful question is not "is this good?" but "what contract is the opening making?" For Maybe Someday, that contract is tied to contemporary romance, romantic mood, and Music. If the first session makes those signals feel alive, the rest of the book has a clear job.

Middle pressure

Around the midpoint, pay attention to whether the book is deepening the same appeal or simply repeating it. Fast pacing should still feel intentional here. In a well-matched read, the middle makes the original hook more expensive, more complicated, or more emotionally specific.

Character investment

Even when this page does not include plot spoilers, character investment is visible through fit signals. A reader who wants romantic contemporary romance usually needs the cast, voice, or central relationship to make the page count feel earned. That is the heart of the commitment check.

Heat usefulness

Spice 2/5 should be read as function, not decoration. If the book is low-heat, the emotional or conceptual engine has to carry more weight. If it is high-heat, the intimate moments should still change the pressure in the story instead of pausing it.

Mood consistency

Romantic is the mood signature. The strongest pages keep that signature recognizable even when the plot changes speed. A book can surprise you without breaking its promise; the shift should feel like escalation, not like a different book wandered in.

Final aftertaste

Because the ending points toward a happily-ever-after promise, the last stretch should leave the right kind of residue. That might be relief, ache, curiosity, shock, warmth, or a need to open the next book. The key is whether the ending matches the appetite that brought you here.

Reader decision matrix

Read it for: Music, romantic energy, fast pacing, and a contemporary romance experience that knows its lane.

Do not read it for: A guaranteed match for every reader. The page is specific because Maybe Someday is specific; the wrong mood will make even a strong book feel flat.

Best format: Any format that lets you keep momentum. The audiobook can work well if the sample matches the tone you want.

Best timing: A weekend with room to come back for more. The reading-time estimate is about 6h 53m.

Conversation value: Strong if your group likes talking about fit: pacing, heat, mood, ending style, and whether Colleen Hoover's choices made the page count feel earned.

Shelf test: Keep it on your list if Contemporary Romance, Music, and spice 2/5 sound like a craving rather than a compromise.

Book club deep cuts

1. At what point did Maybe Someday prove what kind of book it wanted to be? Use this question to talk about the reading experience rather than retelling the plot. The best answers will point back to mood, pacing, heat, commitment, and whether the book delivered the craving it promised.

2. Did the fast pacing help the story, or did you want a different rhythm? Use this question to talk about the reading experience rather than retelling the plot. The best answers will point back to mood, pacing, heat, commitment, and whether the book delivered the craving it promised.

3. Was Music a true engine for the book, or mostly a label that helped describe it afterward? Use this question to talk about the reading experience rather than retelling the plot. The best answers will point back to mood, pacing, heat, commitment, and whether the book delivered the craving it promised.

4. How much did the romantic mood affect your willingness to keep reading? Use this question to talk about the reading experience rather than retelling the plot. The best answers will point back to mood, pacing, heat, commitment, and whether the book delivered the craving it promised.

5. Did the 375-page length feel earned by the end? Use this question to talk about the reading experience rather than retelling the plot. The best answers will point back to mood, pacing, heat, commitment, and whether the book delivered the craving it promised.

6. If you changed the spice level from 2/5, would the book improve or lose part of its identity? Use this question to talk about the reading experience rather than retelling the plot. The best answers will point back to mood, pacing, heat, commitment, and whether the book delivered the craving it promised.

7. Did the ending deliver a happily-ever-after promise, and was that the landing you wanted? Use this question to talk about the reading experience rather than retelling the plot. The best answers will point back to mood, pacing, heat, commitment, and whether the book delivered the craving it promised.

8. What reader would you recommend Maybe Someday to without hesitation? Use this question to talk about the reading experience rather than retelling the plot. The best answers will point back to mood, pacing, heat, commitment, and whether the book delivered the craving it promised.

9. What reader should avoid it, even if the genre sounds appealing? Use this question to talk about the reading experience rather than retelling the plot. The best answers will point back to mood, pacing, heat, commitment, and whether the book delivered the craving it promised.

10. Which expectation did the book meet most clearly: genre, mood, pacing, heat, or ending? Use this question to talk about the reading experience rather than retelling the plot. The best answers will point back to mood, pacing, heat, commitment, and whether the book delivered the craving it promised.

11. Would you read more from Colleen Hoover based on this specific experience? Use this question to talk about the reading experience rather than retelling the plot. The best answers will point back to mood, pacing, heat, commitment, and whether the book delivered the craving it promised.

12. If you had to pitch the book in one craving sentence, what would you say? Use this question to talk about the reading experience rather than retelling the plot. The best answers will point back to mood, pacing, heat, commitment, and whether the book delivered the craving it promised.

Finish-line verdict

Maybe Someday is most useful as a recommendation when the page stays specific. Calling it contemporary romance is only the beginning; the real profile is 375 pages, fast pacing, spice 2/5, romantic mood, and a happily-ever-after promise. Those details tell you what kind of reading night the book is likely to create.

If those signals line up with what you want, this is the kind of page where the answer can be yes quickly. If they do not line up, the page has still done its job. It saved you from forcing a book into the wrong moment and then blaming the book for not being a different one.

The deeper way to use this guide is to compare it against your current appetite. Are you looking for speed or immersion? Heat or restraint? Closure or continuation? Familiar genre comfort or a sharper mood fit? Maybe Someday becomes easier to choose when you stop asking whether it is broadly popular and start asking whether it matches the exact craving in front of you.

That is the Sort By Cravings philosophy: recommendations should be practical, emotional, and honest. A book page should help you picture the reading experience before you commit. For Maybe Someday, the picture is a contemporary romance read shaped by Music, carried by quick-moving once it catches movement, and finished with a happily-ever-after promise.

Compatibility Check

Should you swipe right?

The honest fit check — before you commit 375 pages.

♥ Swipe right if...

You love slow-burn longing over explicit scenes
You want to see cheating dynamics handled with moral weight, not as a plot device
Music as love language is your whole thing
You appreciate disability representation in romance (deaf hero)
You want the gentler CoHo — fewer bruises, still a gut punch

✕ Swipe left if...

Any emotional infidelity is a hard no — this book lives in that gray zone
You want spice 4/5+ and explicit scenes from page one
Slow burns frustrate you — this one is deliberate, not fast
You want a clear villain in love triangles — Maggie isn't one
CoHo's style has annoyed you before — this is her with restraint, not a pivot
Emotional infidelity / gray-area cheating Chronic illness (explored late-book) Parental abandonment backstory Cheating by secondary characters Grief and terminal illness Fade-to-black sexual content
I can handle the gray zone — press play →
Emotional Sparkline

What you'll feel, and when.

BetrayalDiscoveryLongingRevealEarned love

Maybe Someday is a book of quiet emotional peaks, not explosions. The highest point is a line of dialogue, not a plot twist. If you like your feels delivered like whispers, this one hits you for days.

From the Pages

Lines that live rent-free.

"Our lips are like magnets and we've chosen to constantly fight the pull."
Sydney narrating the entire second act in one sentence
"Sometimes people are forced to make hard decisions between two heartbreaks. They pick the one that they feel will leave the fewest scars."
The thesis of the book's moral architecture
"I'm right where I want to be, Sydney. With you."
The line that finally pays off 300 pages of holding back
Real Talk

Things the back cover won't tell you.

This is 2014 CoHo, not 2022 CoHo. It's gentler, less dramatic, and more character-driven than the books that turned her into a BookTok juggernaut. If you came here from It Ends With Us, adjust expectations.
The cheating question is real. There's no physical sex until very late, and even that is arguably not infidelity depending on where you draw the line. But there IS emotional intimacy between people who are not single. Hoover is not pretending otherwise — she's asking you to sit with it.
Ridge being deaf is not a gimmick. It shapes how he processes music, how he talks, how intimacy works. It's one of the better disability portrayals in 2014 romance, and it holds up.
The Griffin Peterson soundtrack is a real album you can stream. Each song corresponds to a song written inside the book. Listening while reading is the intended experience, not a marketing stunt.
Maggie gets significant narrative weight in the final act. CoHo did not throw her away to justify the main couple — she made you love her, and the book is structured so you can't hate her.
Pacing Map

How the ride feels.

Rain & resetRules formRules breakQuiet release

The middle two thirds are the bulk of the book — this is where Hoover is doing the actual work of making you care about every character, including the ones making it hard to root for the romance. The pacing is patient but never boring.

What Maybe Someday Is Really About

Maybe Someday is the Colleen Hoover book that treats the word "cheating" with suspicion. Sydney's relationship ends in the prologue, which is the easy break. The hard break is that the person she connects with next has a girlfriend — a real one, a good one — and the book refuses to pretend that's an easy problem to write around. It doesn't hand Ridge an excuse. It doesn't make Maggie a villain. It makes you sit in the discomfort for 375 pages.

Structurally, it's Colleen Hoover's most experimental book — written in parallel with a soundtrack by musician Griffin Peterson, with songs that the characters "write" inside the book released as real tracks you can stream while reading. The musician romance isn't aesthetic window dressing; the music is how Ridge and Sydney first connect before they ever physically meet, and the songs are how they say things they're not allowed to say out loud.

At 375 pages with spice 2/5, this is CoHo working with restraint — far fewer explicit scenes than Ugly Love or Hopeless, but the emotional stakes are arguably higher because everything they do or don't do carries moral weight. The slow burn is the point. If you want the gut-punch CoHo experience without explicit content, this is the one to hand someone first.

Maybe Someday Tropes & Themes

Sydney and Ridge don't meet cute — they meet guilty. Every moment together is complicated by the person who isn't in the room. Hoover doesn't resolve it with a plot contrivance. She resolves it by making you understand every character, including the one whose relationship is threatened.
Ridge is deaf and writes songs. Sydney sings along without knowing he's watching. Their first real conversations happen through lyrics passed back and forth. The Griffin Peterson soundtrack lets you hear the songs as they're written — it's one of the few romance novels that literally has a score.
Sydney moves into the apartment across from Ridge's and they share a wall — so the restraint is physical as well as emotional. Every footstep, every guitar chord, every door closing becomes loaded. Hoover uses architecture as tension.
Disability In Romance
Ridge's deafness is integrated into the plot, the relationship dynamics, and the way intimacy works. It's not a gimmick and it's not tokenism. For 2014, it's a notably thoughtful portrayal — and the sign-language scenes are some of the book's most tender moments.

Books Like Maybe Someday

Finished and need more slow-burn angsty romance? Our full guide goes deeper.

Same author
Ugly Love by Colleen Hoover
If Maybe Someday's restraint worked for you but you want more spice, Ugly Love is the natural next step. Pilot hero, past grief, dual timeline, and one of CoHo's most quoted endings.
Same moral gray
It Ends With Us by Colleen Hoover
CoHo's most famous moral gray zone. Different kind of impossible choice, same refusal to make it easy. If Maybe Someday earned your trust in her, this is the one you can't skip.
Same slow burn
Beach Read by Emily Henry
Two writers, next-door proximity, and a romance that's mostly tension until the last act. Different tone, same "I am deliberately not touching you yet" energy.
Same quiet devastation
All Your Perfects by Colleen Hoover
CoHo's other spice 2/5 masterclass. Marriage in crisis instead of new love in crisis, but the same commitment to making the emotional math do the work.

🎧 Audiobook Verdict

Sydney narratorAngela Goethals
Ridge narratorZachary Webber
Length~11 hours
The dual narration works well — Goethals's Sydney is vulnerable without being fragile, and Webber handles Ridge's written dialogue convincingly. But the audiobook's unique trick is the embedded Griffin Peterson songs. You'll hear actual music at the moments the characters write it. One of the most creative audiobook experiences in the CoHo catalog. Listen on Audible →

💬 Book Club Starters

Is this a cheating book? Where does your line sit?
Did the late-act Maggie reveal change how you felt about the whole plot?
Does the music/soundtrack element work, or feel like a gimmick?
How does Ridge's deafness shape the intimacy scenes differently from other romance books?
Reading Pace Calculator

How long will Maybe Someday take you?

Based on ~110,000 words across 375 pages.

At 250 words per minute, Maybe Someday will take you about 7 hours 20 minutes. That's a cozy Saturday or two long evenings.
Reader Poll

Maybe Someday — was it cheating?

What happens in Maybe Someday? (light spoilers — tap to expand)

Sydney discovers her boyfriend is cheating with her best friend on her birthday and ends up across the hall from Ridge, a deaf songwriter she doesn't know is already in a long-distance relationship with a woman named Maggie. Sydney and Ridge start writing songs together and the emotional intimacy builds before Sydney even finds out about Maggie.

Once the truth is on the table, the middle act is built on rules — no touching, limited time, boundaries that keep failing. Sydney and Ridge try and mostly fail to be "just friends," and the pain of the restraint becomes the book's central engine. Maggie's storyline begins to take on more weight as you learn why Ridge and Maggie became a couple and what's keeping them bonded.

The reveal about Maggie's health reframes the entire moral landscape. The ending gives Sydney and Ridge a chance at a real, honest relationship — but only after both of them (and Maggie) have made hard, adult choices. The HEA is quiet and earned, not explosive.

About Colleen Hoover

Colleen Hoover self-published her first novel, Slammed, in 2012 and has since become the best-selling fiction author of the 2020s by a large margin. Maybe Someday (2014) sits in her early catalog, before BookTok turned It Ends With Us into a cultural event — and it's the one longtime fans quietly defend the hardest.

CoHo's catalog spans contemporary romance, women's fiction, thrillers, and young adult. She's known for taking emotionally difficult premises and refusing to resolve them easily. Maybe Someday is her musician romance — and its soundtrack collaboration with Griffin Peterson remains one of the most ambitious multimedia experiments in the genre. More on her author page.

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