It Ends with Us

“It stops here. With me and you. It ends with us.”

Who would've thought I would end up liking one of Colleen Hoover's books? Not me, that's for sure. I've read a couple of her books in the past but I didn't enjoy the writing style, plot, or characters. But after reading a few reviews by people saying they were not CoHo fans, in general, but that they liked this one, I had to see for myself.

I thought the book was ok. I'm happy I went into it blindly. I had no idea it was going to tackle such a heavy topic. Some people seem to have misunderstood the purpose of this so reading the author's note a the end is a must, in my opinion. If that's not obvious, I didn't read this as a romance but as a cautionary tale.

I've finally decided to write my thoughts on this so buck up to hear what a real life domestic violence survivor thinks.

Truthfully, what annoyed me the most about this book is that it had great potential to show representation for victims. I would've loved to have been able to read this and see the light at the end of the tunnel with her getting justice AND a happy ending. They should co-exist when it comes to a story and subject like this.

I really hated seeing people read this and see the ignorance of those you said “she's such an idiot for staying” or things along those lines. I think if you don't understand or haven't experienced something quite like this then you shouldn't make those comments. Leaving a relationship like this is easier said than done. It took me five years.

I didn't want Ryle to have any form of a redemption arc. He doesn't deserve one. No one like him ever deserves one.

Overall, this just left me, a survivor, disappointed.

It Ends With Us (It Ends With Us #1)

by Colleen Hoover

𝐒𝐭𝐚𝐫 𝐑𝐚𝐭𝐢𝐧𝐠 ⇝ ★★★★★

🦋 𝐅𝐚𝐯𝐨𝐫𝐢𝐭𝐞 𝐐𝐮𝐨𝐭𝐞 🦋

“Sometimes it is the one who loves you who hurts you the most.”

𝐌𝐲 𝐓𝐡𝐨𝐮𝐠𝐡𝐭𝐬 ↴

I finally read it! I finally f-ing read it! And you know what, y’all were right, the book was so good I finished it in 3 days, 3 DAYS PEOPLE! Idk about you all but that’s fast for me. This book had my emotions all over the place. I thought part one was all unicorns and rainbows, I was smiling, I was giggling, overall I was happy with the contents of the book (from what I was reading) and then Colleen said “surprise mf” and the whole Ryle burns his hand incident happens 🤦🏽‍♀️— jaw dropped and my heart shattered. For those who have read it, I’m sure you know what I’m talking about. He was so “perfect” and now I just can’t stand him. And then Atlas 😩 let’s just say I’m 100% #TeamAtlas. Part 2 of the book I kind of just figured Ryle was going to continue being abusive so I couldn’t bring myself to be happy for Lily when she decided to stay. I was very much done with Lily & Ryle and needed Lily & Atlas content 🙃 which is why I’m so excited to start the second book.

𝐓𝐫𝐢𝐠𝐠𝐞𝐫 𝐖𝐚𝐫𝐧𝐢𝐧𝐠 ↴

Domestic violence, mentions of SA.

𝐖𝐨𝐮𝐥𝐝 𝐈 𝐫𝐞𝐜𝐨𝐦𝐦𝐞𝐧𝐝 𝐭𝐡𝐢𝐬 𝐛𝐨𝐨𝐤 𝐚𝐧𝐝 𝐰𝐡𝐲? ⇝ Yes, it’s a great book.

🫧 𝐇𝐚𝐩𝐩𝐲 𝐑𝐞𝐚𝐝𝐢𝐧𝐠 📖

It was ok, it reads like a better than average Lifetime movie. This is not my favorite genre, and I cannot for the life of me remember where I got a recommendation to read this. The best part is probably the the author's end note, which was very personal and helped explain why she wrote the book.

I did love Lily's teenage journals. She writes them in a letter format to Ellen Degeneres, which sounds kind of bananas but was very touching. The revelations of the level of abuse in her household was hard to read, the part where sees her dad trying to rape her mom, and then she loses it and goes for a kitchen knife, was so chilling.

However the book had some problems. The character's names were eye roll inducing, and they all had conveniently dreamy jobs - Ryle Kincade (the neurosurgeon), Atlas Corrigan (the Marine turned successful chef/restaurateur.) Lily Bloom owns a successful flower shop.

However, Lily's concept for her flower shop sounds so terrible. This is how she describes it-

“Brave and bold. We put out displays of darker flowers wrapped in things like leather or silver chains. And rather than put them in crystal vases, we'll stick them in black onyx or . . . I don't know . . . purple velvet vases lined with silver studs. The ideas are endless...There are floral shops on every corner for people who love flowers. But what floral shop caters to all the people who hate flowers?” Allysa shakes her head. “None of them,” she whispers.”

That's right, because that is a stupid idea. Later there's a scene where she's making a ‘steampunk' bouquet and using an old boot as a vase. Just...that is awful.

Ryle was immediately threatening and scary, I don't know if him being abusive was supposed to be a twist, but from the moment Lily meets him on the roof I just wanted her to get out of there. If you say no, a guy should not progressively try to manipulate you into having sex. Showing up at your house after knocking on every door in the building is grounds for calling the police, not inviting someone in to sleep in your bed. That's not cute, that's crazy behavior. A lot was excused because he had nice arms and Lily thought scrubs were hot.

Alyssa's response when she finds out that Ryle had hurt Lily was weird, instead of being angry at him she begs him to tell Lily some dark secret in his past - which turns out to be the accidental death of his older brother by an unsecured firearm, that Ryle has felt guilt over his entire life. That's horrible, but also has absolutely zero to do with him being an abusive asshole, I could not believe how Lily heard this story, felt terrible for him, and then that was somehow grounds for ignoring being pushed down the stairs.

It also bothered me that it is mentioned that Atlas had joined the Marines and done two tours - I'm assuming meaning a deployment to Iraq or Afghanistan, which would be hugely life changing, but when Lily meets up with him again it's like he's the exactly same, gentle person she knew as a 15 year old.

At one point he tells her he came back, after four years in the Marines, to come find her, but then decided that he wasn't good enough to be with her and signed up for another tour. If nothing else, the Marine Corp should have instilled some self confidence, should have given him some savings and connections - I could not understand his self sabotage here. It's like the author is using the Marines as a convenient way to get a character out of the story for 8 years without giving any thought to what that actually means.

There's also a random plug for Rodan and Fields that came out of nowhere?

I did love this line “For better, for worse? Fuck. That. Shit. —Lily”

“There is no such thing as bad people. We're all just people who sometimes do bad things.”I came close to crying while reading this a couple of times, but didn't actually cry. But the authors note broke me.The writing was beautiful, and its contents were so hard to read but [a:Colleen Hoover 5430144 Colleen Hoover https://images.gr-assets.com/authors/1464032240p2/5430144.jpg]'s writing made it a hundred and ten times more easier.I loveddd the side characters, Marshall and Alyssa specially!![a:Colleen Hoover 5430144 Colleen Hoover https://images.gr-assets.com/authors/1464032240p2/5430144.jpg] I want to be you when I grow up.Naked truth: There were a few scenes which were so hard for me to read, so I didn't actually read those parts I just skimmed through, coz I felt that reading those scenes would bring up unwanted memories within me which I would like to stay hidden.Quotes I loved 1)“All humans make mistakes. What determines a person's character aren't the mistakes we make. It's how we take those mistakes and turn them into lessons rather than excuses.” 2)“It stops here. With me and you. It ends with us.” 3)“Just because someone hurts you doesn't mean you can simply stop loving them. It's not a person's actions that hurt the most. It's the love. If there was no love attached to the action, the pain would be a little easier to bear.” 4)“Fifteen seconds. That's all it takes to completely change everything about a person. Fifteen.” 5)“Naked truths aren't always pretty.”

Read this insanely fast considering it's the middle of the semester. It definitely kept me engaged, but was a little frustrating. I hate when books/films/whatever spoon-feed the theme or message to you, and this book did that about a million times. I can point you to a passage or two that tell you exactly what you should get from the book. That should be something you come to on your own, not be directly told multiple times. Let the story speak for itself. SO basically, I gave it 3 stars because I was definitely extremely engaged and curious about what will happen, but I did have some issues.

I had never read a book by Colleen Hoover before, but this was so hyped by everyone at work that I had to check it out. Well, apparently we have very different tastes. At one point, i had to flip to the end to find out if she leaves him because if she didn't this was gonna be a big fat DNF. Once I got back to the ending, i do admit that i appreciated it and the fact that the author was actually trying to say something about domestic violence. But personally, it didn't make up for the way it previously felt like it was romanticizing DV.

Ryle immediately gave me the ick because he was so coercive from literally the moment he met her. It didn't come off as assertive or dominant - just nasty. I dunno, maybe it hit a little too close to home for me but I hated him so much.

At different parts of the book, i had trouble suspending the disbelief for the plot. Like, you get an immediate-hire employee your first day you open your business and she also becomes your best friend (then sister in law and also neighbor)? Stuff like this can be fun, but i need to be convinced sometimes I guess. I have a hard time describing what I mean by this, though, or what makes it so unbelievable sometimes.

And every time they said, "naked truth," i wanted to vom.

If it weren't for the ending and for Atlas, i would've given this one star. But it taught me i like a partner indecision trope, for whatever that's worth.

Colleen Hoover I don't know if I should hug you, thank you or just continue to cry because I have just finished the most heart wrenching book in my years of reading. I put off this book not because I thought it was going to be bad because everything you write is gold, but because you said it was heavy and I didn't think I could handle heavy. what you present is real is raw and is honest. Lily is a strong woman with a rocky past who doesn't give up on her dreams. After everything her an Atlas went through they both manage to find a bright spot at the end of the tunnel. I really dont know what to think of the character that is Ryle because I loved who he was in the beginning and the chemistry between him and Lily is unmistakable in the beginning, but his past and his pent up angry is really sad as it unfolds. I didn't realize what the title meant until I actually read the book and I cried for at least the last 10% so Colleen Hoover thank you for writing such a gut wrenching book thats honest and sadly beautiful.

It Ends With Us was another book I made a lot of assumptions about. I didn't really know what to expect when I started reading it and all I knew was that it was from the romance genre and highly regarded on Goodreads. I wanted something light and so I picked it up. In the beginning that's exactly what I thought this book was, nothing more than just a love triangle with sometimes cheesy dialogue. Well, I get a whole ton more than I bargained for! This books turned out to be so much more complicated, deep and trensending that I ever imagined possible from a romance novel and I absolutely inhaled it in a matter of days!

To begin with, the plot was interesting enough to me, especially because the romance genre is pretty new to me and I don't really have much to compare it to but I thought it was cute- nothing more, nothing less. Then, once I got through a good chunk of the book it dawned on me that this book was so much more. There was an overwhelming message that this book so wonderfully delivered that it just pulled at my heartstrings and I ended up loving it! It successfully illustrates an issue that is very serious and occurs very often in today's society and I got a much better understanding of it then I have ever gotten before. I love books that educate me and expand my mind. This is the first time that a book didn't really reveal the complexity of its plot to me until a good way into it and I am here for it, very nice surprise!

Further on, the characters, although they seemed somewhat superficial in the beginning and a bit cheesy with their sometimes cheesy dialogue, grew on me as they revealed more about themselves and their backgrounds and went through all the experiences that they encountered in the book which definitely made them grow and change into better people. Growth is something that definitely makes for some really in-depth characterization and the characters really grew on me and in the end I felt as though I understood each of them, even the least likable ones.

Next, the writing style was concise and to the point, just how I like it. There wasn't anything too complicated but it flowed smoothly and made for an easy reading time. It perfectly got the amazing story across.

All in all, I recommend this book to anyone who enjoys heavier romances and books with a very big meaning behind them. This isn't some stupid romance story that, it's so much more than that. I was pleasantly surprised that a book I was a bit disappointed in at the beginning, really made a comeback and won me over by the end. Give it a chance, you won't regret it!

I was really enjoying this book for probably the first 50% of it. After that, I just felt physically ill reading it. I couldn't even care about the secondary romance brewing or the baby or whatever happens between Lily and Ryle after he starts fucking abusing her. The descriptions of abuse in this and the manipulation I felt as a reader just ruined the entire book for me. Maybe if the synopsis let on that this was literally an entire story about domestic abuse I would have enjoyed this more but ugh.. no. Also why couldn't Lily have just fucking ended up alone and chillin' with her baby???

look, i assumed that colleen hoover's genre was similar to what she did in verity because it was the first book i read of her but i was disappointed, so fucking bad. and i somehow still gave her chance over another chance.

this was marketed as romance, it was shelved under romance but this is pure fiction. the coercion of romance in lily's life by forcing her to rekindle her feelings for atlas was just the cherry on top of the cringe like just...send the message of wanting to end abusive men and move on bro

first read - nov 2021; 5 stars
man, this book really surpassed my expectations. it really is worth the hype. please take the time to read the author's note at the end, because it really makes you appreciate the plot even more.

also, please check trigger warnings before reading this.

second read - oct 2022; 4.5 stars
still rly good, not as groundbreaking as the first time i read it. still cried tho

i LOVED it ends with us because it hit home in the ways i needed. i was a little worried going in to the book to read anything i related to, but i related to Lily in nearly every way. the love story was brilliant and i love love love Atlas. i liked Ryle at first but the first time he hit her.... i was done and over him entirely. i'm now a believer of one and done when it comes to that because i let people do that to me for far too long..... Lily and her mother were so strong. I loved Allysa (i can't remember how to spell it) and Lily's friendship sooo much, she was the best friend EVERY girl needed in those situations because despite Ryle being her brother, she refused to let Lily go back to him because of how shitty he was to her. Atlas deserved so much better and i hope one day to read a book on Lily and Atlas' future, i would looove that so much. i love Atlas.

A good book, but what gives it a good nodge is it's relevance and it's hard subject and the relation the author has with the subject. Colleen Hoover always finds a way to show a darker side to the human being while also writing a beautiful but also sad love story.
This is not a feel good book, none of Colleen Hoover's book's are. This is a book with happy and sad moments just like real life and it shows just how rough life can get and just how hard some decisions can be to make.
I give it 3 stars, because I'm not sure I would reread it, but I'm really glad I did read it at least one time, it gave me a perspective that's hard to get on the subject matter.