It Ends With Us

by Colleen Hoover

• ISBN10: 1668021048
• ISBN13: 9781668021040
• Publish Date: 18 April 2023 (first published 29 February 2016)
• Publish Status: Active
• Publish Country: US
• Imprint: Atria Books
• Edition: Special Collector's Edition
• Format: Hardcover
• Pages: 400
• Language: English
• Special: Collector's Edition

Reviews

[kimbacaffeinate]

Caffeinated Aspects

• I loved how the story began and liked Lily’s voice from the onset.


• Ryle and Lily share a slow-building relationship and I enjoyed the banter.


• Despite what you may think, there is no love triangle or cheating.


• Hoover used journal entries written by Lily to a celebrity as a young teen. I loved the references to a character they portrayed. It allowed me to understand Lily and her relationship to Atlas.


• I adored Atlas and his story.


• Hoover addresses a complex subject and calls out those who do not understand the whys and how. This happens every day and it is so easy to say, “I would do this” or “what is wrong with her?"


• I think Hoover made a strong case for Lily’s behavior, reasoning and reactions. While Lily makes mistakes, I understood her struggle and appreciated her growth. Ultimately, I am satisfied with the outcome.


• I appreciated the emotional support, and sound advice presented even if I wanted more. This is after all one of those “dirty-little-secrets”


• The author’s note was raw and honest giving substance to Lily and Ryle’s story.


• Oliver Song was perfect for this narration. I think she captured Lily. Her male voices were strong, and did not have that raspy hoarse tone we often hear from a female narrator.

Decaffeinated Aspects

• While we learn about Ryle’s past, I did not feel like it was explored enough. I could not grasp what connection the author was trying to make between events that take place and his past. I would have gone another more proven route.


• Lily’s BFF had an issue and despite loving the thread that followed  it felt forced to answer a question. I just do not think it was the right one.


• While this story was about Lily, I would have liked to have had seen dialogue between Ryle and his family.


• I liked the ending but would have liked to hear professional counseling was involved. Although in reality, this is not always the case.

It Ends With Us contains a subject that may be a trigger for some readers. Warning: Clicking spoiler does share subject matter Deals with domestic abuse, violence against women, and shares a brutal non-sexual attack on a young man.

Copy provided by publisher. This review was originally posted at Caffeinated Reviewer

[Nadz@Totally Addicted to Reading]

From the day I began reviewing books, I have come across stories that made me laugh, cry and scream and they all left their mark on me in some way or the other. However, it was not until I read ‘It Ends With Us’ by Colleen Hoover that I found a story that resonated so deep within me that every time I thought about it brought tears to my eyes. The highest rating, I have ever given to any story I have read is 5 stars and I don’t give those lightly. Now if I am to be completely honest with myself and you I have to say this book deserves more than 5 stars. If I were to rate it on a scale of 1-10 I would say it was deserving of ten stars. This is by far the best book I have read in 2016.

I have to confess that this is my first time reading a Colleen Hoover novel. I have heard about her but never got the opportunity to read her work before now. I know that was a huge mistake on my part, which I will be rectifying.

When I went into this story I had no idea that it was personal to the author. However, as the story progressed, I began to wonder if she had an intimate knowledge of the events in the story. I say this because the writing depicted just that. The emotions that permeated the story was so palpable it felt as if I was seeing it all through her eyes. Every situation within this story appeared real. This was one of the most difficult books to put down. It reeled me in from the first line and I just had to find out how it all ended. Trust me, you will never be the same after reading this book.

From the moment I was introduced to Lilly, I knew she would be a character to contend with. She is smart, strong, compassionate, selfless and determined. By the end of the story, she earned hero status in my eyes. She knew that no matter how much you love someone you had to love yourself first and foremost. It was this knowledge that helped her to regain control of her life. In the end, she made the decision that would put her on the road to healing and forgiveness.
This is not the kind of story that you should rush. ‘It Ends With Us’ requires the reader to focus on the message that’s being depicted.

“There is no such thing as bad people. We’re all just people who sometimes do bad things.”

After reading this story my views about women who find themselves in the situation that Lilly faced changed. This story made me realise that these women are not weak. It is easy for someone on the outside of the situation to judge, but until you walk a mile in that person’s shoes you will never understand the pain, humiliation, and uncertainty that they have experienced.

Do not go into this story expecting a fairy tale romance as you will be disappointed. This is the type of story that may gut you, rip out your heart and render you a blubbering mess. It is a story of survival, sacrifice, love, healing, forgiveness and courage in the face of adversity. My recommendation to you is that you need to read this book.

Favourite quotes
"Sometimes, no matter how convinced you are that your life will turn out a certain way, all that certainty can be washed away with a simple change in tide".

"Everyone deserves a second chance. Especially the people who mean the most to you".

“In the future . . . if by some miracle you ever find yourself in the position to fall in love again . . . fall in love with me. You’re still my favorite person, Lily. Always will be.”

'Fifteen seconds. That’s all it takes to completely change everything about a person. Fifteen seconds that we’ll never get back".

[Nicole Lynn]

This story seriously gutted me! This week's smartest decision: to stop reading the book in public and finish the last 300 pages alone in my room. I was crying so much from this book. It sucked me and messed me up, but I love this book so much. It was a book I'm so thankful I got to read and experience. I'm literally full of so much emotion that I can't even say anything else other than (if you are okay to) to go read this book!

-

An official review will surely be coming at some point in the near future. Also have to mention this was my first Colleen Hoover book so I'm not sure if that was a good decision or a bad decision cause I love this book so much!

[girlinthepages]

I've had my fair share of book hangovers. Books that have been sad, books that I've swooned over, books that I've been obsessed with and can't stop rereading. However, I think It Ends With Us is the first book that I've read that gave me a hangover because I so completely crawled inside of it, lived it, bled and cried and feared with it. I'm not hungover, I'm haunted.

I went into this book completely blind. I had barely read the synopsis when I ordered it, as I succumbed to the beauty of the cover and the hype that surrounds Colleen Hoover's name. While sometimes I regret impulse buying books that I haven't researched before, I cannot have been happier that my reading experience was so untainted by the opinions, reviews, or voices of others. It Ends With Us is best read with no prior knowledge or expectation to receive the whole impact of the story.

It Ends With Us starts in a place where I personally love new adult books to start: following a recent college grad trying to figure out how to adult. It's such a transitional time in someone's life, and one that I've recently gone through myself, and seeing that situation mirrored in Hoover's protagonist, Lily Bloom, instantly gave me a connection to the story. Soon after meeting Lily, it becomes apparent that she has a budding romantic tension with super handsome and swoon-worthy Ryle Kincaid, yet still carriers significant feelings for Atlas, a boy integral to her past.

This much is all easy enough to pick up from the blurb on the back of the book. However, what quickly could spiral into the perfect plot foundation for a love triangle takes on a much, much darker twist. Colleen Hoover gains your trust, makes you swoon, makes you generally fall in love with Ryle despite the uneasy feeling that may be lurking in the pit of your stomach. She takes you on Lily's journey through her first person narrative not just to watch, but to live the horror of realizing you are trapped in a cycle of abuse with the person in the world you love the most.

About a quarter of the way through the book I started picking up on what was inevitably going to happen. Not because I pride myself on picking up on plot clues in books like this, but because I took a Sociology of Marriage and Family course in college where we learned the warning signs of an abusive partner: possessive, too-perfect behavior, extravagant gifts/gestures, constant contact, etc. I wanted to cover my eyes and pretend Hoover wasn't going to take the story in the direction she did, but all of my illusions were shattered when Ryle had that totally creepy picture of Lily in his apartment, that he framed without ever telling her, before he even really knew her. Warning bells started going off, and I read the rest of the novel with my heart in my throat, waiting for the inevitable.

Yes, this story is about domestic abuse. It's about the patterns that permeate families, that draw the children of unfortunate circumstance into abusive cycles and patterns of their own, forced to repeat the tragic events of history decade after decade. Yet what's special about this book is it allows you to crawl into the mind of a character who should be the one to defy the odds, someone smart and confident and self-aware, and see how the cycle of abuse still manifests and continues even when one or both parties can acknowledge that it's wrong. As frustrated as I became with Lily for staying with Ryle as long as she did, I felt her fear and despair and hope, the ups and downs of her anger and her justifications, because Hoover ensures that the reader falls in love with all of Ryle's positives: his intelligence, his sexiness, his genuine enthusiasm and passion for his marriage. Yet this careful constructing of Lily and Ryle's relationship serves to target the reader so specifically until they live and breathe Lily's situation, and start to see how she might rationalize staying, and how situations get to that point. Hoover's novel resonates because she doesn't have you cheering when Lily finally breaks the cycle, because your relief is so weighed down by the pain and loss of everything that happens, so nuanced and complex yet clear at the same time. Loving someone and hurting someone aren't mutually exclusive.

There are two passages in this book that will stay with me for a very long time. The first is when Lily is finally able to make Ryle comprehend the extreme atrocity of his violent behavior while he's holding the most precious and vulnerable thing in the world to him, their new born daughter.The second is the author's note, which is raw and real and resonated to me so powerfully when Hoover said she wanted to change the ending, change Ryle, so badly because she too had truly come to understand the mindset of the victim of abuse, had empathized so thoroughly from writing through Lily's perspective. The fact that she chooses to have Lily make the choice she does in the end is all the more impactful because I honestly could not tell how she was going to end it, and I think that uncertainty and apprehension stems from Hoover's own immersion in her story and empathy for her protagonist.

Overall: On the front of this book, Kami Garcia is quoted saying that everyone who has a heartbeat should read it. Her statement is not an exaggeration. It Ends With Us is a hard story to read, one that will emotionally drain you and leave you reeling for days afterwards. But it is also one of the most important stories I have come across in a long time, as it shows readers the true complexities, manipulations, and nuances of domestic abuse. For anyone who thinks the issue of abuse is a simple issue easily judged and a situation one can easily extract themselves from, please read this book. It will show you all of the shades of grey that lie between safety and fear, right and wrong, and will have you rethinking victim blaming for a long time to come.

[Lynn]

The best advice I can give about this book: Avoid reviews so you don't stumble across any spoilers.

Dive in blind like I did and be prepared to be blown away as your emotions are bombarded from all directions.

The message is powerful. It's a CoHo...read it!

[liz089]

I could not put this book down. Not at all. It is such a great story, with great meaning behind it. Things are not always as easy as they seem, and she made this a very realistic, beautiful story. Very emotional and just.. well, read it.

Re-read 2019.
Still the same, this is her best book ever in my opinion. So much feelings.

[Leah]

It Ends With Us is one of those books you think about long after you've finished reading. One of those books that you think of months later, remembering bits of it, picking up on little pieces you missed before, and while I never thought Colleen could top Confess, it would appear I was wrong, really, really wrong. I've spent a lot of 2016 reading Colleen Hoover's fantastic books, but this one hit me on all kinds of levels. People have been raving about this book, and I can absolutely see why, it's such an important read and it seems a lot more adult than Colleen's other books.

It Ends With Us is a personal novel to Colleen and I think that's why it shines so brightly and why it has such an impact - whenever authors write about something they know about, you can really tell, not that Colleen's (or anyone's) other books are poorer, this one just seems to have poured out of Colleen and straight into my brain. It just hit all the right spots, and Lily had such an interesting story, an interesting history, and she was such a strong, likeable character. This is really one of those books you need to read blind, knowing only the basics, that it involves a girl, two boys (one from her past, one from her present) and take it from there, because that's where you'll get the best ever reading experience, I'm not even kidding.

I honestly got halfway through this book and I had no idea where it was going. I liked that it dove into Lily's past - her story with Atlas was so sweet and touching, all at the same time. And I loved that she wrote to Ellen Degeneres, for no reason at all than because she loved The Ellen Show, and Finding Nemo. Then there was her story with Ryle (pronounced like Kyle, with a R). Right from their first meeting, there was a spark, and even after a six-month break that connection was so strong right from the word go. It seemed like the perfect love story - how this girl who liked telling naked truths turned the guy, adamant he wasn't a relationship-type guy into a relationship-type guy. Throw in owning her own business (which gave me all kinds of feels) and this just seemed like the most perfect book, but it wasn't. And that was the beauty of it. It was perfect despite the fact it wasn't all perfect for Lily, and discovering that and seeing her strength was pretty freaking amazing.

This book is really special, it firmly cements Colleen Hoover on my favourite author list and the fact it surpasses Confess says it all, really, because that book was absolutely, ridiculously amazing, in every way, and It Ends With Us surpassed that. It gave me so many feelings, highs and lows, and it really, really hit me. It spoke to me, and it's rare a book does that. It will, easily, make my list of top ten books of the year, it was that profound. I'm really, really eager for a sequel. Please, Colleen, give us a sequel - or a fun Alyssa-centric spin-off, because Alyssa and Marshall are a story in and of themselves, for sure. It Ends With Us will be remembered by me for the months to come, and I can't wait to re-read it, because it's the kind of book you can and will re-read again and again.

[Bianca]

Cycles exist because they are excruciating to break. It takes an astronomical amount of pain and courage to disrupt a familiar pattern. Sometimes it seems easier to just keep running in the same familiar circles, rather than facing the fear of jumping and possibly not landing on your feet.

— Naked truth? I never thought I'd classify a [a:Colleen Hoover|5430144|Colleen Hoover|https://images.gr-assets.com/authors/1464032240p2/5430144.jpg] book as thought-provoking. Just wow! Not my first 5-star read from her but honestly I gave those 5 stars just because they're so enjoyable to read. They weren't this good/deep!

[Ashley]

This was a really hard book.

It deals with some really tough subjects and a few times I wasn't sure if I was going to end up liking the book because I was questioning the MC's decisions. Not related to the abuse, I do still think she jumped into the marriage waaay too quickly. Also Ryle was a total prat for not telling Lily about his issues before they got married. But by the time you get to the end, you realize that's the whole point.

The stuff in this book is hard to deal with. It's hard to make "the right choice" or even know what the right choice is. It's easy to make excuses.

Don't forget to read the author's note at the end, because that just reinforces EVERYTHING in the book. It cannot be skipped!

The abuse was handled very well. It had me so conflicted throughout the whole story, but by the end I realized that was the whole point. It was subtle enough each time that I could completely understand Lily's hesitation. She kept explaining it away, and I totally get why she did. The situation never really felt clear cut, and I thought it was a brilliant example of how real women in these situations must feel.

I knocked off a star because of Ryle. Aside from his rage issues I felt like his development was a bit too perfect.

"I don't want kids. I hate the idea of marriage. I'm only into one night stands."
"Please please PLEASE let me have sex with you! Just once! That's all I need! To get it out of my system."
*sex happens*
"Woah. You were right. Once isn't enough. I'm going to need more."
*few weeks later*
"Marriage sounds good after all. So do kids."

I feel like he changed his entire outlook waaaay too easily. This was never even really a struggle for him. His complete 180 was just a little too perfect.

My only other issue was with Lily's business. This is sooo silly of me, but I kind of hated how easy she had it. Maybe because I'm a small business owner and it just irked me to see her start a business and have everything go PERFECTLY.

- Rich girl walks in on day #1 wanting to work for free and is super passionate about helping her get the business off the ground.
- She immediately has really busy days (and slow ones, to be fair, but we always get the impression that she's doing really well).
- She can suddenly afford to hire other employees pretty quickly.
- She gets noticed by the community quickly and nominated for awards.

I feel so stupid complaining about this but I really feel like the stars just magically aligned to give her a great, booming business, and I hate her a little for it.

[whisperingchapters]

This review was originally posted on Latte Nights Reviews.


I went into It Ends with Us having read the dedication and knowing that it dealt with a very serious issue, such as abuse. Knowing what I knew, I wasn't so surprised on a few things that happened. Unfortunately, starting off, I didn't have any emotional connection towards the story and I felt so bad! As I kept reading, I found myself slowly starting to feel until I reached the point of having an emotional connection with Lily and the story itself. When I read the author's note at the end, it changed everything for me. I mean, I read the dedication so I just knew. But reading the details of that dedication broke my heart and I viewed this story in a different light.

Lily is a character that goes for what she wants and she won't stop until she gets it. She opened a flower shop that's so very unique and if I ever find one like hers, I'm definitely making tons of purchases. Sadly, I didn't feel any connection with her through half of the book. I do have to admit that Lily and I agreed on the male characters. When Ryle appeared for the first time, I was taken aback by him, just as Lily was. I was so intrigued by his personality and I couldn't wait to find out more of him. I even fell for this guy's charm. He was so easy to like and it was easy to understand why Lily felt so attracted to him. Things aren't always what they seem and when they came to light in the story, Lily and I suffered the harshness of it all. And that's when I felt for Lily so much.

Lily would write in journals when she was younger and in this book, Colleen takes you inside those journals and it's how we meet Atlas. I wasn't sure what to expect from him, but boy did I ended up falling for him as well. He's someone that Lily helped without a second thought when he needed it the most. From there, they became really close until they fell in love in their teens. After not having heard from each other for years, he appears in Lily's life and that's when things got interesting and the plot started to thicken. I wish I had more of Atlas in the present time. He used to be such a huge part of Lily's life, that I wanted to learn more about him now.

Colleen moved the story in a direction I was not expecting. I do wish that things had been done slightly differently in the way the story was told. I felt like a lot of things happened way too fast! There wasn't much of an element of surprise when the tip of the iceberg broke very early on. I feel if it had been done slow, with a warning here, another warning there, and later on in the story go for the full effect of things, then I would have been so emotionally invested in the story. Still, I'm glad I was able to feel something.

This book opens your eyes to an issue that sometimes we don't understand. Hell, many times during the book I wanted to shake Lily, even in the after of things. But when I read the author's note and Colleen very specifically said not everything is black and white and went into details, that's when my eyes opened and I felt a little bit of understanding towards what so many go through with abuse. Of course, I can never put myself in those shoes. All we can do is not judge a person's thoughts or decisions and simply be there for them.

Overall, It Ends with Us is emotional, it will change the way you view all types of abuse, and it will be impacting, especially after you read the author's note (so don't forget to read it because you need to).This review was originally posted on Latte Nights Reviews.