It Ends with Us
By Colleen Hoover
384 pages
4 out of 5 stars
Get it here:
Amazon
Description:
Sometimes it is the one who loves you who hurts you the most.
Lily hasn’t always had it easy, but that’s never stopped her from working hard for the life she wants. She’s come a long way from the small town in Maine where she grew up—she graduated from college, moved to Boston, and started her own business. So when she feels a spark with a gorgeous neurosurgeon named Ryle Kincaid, everything in Lily’s life suddenly seems almost too good to be true.
Ryle is assertive, stubborn, maybe even a little arrogant. He’s also sensitive, brilliant, and has a total soft spot for Lily. And the way he looks in scrubs certainly doesn’t hurt. Lily can’t get him out of her head. But Ryle’s complete aversion to relationships is disturbing. Even as Lily finds herself becoming the exception to his “no dating” rule, she can’t help but wonder what made him that way in the first place.
As questions about her new relationship overwhelm her, so do thoughts of Atlas Corrigan—her first love and a link to the past she left behind. He was her kindred spirit, her protector. When Atlas suddenly reappears, everything Lily has built with Ryle is threatened.
With this bold and deeply personal novel, Colleen Hoover delivers a heart-wrenching story that breaks exciting new ground for her as a writer. Combining a captivating romance with a cast of all-too-human characters, It Ends With Us is an unforgettable tale of love that comes at the ultimate price.
SPOILERS AHEAD!
Let me start off by saying I love Colleen and shes an amazing woman and author. I love almost all of her books.
So here we go! It Ends with us is the story of a woman named Lilly who has a troubled past. She grew up in an abusive home and struggles now to understand why her mom stayed so long. We open with her on the roof the night of her fathers funeral. She meets Ryle when he too comes up to the roof to think things through. They tell each other Naked Truths, They don't lie to each other and he instantly tells her he doesn't do relationships. They banter back and forth and finally go their separate ways. Six months later Lilly is opening a shop and ends up hiring a girl who you guessed it is Ryle's sister.
“There is no such thing as bad people. We’re all just people who sometimes do bad things.”
Ryle and her eventually end up together but she still doesn't open up much about her childhood. The relationship is still in full swing Honeymoon phase when in ten seconds everything changes. An incident with a hot pan and laughing. She slapped and sent flying across the floor. Realization hits that this isn't what she thought it was.
Now let me just say this book at least for me was highly triggering. I do think this book should have a trigger warning. I thankfully went into it knowing what it had in it. Ryle changes so fast in that instant, that I hurt for Lilly but I was also ticked off at Ryle. He showed none of the signs of an abuser and that made it that much harder to read.
I started off loving Ryle through the book I was so confused as to why he hurt her.
Fast forward a bit more and Lilly, Ryle and his sister go out to lunch. When the chef comes out at the request of the sister Lilly is floored to find out that its none other than Atlas. The boy she loved, the boy she still loves, and the one she will never stop loving.
As soon as Ryle finds out its the guy from Lilly's past he flips out again and this time pushes her down the stairs. And guess what she stays with him again.
To be fair it is because she learns he blacks out when he angry. But I still don't see this as an excuse.
Right about here is where my anxiety was kicked into high gear. I wanted to scream at Lilly and tell her to leave. To walk right out that door and never look back. I know how hard it is when you're in an abusive situation to walk away, but I wanted so much for her to see the pattern and leave.
About here is where I had to put the book down and just calm down. I was so angry at Lilly and her choices. But I was also kind of mad at Colleen for letting her stay in this situation. I was upset that Ryle still wasn't fully seen as an abuser, and that is reactions were so far and few between. I was angry that all of the lashing out was over Atlas a guy from the past that had hardly played a part in the story. It was like Ryle was mean to be mean. Which is true in most cases but it just felt off.
Things steady between them and Ryle's sister has a baby and the world seems happy. Lilly gets home from visiting her niece and Ryle is drunk. At first she enjoys how Alpha he seems but it soon turns to a scary situation she remembers seeing her mother in once. When he finally head butts her and she blacks out, it feels like the end. When she comes too and Ryle is asleep she calls Atlas and he comes to her rescue.
She stays with him a while and when she finally is brave enough to go back to work Ryle shows up.
I'm going to just point out here that I found it really upsetting how little she was afraid of him. I know from my own personal experiences how terrifying it is to see your abuser face to face again. She holds it so well together and he's so passive. His abuse is so hot and cold it frustrates me. I don't want to like him or sympathize with him but I found myself doing both and I hated it.
When she finally leaves him after her own daughter is born I see her bravery and understand just why people love this book. During the last bit she does get her happy ending in Atlas and while I was happy for her on the outside. Inside I just felt disconnected. We hardly learned about Atlas or why she still love him it was just a hard connection.
“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.”
But the end of this book I was a sobbing mess I was feeling all of my own past come crushing down around me.
I pretty much felt every emotion a human can feel at the end of this book. I thought about my own past and childhood. I looked at how Lilly forgave her mother for staying and realized I can never do that myself. Colleen gave us a taste of why she wrote this book at the very end. I'm so happy she didn't have to grow up fully in that situation and I give her mother a huge amount of respect for leaving. But as someone who spent their entire life in that situation. I just felt like Colleen came up a bit short at some places. I didn't feel Lilly's fear in the book I felt my own. When Lilly read her journals about her childhood it wasn't hers I felt. It was my own.
In the end I give this book a solid 4 stars because it tried to be what it needed to be. And for some I can understand that it truly was everything they needed. But for me I felt it fell short. I'm still numb from all the images that flooded my head as I read this, the darkness of my own past. But I'm thankful it can help the people it does.
“It stops here. With me and you. It ends with us.”
