Colleen Hoover’s “It Ends with Us” (2016) Glorious Read : A Review

My first Colleen Hoover book, It Ends with Us, has to say that it exceeded all of my expectations. I can still picture my friend reading this particular book namely It Ends with Us and telling me that it was one of her favorites. Because I believed it to be some corny romance story with nothing to hold onto, I laughed at her.

If only I had known what I was getting myself into, though, oh boy. It was a fantastic read, and it even made my list of the top 10 books of the year. Additionally, it has several important life lessons woven into the plot structure that will undoubtedly teach you something.

As the tale progresses

In It Ends with Us Lily, a Maine small-town girl with big dreams, makes the decision to leave her hometown and relocate to Boston. She has never really had it easy in life, but it doesn’t matter. Her aspirations are lofty. She enrolls in college and launches her company in a large city.

Soon after, Lily meets wealthy neurosurgeon Ryle Kincaid, who is both attractive and charming. He is smart and intelligent, if a little haughty, and strictly adheres to the “no relationships” rule.

He seems to have relaxed his rule, but only for Lily. Even though things are going well with Ryle, Lily seems to keep thinking about Atlas, her first love and the person who truly understood her.

And now that Atlas has seemingly magically returned to her life, she feels as though her carefully cultivated friendship with Ryle is in jeopardy.

So, who is it going to be? Atlas or Ryle?

The composition

In It Ends with Us, the story has everything that makes a good novel. This is fantastic. I adore all of the characters, major and minor. They’ve all been written so well and with so much thought put into them. I like how we get to see their growth throughout the story.

We began with a simple story in It Ends with Us, but we ended with so many thoughts racing through our heads that we couldn’t come to a single conclusion. We’re not sure if we liked the ending or not. We just know that no matter how many times we read the novel, we can’t get enough of it.

I’ve always wanted to learn more about the subject of abuse and how to look at it from a variety of perspectives other than my own. This book provided me with exactly that. I was able to read about and comprehend domestic violence from the perspectives of a mother, a daughter, and a wife.

I’ve always wondered why the victims don’t just get up and leave, and I’ve judged them for their choices even though I have no idea what they’re going through. However, after reading this book, I realized that abuse or having an abusive partner is not as simple as it appears.

It is a situation that can cause generational trauma, and when a mother and father are involved, the situation becomes even more complicated. Should the mother leave her husband despite the fact that she has no financial security for herself or the child? Should the mother stay and put up with the abuse if it means providing financial stability for her child?

The only conclusion I can draw is that children should never be raised in such circumstances because the effects they witness in their parents will permanently scar their childhood and they will carry this trauma into adulthood. If you want to learn more about domestic violence, this is one of the books you should add to your reading list.

In terms of the main characters in It Ends with Us, are you Team Atlas or Team Ryle? I am 100% Team Atlas because he has lived up to the standards that I have set for what a life partner should be like.

There will be spoilers ahead! If you don’t want to read them, skip this paragraph.

Although my heart breaks for what both Ryle and Atlas have been through, I will never support someone who resorts to abuse as a result of his traumatic experience. This puts me in a bind between the two. They both deserve second chances, but who more so? Please read the book and advise me.

It Ends with Us is not the type of book that can be predicted. I was biting my nails, waiting to see what would happen next. I was also caught off guard by the ending. I was rooting for both Atlas and Ryle, so even before I got to the last page, I knew I’d be fine with whatever happened.

Others may think that this book is just about a love triangle between Ryle, Atlas, and Lily, but it is so much more. It demonstrates what it means to love and be loved, even when you have been hurt repeatedly by the one person you most trust. It also demonstrates how narrow-minded and superficial society is.

What does it imply for a woman to divorce her husband? Society will judge and harass the woman for this behavior because it was never the fault of the man.

Personally, if you haven’t read any Colleen Hoover books yet and plan to, I recommend you start with this one i.e it end with us. This, I believe, will set the tone for how you read the author’s subsequent books. Also, there will be a sequel to this book, which I am very excited about. I’m excited, and I hope the author does the characters justice because I don’t want to be disappointed! Let us hope that what is to come does not ruin and shatter us.

Some of my favorite lines from It Ends with Us, and ones I believe have a lot of meaning behind them, are as follows:

“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.”

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

“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 love. If there was no love attached to the action, the pain would be a little easier to bear.”

“And as hard as this choice is, we break the pattern before the pattern breaks us.”

–        Colleen Hoover, It Ends with Us

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CHARACTER DEVELOPMENT: 3.9/5

ROMANCE: 3.8/5

PLOT AND NARRATIVE TECHNIQUE: 4/5

LANGUAGE AND WRITING STYLE: 4/5

OVERALL RATING: 4/5

GENRE/THEME: New Adult Fiction, contemprory romance

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