Book Review: Is “ It Ends With Us” worth the hype?

Once again regaining popularity on “BookTok,” Colleen Hoover’s novels have been flooding my “For You” page on TikTok. I recently got the chance to read “It Ends with Us” by Colleen Hoover – and I have a lot of thoughts to share. I just want to preface by saying there will be spoilers in this article. 

Originally published in 2016, the romance novel centers around Lily Bloom and her struggle to navigate her career and love life after the death of her father. Set in Boston, Lily meets Ryle Kincaid, a driven neurosurgeon who she instantly develops feelings for after meeting by chance.

However, after Lily reencounters her old high school love Atlas Corrigan, his persistent presence angers Ryle. Things begin to take a turn after his anger spirals out of control, leaving Lily to make a difficult decision about her relationship with Ryle. 

Before writing an honest review for this novel, I had to sit with my feelings for a few hours. I’ve read novels by Colleen Hoover before, but after reading her author’s note at the end of the book, my entire perspective of the story changed and left me in tears.

Hoover reveals that her novel was inspired by her mother, who experienced domestic abuse from her husband when Hoover was a child. She shared that she wrote the book to educate people on what domestic abuse can look like from the inside of a relationship.

There are a number of sexually explicit chapters, as well as descriptions of violence in the book. If that’s something that makes you uncomfortable, reader discretion is advised.

After reading the book, I’ve gained a new perspective on people who face domestic abuse, and for those who choose to leave as well as those who don’t leave the relationship. 

Within the first few chapters, I became invested in Lily’s story, as well as Ryle’s. By using Lily’s diaries as flashbacks, Hoover helps the audience understand her past better while also staying engaged with present events. 

Atlas is mainly portrayed through the lens of Lily’s memory. He makes a few appearances in the present storyline, but for the most part, he was mentioned in her childhood diaries or referred to as someone from her past.

I couldn’t put down the book as I read the first half of it. However, I thought that the last few chapters dragged on more than necessary. After the reader finds out about Ryle’s abusive nature and he attacks Lily for the last time, the story takes a while to wrap up. There were quite a few unnecessary details in the chapters following these major events, causing the story to lose its momentum. 

As someone who is seldom seen playing a present role in Lily’s life over the course of the book, Atlas had such an impact on both Lily’s personal life and her relationship. Even though Ryle was never familiar with Atlas, he let the idea of him, alongside his anger issues, completely destroy his relationship with Lily.   

I was surprised the first time Ryle’s character physically hurt Lily. However, after that, everything kind of fell into place. There was an impressive amount of detail that tied Lily’s parents’ relationship to that of her own. I saw Lily’s father as a direct reflection of Ryle after that.

I completely fell in love with Ryle’s character. I mourned the loss of my own feelings towards him, realizing shortly after that this was exactly what Lily was feeling. 

I was taken aback by how deeply betrayed I felt by not only Ryle, but by Hoover for writing him as the villain. Don’t get me wrong – by the time I finished this book, I was team Atlas (who went on to prove that he would never hurt her like that) all the way. It hurt seeing an initially amazing character turn out to be an awful person.

It seemed that Hoover tried to remedy the situation by giving Ryle a childhood sob story to excuse his actions, but it ended up making it that much harder to let him go. Due to the trauma he experienced, I felt reluctant to turn on him. Yet although I wanted to be able to excuse him for what he did, I couldn’t. 

Overall, I think this book is worth the hype. If I could read it again for the first time, I would. The book’s deep meaning about domestic violence led me to have nothing but respect for it, as well as for Hoover for writing it. The fact that she was able to incorporate both her mother’s and her own personal experiences into the story is very admirable. The sequel novel, “It Starts with Us,” is next up on my reading list. I’m interested to see how the story continues.