Phenomenal! It Ends With Us was my first Colleen Hoover book and I was curious if I would enjoy it or not. I had also heard such great things through BookTok so I knew I had to give it a shot. I also want to say that there are trigger warnings to domestic violence/abuse. It is a central theme to this novel so I would remember that if you decide to read it.
Goodreads Summary
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.
Personal Review
The book sucked me in from page one. It kicked off with mystery already in play and some intense themes. I did think the two main characters, Lily and Ryle, forged a bond rather quickly. Yet, I did think that there was a point to the story that Colleen Hoover wanted to get to so she needed to speed up the exposition.
Every few chapters there is a time jump, either a few days or multiple months. I’m usually iffy about them, I always thought the reader is going to miss out on something that should be experienced in the moment rather than referenced later on. These jumps worked for It Ends With Us. Every chapter has a point to get to, something that pushes the plot to the next point.
“Lily. Life is a funny thing. we only get so many years to live it, so we have to do everything we can to make sure those years are as full as they can be. We shouldn’t waste time on things that might happen someday, or maybe even never.” -Atlas
Lily’s interiority throughout the novel is one of my favorite aspects of this novel. I felt such a connection to her from all the internal dialogue and inner turmoil that she deals with. The internal debates within Lily is so realistic and heartbreaking. I remember getting frustrated right along with her when she was struggling.
The confrontation between past and present, mother and daughter, felt cyclical and written so beautifully.
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