IT ENDS WITH US – COLLEEN HOOVER
Lily hasn’t had it easy, but that’s never stopped her from working hard for the life she wants. So when she feels a spark with a gorgeous neurosurgeon, Ryle, everything seems too good to be true.
But 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.
There is no such thing as bad people. We’re all just people who sometimes do bad things.After years of sitting on the sidelines and listening to people go on and on about Colleen Hoover, I decided it was time to give this book a shot. And I wasn’t disappointed. Just like so many other readers, I really enjoyed reading this gritty but sweet novel. And yet, I didn’t really find This Ends with Us to be either an earth-shattering or life-changing read. In fact, I didn’t even find it all that emotional.
Lily Bloom (I’m not kidding) is an aspiring florist who is working to come to terms with the death of a father she hated. When Lily meets the handsome, mysterious and brooding neurosurgeon Ryle, she thinks that all her prayers have been answered and she can finally move on from her past. But Atlas, the homeless boy that lived near her childhood home and her first love, is a big part of that past, and she doesn’t know if she can let him go.
Just as her new business begins to flourish and her relationship with Ryle blossoms (forgive the pun), reality comes crashing back in, threatening to destroy everything she had built. History may just repeat itself in the most disastrous way.
I can not deny that this is one beautiful book. Alluring, sweet, haunting and real. It carries such a powerful message, an earnest plea for readers to understand and support the challenges that face an unfortunate number of men and women, to understand that getting out isn’t always the easiest thing to do. And yet, I never found myself completely drawn into it like so many others were.
I loved Lily and all the other characters; they were rich and flawed and felt the highs and lows of life in the fullest. It was almost like I could feel the characters breathing from within those pages and I couldn’t fix on what I thought about many of them. Lily was strong and resilient and constantly moving towards her goals but she wasn’t perfect, she made mistakes. As for Atlas, he was such a sweetheart and I fell in love with him from the first moment he was mentioned.
If there was one character I couldn’t stand right from the start, it'd have to be Ryle. His ‘no-dating’ rule, slightly sexist mannerisms and general controlling nature made me hate him permanently. I felt no inner conflict or even sadness about the potential loss of Lily’s relationship with Ryle, I never liked their relationship let alone thought of it as something to be considered a loss. I understand the message behind their relationship, but my dislike of that guy made me more and more angry every time she gave him another chance. I do, however, like that Colleen Hoover didn’t turn him in to a sort of monstrous villain. He was just a man and he did have his positive traits – I was just one of the few who never allowed myself to see them. Ryle’s humanity is what made this book so real, it was the perfect direction for his character and the perfect direction for the message that was being expressed.
Despite the general lack of flow in the plot and my deep dislike of the male love interest, I found this a really enjoyable book and I am definitely glad to have read it. I am only disappointed that I didn’t like it as much as everyone else thinks I should have.
Based on the nearly outrageous number of 5 star reviews this book has gotten I would recommend it to anyone and everyone but not without first mentioning some trigger warnings. This book contains abuse, attempted rape and sex while also holding some deep, and perhaps confrontational, messages and themes.
Rating: 3.5/5
If there was one character I couldn’t stand right from the start, it'd have to be Ryle. His ‘no-dating’ rule, slightly sexist mannerisms and general controlling nature made me hate him permanently. I felt no inner conflict or even sadness about the potential loss of Lily’s relationship with Ryle, I never liked their relationship let alone thought of it as something to be considered a loss. I understand the message behind their relationship, but my dislike of that guy made me more and more angry every time she gave him another chance. I do, however, like that Colleen Hoover didn’t turn him in to a sort of monstrous villain. He was just a man and he did have his positive traits – I was just one of the few who never allowed myself to see them. Ryle’s humanity is what made this book so real, it was the perfect direction for his character and the perfect direction for the message that was being expressed.
“No one is exclusively bad, nor is anyone exclusively good. Some are just forced to work harder at suppressing the bad.”My biggest issue with this book (aside from most of the names…) was that quite a bit of this book felt a little calculated. If you know how I deal with books, you’d know that I cry like a baby at just about everything; I shed a tear or twenty for every death and betray and squeal at every half smile and longing glance. But I didn’t get any of that with this book. I saw it all coming, and it just didn’t seem to flow naturally to me.
Despite the general lack of flow in the plot and my deep dislike of the male love interest, I found this a really enjoyable book and I am definitely glad to have read it. I am only disappointed that I didn’t like it as much as everyone else thinks I should have.
Based on the nearly outrageous number of 5 star reviews this book has gotten I would recommend it to anyone and everyone but not without first mentioning some trigger warnings. This book contains abuse, attempted rape and sex while also holding some deep, and perhaps confrontational, messages and themes.
Rating: 3.5/5
Get your hands on this fantastic, much loved book online at Amazon or Book Depository.
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