Originally published: August 2016

Author: Colleen Hoover

Published by: Simon & Schuster

Genre: Romance

Length: 384 pages

Reading dates: 21-26 February 2023

Having previously followed the Chichester Libraries Reading Challenge, this year the Shoreham by Sea book club is borrowing ideas from a few different challenges for our themes! For February with theme was a YA book. We always make suggestions and then vote and It Ends with Us by Colleen Hoover was chosen. I’m not sure if this book is actually classed as a YA book, although it is very popular with the TikTok crowd and indeed my son’s 15 year old girlfriend has read it so maybe I’m wrong!

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 where she grew up—she graduated from college, moved to Boston, and started her own business. And when she feels a spark with a gorgeous neurosurgeon named Ryle Kincaid, everything in Lily’s life seems 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.

I’ve wanted to read Colleen Hoover for ages and feel like I am probably the last person on earth to do so but with an out of control TBR, I needed a really good excuse to buy one of her books and luckily book club provided that excuse.

Narrated by Lily Bloom, we join her as she is sitting on a roof top in Boston thinking about her abusive father’s funeral which has just taken place. She is joined by a very cross man who turns out to be handsome neurosurgeon Ryle Kincaid and the pair feel an instant connection. Lily isn’t interested in a one night stand so reluctantly they say goodbye. A few month’s later, Lily has followed her dream and opened a florist and Ryle enters her life again and despite him telling her he doesn’t want a relationship, they start dating and before long, things become serious. Lily also becomes good friends with Ryle’s sister Allysa, who is very rich and newly pregnant.

We visit Lily’s past with the help of her diary entries and we learn her childhood was not a happy one. Despite being an upstanding citizen, her father was violently abusive to her mother and Lily herself lived in fear of him. When one evening she spots a light in a nearby abandoned house, she realises a boy is living there, kicked out by his parents. She befriends Atlas, bringing him blankets and food and eventually he spends time in her room and they become good friends and eventually lovers. Her father violently beats Atlas when he finds them together and they loose touch when joins the army but on a night out in Boston with her mum and Ryle, they bump into each other again.

Unfortunately I missed the book club discussion (thanks Covid) but I had a feeling it would generally be rated quite low and I was right. MY own rating was on the higher end of the scale but I would of been interested if I would have changed my mind after the discussion. I have already touched on the theme of domestic abuse and I think it is good a book has been written about this subject. I have read many gritty crime novels with victims of domestic abuse but it is rare to read about it set amongst the rich and privileged. It showed how women can end up loving their abuser and how they can try and make excuses for them, especially when they are apologetic after the event. What I didn’t like was the author tried to give the abuser a reason for for the way he was – I think she still wanted us to like him but this sat uncomfortably with me.

But did I enjoy it? I absolutely did! I loved the glamorous setting and the characters and although it was a bit corny at times (Lily Bloom the florist), I was engaged and found I couldn’t wait to return to it and read it again. Despite my misgivings with the way the domestic abuse was handled, I admire Hoover for writing this book (especially has she has experience of abuse herself) and I think it is good this topic is being presented to a young audience. I’d love to hear your thoughts if you have read this.

I absolutely want to read everything she Hoover has written now!

About the author:

Colleen Hoover is the #1 New York Times and International bestselling author of multiple novels and novellas. She lives in Texas with her husband and their three boys. She is the founder of The Bookworm Box, a non-profit book subscription service and bookstore in Sulphur Springs, Texas.

Website: https://www.colleenhoover.com/