Book Review #132: It Ends With Us by Colleen Hoover

After falling for neurosurgeon Ryle at the same time her first love, Atlas, comes back into her life, Lily finds herself in a relationship that mimics her childhood trauma.

Most of the descriptions of this book don't mention anything about the character's trauma but I wanted to include it because otherwise, the book seems like an open-and-shut love story. But there's a lot more to it.

I've owned this book for a while, but I only felt the urge to pick it up after seeing the trailer for the film adaptation, which has just come out. I really wanted to read it before seeing the film so I bumped it to the top of my list.

I was pleasantly surprised by this book. I had heard a lot of bad things about Colleen Hoover books, and as this was the first of hers I'd read, I went into it sceptically. And while the book wasn't amazing, it was better than I expected it to be.

I didn't immediately connect to any of the characters, particularly because the dialogue was cringey and sometimes badly written. This got better the more you read (or maybe I just got more used to it), but in the beginning it's quite jarring.

Again mostly at the beginning, there was too much telling as opposed to showing, and too much repeating of things we'd already read. We don't need to be told Lily's feelings three times to believe them.

There are some sequences in the book where Lily is writing letters to Ellen DeGeneres. These can be annoying and sometimes feel like the worst part of the book, but they are an original way to show a flashback, and I completely understand why it was necessary to get as much of the character's back story as we did. Maybe it would have been better for these to be spread out so we're not reading as many in one go?

I thought that what happens when the story takes a darker turn was done really well. I knew what was coming but was still really taken aback, which I assume is what the author was going for.

Because we got to live with Lily for so long, we experience things as she does, and even when we're screaming at her to leave or stand up, we are connected to her and understand her reasons for not doing so. We get to root for her.

So overall, while there were some aspects of the story I didn't like, I think the main point of it was to show what Lily goes through, and to show the realities of a toxic relationship, and for the most part, I think this was done well.

I also watched the trailer again after finishing the book, and while there are some glaring differences, I think it looks great. I can't wait to see the movie!

3.5/5