It Ends with Us: Special Collector's Edition: A Novel (It Ends with Us)

This book was sitting on my shelf for so long. Finally, I decided to read it for Backlistbookathon. I'm not a Romance lover and definitely not a Colleen Hoover lover. This book was yet again just like her other books: characters with horrifying past, they meet suddenly, sparks flew, fall in love at first sight, and etc. Whole plotline was predictable. I could tell from the start what was going to happen. Writing was not that amusing too. I find it simple and well it's a good thing. I don't mind simple writing as long as plotline is good. But here that was not the case. Just after reading two or three pages I started cringing. Every page was cringe worth. Only good thing was the attempt to send a message through of domestic violence and the helpline number and resources at the end. And that just ends with that.

I bought this book because of raving reviews about it on TikTok. Well the power of social media worked because I bought it and I can’t say I was anywhere as impressed as I thought I would be. In fact I wanted to stop reading it several times because it felt so cheesy. The storyline and events were sad topics but three quarters of the book was a cheesy love story that often made me cringe. As a lover of chick lit, even this was too much for me. I personally wouldn’t recommend. Sorry.

This novel by Colleen Hoover reveals the horrors and long-lasting effects of domestic abuse. Protagonist Lily Bloom was raised in an abusive home in which her father physically hit her mother. Lily ends up hating her father and losing respect for her mother for not leaving him. As a teen, Lily befriends a homeless boy named Atlas who is camping out in an abandoned home with no water or heat, during a cruel winter in Maine. She lets him sleep on the floor in her room to escape freezing temperatures. All is well until her father catches Atlas in Lily's room and beats him with a baseball bat. Atlas leaves town and he and Lily lose touch. Fast forward to the future which finds Lily living in Boston. Lily's father dies and she cannot bring herself to say one good word about him in a eulogy. That night she meets a man named Ryle, who is having a temper fit on an apartment rooftop. An unlikely attraction develops, because Ryle states his preference for one-night stands, while Lily professes she would never intentionally have a one-night stand. They part ways, but Ryle continues to pursue her for a one-night stand. She continues to refuse. Eventually, Ryle admits he is so enamored with her that he would consider a long-term relationship. Coincidentally, Ryle's sister has become Lily's best friend. Ryle and Lily marry. But trouble pops up. Ryle goes ballistic when Lily laughs at something that he doesn't think is funny and he slaps her hard. Although he immediately apologizes and promises not to do it again, Lily is stunned and determined not to become a victim like her mother. After two more escalating incidents, Lily decides she will not subject her daughter to the childhood she endured, so she demands a divorce. A complicating factor is that Atlas is now a successful chef in Boston. Hoover uses journal entries from Lily's teenage years to reveal the depth of their long ago relationship. Those entries were my favorite parts of the novel. One thing I did not like about the book was the repeated use of the F word by Ryle and Lily as a substitute for "making love." That's a real turnoff for me. Despite that criticism, the ending of the book made it all worthwhile. Please note that the sequel is called "It Starts With Us," which may lead readers to approach the books out of order. The second book is even better than the first.

*Review originally posted on Goodreads* 'I wish cutting my feelings off for the person who hurt me was as easy as I used to think it would be. Preventing your heart from forgiving someone you love is actually a hell of a lot harder than simply forgiving them.' It Ends With Us was beautifully complicated. It was hot and cold. Up and down. Good and bad. Beautiful and ugly... I'm still trying to figure out how I really feel about it all because I'm genuinely torn on how I want to perceive this storyline. I loved it but in all honesty, I really do think I hate it as well. Not the "I-hate-you-Colleen-Hoover-stop-writing-books-and-find-a-different-career" type of hate but rather "I-hate-you-Colleen-Hoover-for-making-me-hate-everything-that-I-came-to-love" kind of hate because it pretty much summarizes all my thoughts and feelings about It Ends With Us in one sentence. My opinions were completely divided. One side of me, the hopeless romantic, was utterly unsatisfied and angry with the outcome of the story. The opposite side, the one that's all about women's empowerment, was cheering on #TeamLily like it was Independence Day. Rather than trying to sugarcoat my thoughts, I'm just going to be completely honest. I was 100 percent team Ryle from the very first time we met him. Just like Lily, I fell in love with every word and every gesture that rolled off of his body. I. WAS. HOOKED. It also didn't help that I kept fantasizing Doctor Mike as Ryle Kincaid. *heart eyes emoji* I loved his ambition. His personality. His confidence. To be honest, I think I might've loved Ryle even more than Lily did but that's another story for another day. That more than likely explains why I took the second half of this book like a blow to the gut. Once we got to the second half of the book, that's where it started going a bit downhill for me as a Ryle and Lily shipper. Every happy moment that ever happened between my ship came barreling down as it collided with pain and abuse. I was angry. I was thrashing. I was yelling at the pages in front of me, "Why are you doing this Colleen?!" But most importantly, I was just heartbroken to see such a beautiful couple become so toxic. Everything I loved about the first half of the book was slowly unraveling right before my very eyes as if it never really existed in the first place. I can't even remember how many times I wanted to put the book down because my hopeless romantic self just couldn't handle it anymore. But I just kept on reading because I was guiltily hoping that Ryle and Lily would still have their happy ending despite all that had happened. :/ Sadly, this was where I was torn the most. I have the upmost respect for Lily. She is definitely one of my favorite female characters that Colleen has ever created because she did what a lot of us would've struggled to do in the end: walk away....