It Ends With Us by Colleen Hoover Review

‘In the future . . . if by some miracle you ever find yourself in the position to fall in love again . . . fall in love with me.’

Star Rating

Buy From: Amazon | Waterstones
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Okay, we’re a bit late to the party here, but with all the hype around the new movie starring Blake Lively, we decided it’s time to finally pick up the most popular Colleen Hoover novel. Here’s our It Ends With Us review.

Despite the chatter on BookTok, we went into this knowing very little about this story. In case you’re in the dark too, here’s the blurb:

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.

We’ve read many of the most talked about BookTok books and honestly, 90% have completely missed the mark for us. Perhaps we’re too old (34, is that too old?), perhaps we’ve just read so many books we’ve been spoilt, but it did mean we had low expectations when it come to what is arguably the most talked about book of them all.

It’s a surprise to say, then, that we actually enjoyed this one. It’s not a literary masterpiece, but it was completely unexpected and unlike anything we’ve read before. It’s a romance at its core, but one that comes with hurdles the size of mountains.

There are themes of homelessness and, primarily, of domestic abuse, as well as other hard-hitting topics that will really get your mind racing (none of which are mentioned it that blurb, strangely). They’re handled with raw honesty that some readers will find uncomfortable, but we thought this was exactly as it should be.

We couldn’t stop thinking about what we would do in the situations Lily finds herself in, and knowing that these situations are not uncommon outside of fiction made those thoughts particularly perception altering.

We did find some parts of the story slightly convenient and rushed, such as the introduction of Allysa and the very sudden turnaround from the man who hates relationships to head over heels in love, but the underlying message and purpose of this book shines through brightest (or darkest, in this case), and that’s what makes it so widely read and recommended.

We’re already reading the sequel, It Starts With Us, which is always a sign of a good book. As for our It Ends With Us review, we’re giving it a solid four out of five stars.