Title: It Ends with Us
Author: Colleen Hoover
Publisher: Atria
Publication date: 2016
Length: 386 pages
Genre: Contemporary fiction
Source: Borrowed
Rating:

Well, at least I can say that I’ve read a CoHo book…

I was pretty sure, based on everything I’ve heard, that Colleen Hoover’s books would not be for me. But the movie version of It Ends with Us has been generating so much buzz (negative and positive), and a friend was super excited to lend me this book… so yes, I finally read a Colleen Hoover book, and it went about as well as I’d expected.

Let me just note, right up front, that it is not okay that the synopsis of the book does not make the key point explicit: This book includes scenes of emotional and physical partner abuse and domestic violence. Readers need to know that ahead of time.

I’m not even sure what to say about this book. It’s the story of 23-year-old Lily, living on her own in Boston, who dreams of opening her own flower shop. She meets a gorgeous neurosurgeon on the roof of a building one night, and they start a game of “naked truths”, where they tell each other major secrets that they wouldn’t normally share with anyone. He’s not a relationship guy at all, but one of his naked truths is that he’d be happy to have a one-night stand with her (although he doesn’t phrase it quite that way). She’s looking for love, not sex, so it’s a no… but she’s mighty tempted.

As their paths continue to cross, the attraction grows, and eventually they do fall into a passionate relationship, but there are all sorts of warning signs.

Oh, why am I bothering to recap this book? Here’s what you need to know (spoilers ahead!):

• Lily grew up with an abusive father who regularly beat, berated, and raped her mother.
• Lily’s never forgotten her first love.
• Ryle does a lot of love-bombing, and bursts into violence when he’s angry (although he claims that he blacks out when it happens)
• Ryle is physically abusive to Lily, and she eventually leaves him, even though she loves him.

So much of the plot makes no sense. Randomly moving from least offensive to much more offensive… Lily’s flower shop, for one thing — she opens a business in Boston, with no business plan or firm idea of what to do, has a ridiculous description of the aesthetic she’s going for, and yet is instantly, wildly successful.

Ryle’s sister becomes Lily’s best friend and first employee, totally redecorates Lily’s business, and provides whatever Lily needs, whenever she needs. She’s also described as never having had a job in her life, because her husband struck it mega-rich in tech… but really, she’s a grown woman who’s been rich for only a few years and never even had a part-time job?

Lily’s teenaged diaries are written as letters to Ellen DeGeneres. Why? There’s a reason provided, but it’s odd and unnecessary. We learn about her relationship with Atlas through these diaries, which later become something that ignites Ryle’s rage. (Also, the author seems to gloss over the fact that 15-year-old Lily enters into a romantic and sexual relationship with an 18-year-old, I guess because he’s so special and awesome? Just, no.)

After Ryle hits Lily for the first time, she forgives him after warning him that if anything like that every happens again, she’ll dump him. And then they move forward, and all is well and happy and she’s super in love, and they even have a spur-of-the-moment wedding in Las Vegas… but at no point does relationship counseling get mentioned.

We eventually learn about the childhood trauma that’s shaped Ryle, but if his anger is so uncontrollable, how does he function as a neurosurgeon?

Okay, that’s enough rambling. I did not enjoy this book, so why did I give it 2 stars?

If you’d asked me early on, I would have said that 1 star, or maybe 1.5, would be the highest I’d go, and despite how awful I think most of the book is, it was oddly compelling too. My experience reading It Ends with Us was similar to my experience reading Fifty Shades of Grey (yes, I read it…) — I was aware that it was not good, but I also wanted to see where the story went.

I will say that by the end, I could see how the messaging around domestic violence and the exploration of the emotions involved could be important to share. Lily absolutely loves Ryle, and through her first-person narration, we see the inner turmoil she goes through in trying to sort out her love for her husband, dealing with the memories of what she witnessed in her parents’ marriage, and understanding what safety and trust mean for her going forward.

Still, the ending of the book leaves Lily and Ryle in a place that feels unrealistically positive. They’re divorced, but share a child, and their custody arrangements seem courteous… but how does Lily know that she can trust Ryle with their baby? She makes the decision to leave him to end the cycle of violence that she experienced and to create a healthy life for her daughter, but how does that ensure that his anger won’t explode in the future, with Lily, her daughter, or someone else?

Finally, I’ll just mention that the sex scenes earlier in the book, when they’re first falling in love, are unappealingly explicit. There’s one in particular, where he uses a stethoscope to monitor her racing heart rate as she gets more and more into it — I’m sure it’s meant to be hot, but it’s actually just icky.

Clearly, I did not like this book. But I finished it, and it held my attention… so 2 stars seems fair.

And — I hate to even admit this — I’m probably going to read the follow up book (It Starts with Us) too. Maybe some of my complaints will be addressed! Maybe I just need to see if it’s as ridiculous as this one is. Maybe I just can’t help gawking at a train wreck.