It Ends With Us (An Honest Review)
¨It Ends With Us¨ is a tear-jerking book I read in just 8 hours of my life. I’ve never been so interested and intrigued by such a book in my life it brought out a new side of me and made me view my own life in such a different way. Before you go on with this review, DISCLAIMER, there are a few spoilers in this blog. Also, you should be +17 of age to read “It Starts With Us” because it does have violence and some sexual things.
¨It Ends With Us¨ by Colleen Hoover is a story of a woman’s struggles to break the cycle of abuse and create anew with her child. This book is based on an inspiring true story of Colleen Hoover’s life. The book was generally on domestic violence and what are the causes and effects of it. The novel addresses jealousy, emotional and physical abuse, and the generational cycle of abuse. This inspiring and heartbreaking book displayed the journey of learning self-worth and the struggles many women face.
When I first started reading the book, I was honestly surprised of how intense it got really quick. don’t get me wrong. I love the book but it can really trigger a lot of emotions and make you realize a lot of things about your own life. This book is filled with violence and abuse from a relationship that you wouldn’t really see behind the covers. Most people don’t understand abusive relationships, and how they become what they are, and that’s because no one has really been through it and no one really knows how to deal with it. Arthur wrote this book based on some of her own experiences, and mostly her mother’s experience. She is coming from a daughter’s point of view and I can completely understand how it’s hard to see your parent struggle especially when you think that they are your heroes. I was shocked about the ending and even me wanted the ending to be different, even though I know that abuse was going on. This is just evidence of how emotions can take over us when logical actions need to take place.
Now, I’m going to summarize the story just a little bit and I may spoil some things, so I really do prefer you read it and also read this blog to make you understand it a little more.
The book starts with a girl named Lily Bloom and her abusive childhood. Her father used to emotionally and physically torture Lily Bloom’s mother, Jenny Bloom until he was too sick. Lily grew a hatred for both of her parents. One that her mother would not leave her father, and two, that her father was abusive. Soon she meets a homeless boy named Atlas (both Lily and Atlas were in their teens), and they have their own love story until it ends when Atlas has to move in with his uncle in Boston. Atlas also did not have a stable home. She thought she would never see him again until she moved to Boston to start her own life. She soon meets Ryle (a neurosurgeon), and they fall madly in love and get married soon after. During this, she opens her floral shop with the help of Ryle’s sister. In between all this, Lily runs into Atlas, which she did not see for years. Atlas went to the military, he owns his restaurant, and is a chef. Everything was great until one day (before the marriage) when Ryle abused Lily by accident when he touched a hot dish, and Lily laughed. Soon Ryle begged her for her forgiveness, and Lily forgave him. After marriage, everything was great when abusive incidence started to increase and her forgiveness did too until one day when he abused her so badly that she called Atlas and went to the hospital. At that moment, she found out she was pregnant with Ryle’s baby. This was the moment where she had to take action, not only for herself but for her child. Months pass while Ryle and Lily start to get back together until she goes into labor. She had her child, and Lily immediately asked Ryle for a divorce, which no one expected. That one moment of happiness was diminished. Lily exclaimed that if their daughter sees this abuse, she will learn to live with it from anyone, and not fight back. They did separate for the good of their daughter. It was a heartbreaking and necessary ending. Eleven months later, she runs into Atlas and indicates she is ready to have a relationship with him. In the last line of this book, Lily tells her daughter “It stops here. With me and you. It ends with us.”, meaning that the generational cycle of abuse and domestic violence ends with Lily and her daughter Emerson Kincaid.
Ryle. Many might think that Ryle is not a good character in the book after hearing this review, but after reading the book, you’ll understand he did love Lily. He is honest and nice, and he gives everything to Lily. He even sacrificed his dreams for her as well. He just had a huge anger issue. I realized when he got mad. He did not know what he was doing. He even shot his big brother when he was a little kid and regretted it later. Lots of therapy and counseling would help this situation, and if worse comes to worst. Divorce.
There is more than one message you can take from this book. It all depends on your perspective. I feel like there was a message from every character in the book.
The core message of the book is simply inspiring. The quotes “We break the pattern before it breaks us.” and “It stops here. With you and me. It ends with us.” Going back to the generational cycle of abuse, everyone must understand that our parents have a great influence on our lives. even me as a young writer. I can definitely say that my parent’s relationship has definitely impacted me for the rest of my life. No matter what, even if they try to stay together for me and my siblings, the truth is that they don’t love each other and that hurts. The author is telling us that the people around us really affect how we pursue our own life, even if we don’t think much of it. The main character obviously saw her mother getting abused and she internalized that indirectly and started taking abuse from her husband.
The Social Message is simply inspiring. So many people go through domestic violence and still make love, kids, or something else as an excuse. “Just because someone hurts you doesn’t mean you can simply stop loving them.”. Emotions can get in our way, and it is okay to love someone and know that they are not good for you. Think logically. A crime is a crime and it must be punished, no matter the circumstance, and love has nothing to do with the situation. It can be hard but you also matter as a person.
The life lesson was “All humans make mistakes. What determines a person’s character isn’t the mistakes we make. It is how we take those mistakes and turn them into lessons rather than excuses.”, and “There is no such thing as bad people. We’re all just people who sometimes do bad things.” — Ryle. It is OK to make mistakes, we are all humans. But what really makes a human is that we realize our mistakes rather than making excuses and putting them off. we are all just people that sometimes do different degrees of mistakes but what really determines a bad person is that how they internalize it and how they respond to it. a true human being would apologize and do their best not to do they’re wrongdoings, they would listen.
Colleen Hoover’s new and second book to the series is “It Starts With Us” and is said to launch on October 18, 2022. This book is said to be from Atlas’s point of view or his side of the story. It is a continuation of the book “It Ends With Us’’. In the book, Lily and Ryle are co-parenting, and Lily starts to date Atlas, and they start a new together.
Comment with a flower emoji if you read till the end of the blog. Thank you so much, and I hope you read both books. A review of the book “It Starts With Us” will be coming out soon.
