Colleen Hoover remains one of the most versatile authors in the New Adult genre. It Ends with Us is proof of that.



Sometimes it is the one who loves you who hurts you the most.

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 in Maine where she grew up— she graduated from college, moved to Boston, and started her own business. So when she feels a spark with a gorgeous neurosurgeon named Ryle Kincaid, everything in Lily’s life suddenly seems almost 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.


Colleen Hoover's books have, so far, been a hit or miss experience for me. There's really no going around that. I've loved some and had issues with others. It Ends with Us is one of her most stirring and controversial releases and, of course, a very hyped up and beloved novel. The messages within the central plotlines come with a hefty trigger warning that you've likely already seen, so I'll spare you on that.

Writing about domestic abuse is always a tricky task. Many authors struggle with it--either they go about things wrongly and sound like a badly scripted after-school special, they lack the emotional depth and understanding, or they romanticize it all too much. When you tackle such serious and real topics, you cannot half ass it. Fortunately for readers, Hoover is blunt and honest in this portrayal, so much so that it will infuriate you by the time it's over.

In fact, Colleen Hoover captures all the emotional struggles that come with not only experiencing domestic abuse first hand and having witnessed it towards someone else. The biggest, and best quality of It Ends with Us is the honest portrayal of this and was the only saving grace of the novel for me, personally. It's dark, it's gritty, it's fast to enlist us in a series of questions and will leave you feeling like your heart has just plummeted from the observation deck at the Empire State Building.

There are so many qualities to It Ends With Us that are tense and nearly unbearable to read. You're in it for the long haul and this is definitely the sort of novel you'll read either in one sitting or through the course of several weeks. I was the latter--I had to put it down multiple times and find new ways to stomach it. Arguably, this is what makes the novel so poignant--its hard hitting and leaves its mark on a reader. It makes me all the more impressed by Hoover's ability as an author--everything I've read by her registers a different kind of honest and emotion.

That being said, there were a lot of things I didn't like about It Ends with Us and found a lot of its elements to be harmful. I think, at this point, we are well passed the limit of books like this. You have likely heard all the complaints and compliments that have been voiced, so I'll leave it at this: I wanted something more from it and really, it is what it is. That's a personal preference and does not diminish what Hoover accomplished in It Ends with Us. At the end of the day, this story is unforgettable and brutal.