It Ends With Us / It Starts With Us

Quotes

*There may be spoilers in this review. I will try to avoid major spoilers but some need to be brought up to be discussed.

Summary

Summary

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

Details

• Author: Colleen Hoover
• Series: It Ends With Us
• Published: 2016
• Page Count: 373 (Hardcover)

Personal

• Reading Start Date: June 17th, 2023
• Reading End Date: June 18th, 2023
• Format: Audiobook
• Rating: 5/10

Personal

• Reading Start Date: August 29th, 2024
• Reading End Date: September 6th, 2024
• Format: Paperback
• Rating: 5/10

Details

• Author: Colleen Hoover
• Series: It Ends With Us
• Published: 2016
• Page Count: 323 (Hardcover)

Summary

Lily and her ex-husband, Ryle, have just settled into a civil coparenting rhythm when she suddenly bumps into her first love, Atlas, again. After nearly two years separated, she is elated that for once, time is on their side, and she immediately says yes when Atlas asks her on a date.

But her excitement is quickly hampered by the knowledge that, though they are no longer married, Ryle is still very much a part of her life—and Atlas Corrigan is the one man he will hate being in his ex-wife and daughter’s life.

Switching between the perspectives of Lily and Atlas, It Starts with Us picks up right where the epilogue for the bestselling phenomenon It Ends with Us left off, revealing more about Atlas’s past and following Lily as she embraces a second chance at true love while navigating a jealous ex-husband.

Characters

• Lily Bloom – 23 year old hoping to open her own flower shop
• Ryle Kincaid -30 year old neurosurgeon who attracts Lily’s interest
• Atlas Corrigan – Lily’s childhood friend and first love
• Alyssa Kincaid Lily’s best friend and Ryle’s sister
• Marshall – Alyssa’s reasonable husband
• Emerson – Lily’s daughter
• Jenny & Andrew Bloom – Lily’s parents

Setting

Modern day Boston

Overview

Well, it was kind of what I expected it to be, I guess. The writing was kinda rough and the appeal is pretty skin deep but there were a few positive surprises. I appreciate that there was an attempt to bring to light the issues of a toxic relationship. That isn’t an easy narrative especially in our romance obsessed society. From what I have heard about the movie, it seems to have detracted a bit from the message in order to make it more palatable to the masses but it wasn’t really meant to be palatable.

I didn’t dislike the books but I do think it is probably a victim of the hype. The writing style isn’t that mind blowing, the characters are a touch cardboard, and the message of the narrative gets lost in concessions in order to make characters seem more reasonable.

Pros

I do respect the effort to write this kind of story. It’s not easy and it’s not something you can keep pretty all the way through. Stories about abuse no matter what kind, are hard things to tell. Vulnerabilities are exposed, disillusions about loved ones come to the surface, and then there is the aftermath of healing. There is a need for this type of story to be told though. People go through abuse all the time and the less it is stigmatized the easier it can be for the next person to get the help they need.

I loved how she spent time in harder scenes, going back over the things that made her leave the relationship in the first place. She had tools in her tool belt that gave her a leg up when the guilt or the nostalgia settled in and she wavered in her resolution to have healthy boundaries.

Cons

Although I do respect the effort I don’t think this is the best way to go about telling a story like this and I definitely don’t feel like they made an effort to advertise the kind of story this really is. There is a great deal more focus on the romance and the chick lit kind of stories rather than any sort of warning that things were going to get abusive. The movie has watered down the narrative even more and audiences think they are just going to see a romantic movie.

I also felt a way, at the end of the first book, even though she was making a large statement about the cycle ending with her and her daughter, she still put herself in situations where Ryle had far too much power. Co-parenting situations are tough and there’s never really one right way to do it but it just felt like there was so much room for unsafe boundaries, not just for Lily but for Emerson too.

So many of these romance stories are trying to be more aware but there’s something glossed over in them that makes me feel like it just falls short of being that soul shifting kind of narrative it needs to be.

The writing style isn’t really my favorite. The characters aren’t bad but they are a touch bland and self-insert-y. I just wasn’t swept away like all the people recommending it said I would be.

Final Thoughts

It’s one of those I kind of grimace when it comes up but I get why there is a crowd for it. It makes me a little nervous the way the abuse story is getting glamorized and that there’s not a lot of trigger warnings to new readers that might be sensitive.

Overall it wasn’t a bad story but I do think it is a victim of the hype.

One of the best things about the new adult type books like these is that they are getting a whole new audience into reading and I could never really complain about that.

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