Series: It Ends With Us Book 1
Genre: Romance
Length: 384 pages
Audiobook Length: 11 hours and 11 minutes
First Published: 2016
View in Goodreads
Buy on Amazon
Rachael’s Review
On the day of her father’s funeral, Lily meets Ryle, a handsome neurosurgeon, and sparks immediately fly. Although Ryle is notoriously commitment-phobic, he can’t seem to stay away from Lily. As Lily and Ryle’s relationship goes through ups and downs, Lily takes to reading her journals about her first love, Atlas. When Atlas reappears in her life, everything Lily has built with Ryle threatens to come tumbling down.
It Ends with Us has been all over TikTok for ages, so I thought I’d finally pick up Hoover’s infamous love story. Hoover hits all romance bases as the first half of the novel contrasts her ultra-steamy romance with her husband against her sweet young adult romance with Atlas. Yet the brilliance of It Ends with Us is when the novel shifts from a steamy romance to a tale of domestic violence.
As Lily struggles with the shifting line in the sand as her husband’s actions become increasingly abusive, Hoover humanizes domestic violence victims, helping you understand why we shouldn’t judge women because it doesn’t always feel so black and white for the woman involved. Based on her own parents, It Ends with Us is a journey about stopping the cycle of domestic abuse.
Publisher’s Description
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.
Quotes from It Ends with Us
There is no such thing as bad people. We’re all just people who sometimes do bad things.
All humans make mistakes. What determines a person’s character aren’t the mistakes we make. It’s how we take those mistakes and turn them into lessons rather than excuses.
Just because we didn’t end up on the same wave, doesn’t mean we aren’t still a part of the same ocean.
Naked truths aren’t always pretty.
About Colleen Hoover
Colleen Hoover is an author whose works include It Ends With Us, Verity, Regretting You and Layla. Her family is the founder of the subscription service Bookworm Box. She currently lives in Texas. Visit the author’s website →