ROTM - It Ends With Us Review...

Devouring books at the rate I've been, has me barely managing to keep up with reviews. Quickly learning that writing lengthy reviews for every book I finish is far more time consuming than initially anticipated.

Instead, I'll write reviews as I wish.

I'm also going to select a "Read of the Month". My favourite book for every month of the year.

Without further delay, here we go...

Read of the Month, January 2022:

It Ends With Us by Colleen Hoover

If you follow my Instagram account closely, I don't think you would be surprised.

I finished this book in 1 day.

Instantly hooked from the first chapter. Colleen Hoover is a literary goddess and this novel is a great depiction of why. I'll get into it!

Before I proceed, this book does deal with Domestic and Sexual Abuse and discussion of Suicide. This is your trigger warning.

UNSPOILED:

This story follows the life and childhood of Lily Bloom. She lives in Boston and wants to pursue her dream of becoming a florist. The story starts off strong, with her reflecting on her father's funeral and how she had nothing "good" to say about her father as a person as he was violent towards her mother. Instantly, we get a peek inside Lily's childhood, a mention of witnessing violence and abuse between her parents. All this is mentioned to a young, hotshot resident neurosurgeon, Ryle, who she meets for the first time on a rooftop this evening. They develop this topic of "Naked Truths" where they tell each other something raw and honest. This is a big basis throughout the development of their relationship.

The story follows both of them, how they connect and learn deep secrets about one another.

The other part of the story is Lily's childhood. This is told and relived through childhood letters that Lily wrote "to Ellen DeGeneres" as she watched her show daily and made Lily feel like she was a friend of sorts. It could be noted as diary entries as well but the important factor being that Lily felt alone. She talks about this house behind hers that was left abandoned and one day, a homeless boy who ends up going to her school moves into it and they begin to build a connection. His name is Atlas (and hello, THE NAME 👌👌👌) and he re-enters her life in Boston as an adult, bringing forth a lot of Lily's childhood memories.

When initially reading this story, you don't really know what to think or where it will go. This is exactly what made it so captivating as we go into our spoiled section.

SPOILED:

*************************************************

Here comes the magic with this book.

Colleen Hoover puts us in such a place with Lily, that we go through the motions with her.

We fall in love with Ryle. He claims to never want to get married, only be a one night stand guy. Lily changes all of that for him. She doesn't fall for it, she avoids him, he pursues her. He begs for her, changes his beliefs and ways for HER. He's a hard worker and a damn doctor, HELLO!

Lily becomes best friends with Ryle's sister, Allysa, before she even knows they're related. Allysa waltzes into Lily's brand new store, looking for something to keep her busy (since she's loaded) and sees the flower shop as a great way to help her pass the time. Allysa is great, loves that she set her Hermes bag on a dusty table, that's when I knew she was genuine and they hit it off.

All this is going on while Lily is re-reading her childhood letters to Ellen, where we learn about Atlas. The homeless boy that Lily started to care for, help with providing access to her shower and clean clothes from her dad, all while keeping him a secret from her parents. We learn he's homeless, came from an abusive home, and went to the abandoned house to initially commit suicide.

Heart. Cracked.

Lily helping him is what kept him from doing such a thing, making him realize life is worth living and they always had the dream of moving to Boston because "everything is always better in Boston". The letters showed so much heartbreak from the eyes of a young Lily, watching her mother undergo abuse and stay with someone who was violent. She grew to dislike her father, and vowed to herself that she would never do what her mother did, which was stay with someone who abused her.

Lily and Atlas developed a short-lived relationship as high school kids, until Lily's father found out about him and beat the living daylights out of him.

That was the last time they saw each other until present day, when Lily finds Atlas again at his own restaurant while she's out to dinner with her mother and Ryle.

We are happy while we read as Lily's life with Ryle unfolds. They grow so close, she falls madly in love with him and he is changing for her.

Until one night, he shoves her in a split second in the midst of his hand getting burned, a casserole dish shattering and both of them devouring wine.

When this happened, I had to re-read it. Making sure I understood it correctly. Lily's childhood letters talking about her father's violence towards her mother, how she would never be with someone like him. It was unbelievable that she had just gone through a violent moment with the man she loves.

Lily expresses that as well. In utter disbelief.

You instantly believe, it must have been an accident.

It was an accident. Of course it was.

Ryle wouldn't be violent with Lily. No way.

Ryle mends her, apologizes profusely. She cut her eyebrow on the kitchen counter on her fall so he tends to that. After the fog of the incident passes, Lily says:

"But Ryle? If anything like that ever happens again....I'll know that this time wasn't just an accident. And I'll leave you without a second thought."

Ryle is aware of the past with Lily's father, he assures her it wouldn't happen again and that he's nothing like her father.

You believe him. WE believe him.

Accidents happen. This was just a one time.

As you can probably guess, it happens again.

In the time between both incidents, Atlas sees Lily again (with the gash on her eyebrow) and immediately rushes to her side. Telling her to leave Ryle, that she knows what happens etc. Ryle and Atlas get into it (Ryle knowing exactly who Atlas is in Lily's life and past) and ends with Atlas giving Lily his number in secret in case anything ever happens.

Ryle finds the number.

While leaving the apartment in rage, Lily follows after him and Ryle shoves her. Again.

He tends to her, is visibly upset, calling her a liar (they are married at this point) and when Lily points out that he pushed her.

He says that she fell.

Nope. Uh-uh.

This can't be happening. Can it?

This incident brings out the dark traumatic past of Ryle. Having been involved in an incident as a kid where he accidently killed his older brother. Playing around with a gun. This all leading to him becoming a neurosurgeon (he was trying to put it all back in his head. Heart shattered.) And developing this anger where he blacks out.

It all kind of makes sense? No?

Ryle going through what he did and despite all the therapy, maybe it's just a matter of handling the anger differently as a couple.

Through all of this, Lily stays and we (the reader) support her. They work on managing his anger and their fights seem to be headed in the right direction. Ok, yes. We love Ryle, we can do this. Help him and he won't lay another finger on her.

The final attack on Lily from Ryle is something I will not go into detail about here.

The one quote that makes my heart sink from it is:

Where did you get that magnet, Lily?

Lily leaves the next morning. Atlas takes her in, takes her to the hospital, one where Ryle DOESN'T work, because we still love and care for him, right? She's patched up and finds out she's pregnant.

The way my heart shattered before, during and after the attack. You are left bewildered.

But Lily loves him. What's going to happen? He has a traumatic past and...

Oh. My. Moses.

Colleen Hoover, placed us exactly in the spot of a victim.

We fell in crazy, amazing love with the "picture perfect" man. We loved him so much, we started making excuses for him. Letting him get away with all these horrific actions. Trying to level with him, giving him more chances.

Lily doesn't leave Ryle right away, he leaves for a work trip for several months, not knowing about the baby. During this time Lily talks to her mother, and learns something that is so valuable about limits. How her father would abuse her, then she would excuse his behaviour and it would push her limit. So, if the next attack wasn't as bad, then she could handle it better. She would be thankful that it wasn't as violent.

Yet, an attack it still was.

Lily takes her time letting Ryle back in. She doesn't lead him on, she explains her motives very clearly with regards to the baby and we understand that Ryle isn't a bad person. Going back to one of the quotes from the 1st chapter.

"There is no such thing as bad people. We're all just people who sometimes do bad things."

Lily touches on that again with Ryle, letting him know her boundaries and he respects them.

Lily makes her decision when she gives birth to their daughter.

In the hospital, the 3 of them sitting on the bed. Lily finally tells Ryle that she wants a divorce.

I'm unsure of what my heart felt at that moment. I felt heartbroken because she loves Ryle so much, but you also feel pride. I remember nodding, knowing that it was the ONLY decision. The RIGHT decision, for her and her daughter. But, you're still sad.

When Ryle tried begging her not to leave him, she turned it around in the most perfect way.

"Ryle," I say gently. "What would you do? If one of these days, this little girl looked up at you and she said 'Daddy? My boyfriend hit me.' what would you say to her, Ryle?"

She goes on to provide a few more examples before Ryle responds.

"I would beg her to leave him," he says through tears. His lips press desperately against my forehead and I can feel some of his tears as they fall onto my cheeks. He moves his mouth to my ear and cradles both of us against him. "I would tell her that she is worth so much more. And I would beg her not to go back, no matter how much he loves her. She's worth so much more."

I don't think I've ever been a blubbering mess like this.

"It ends with us" refers to Lily and her daughter BREAKING. THE. CYCLE.

It stops there. With them. She left her husband to show her daughter that you can and you need to leave a dangerous/abusive/toxic situation, no matter how easy it may be to stay.

This novel was absolutely unexpected in the best possible way. It was eye opening, captivating and so SO important.

Reading it in 1 day was insane, to go through the rollercoaster of emotions in a 24 hour period is brutal, to say the least.

But this book will forever go down as one of my favourites.

Colleen Hoover also has a very important Author Note at the end that should not be skipped.

This book made me take a break from CoHo just because I was so emotionally ruined, but the brilliance of it is unmatched.

Thank you, Colleen Hoover.

And thank YOU for reading my fluff.

J.J. Monique