It Ends With Us - Review

It Ends With Us

By: Colleen Hoover

Publication: August 2nd 2016 by Atria Books

320 pages

Genre: New Adult, Contemporary

Source Personal Kindle Library

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Goodreads 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 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, and 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.

With this bold and deeply personal novel Colleen Hoover delivers a heart-wrenching story that breaks exciting new ground for her as a writer. Combining a captivating romance with a cast of all too human characters, “It Ends with Us” is an unforgettable tale of love that comes at the ultimate price.

Colleen Hoover always makes her books so hard to review without spoiling anything. It's a blessing and a curse. I'll say up front that It Ends With Us isn't my favorite Colleen Hoover book, but she pulled out all the feels from me and I ended up crying. Actual tears. It's not easy to make me cry, but Colleen Hoover has done it more than once.

It Ends With Us starts out on a roof top where Lily meets Ryle (I STILL HAVE NO IDEA HOW TO PRONOUNCE HIS NAME which is a bit of a pet peeve of mine). The two have both had traumatic days for different reasons and begin to talk. Because they're complete strangers they find it easy and refreshing to be completely honest with each other in what they call "naked truths." I liked that these two had a connection one night but then didn't see each other again for quite some time. Ryle helps give Lily the inspiration and motivation she needed to leave the job she had at a marketing firm to start her own business--a floral shop.

As part of the overall story, Lily finds and re-reads some journals that she wrote back when she was fifteen years old. I didn't love that the journal entries were written in the form of letters to Ellen Degeneres. I mean that made them unique, but also a little annoying to me. Ellen is hilarious so I can kind of understand the need to try to bring in some humor to the weightiness of the story, but that didn't quite translate as Ellen herself wasn't really present. It also served as a flashback to give Lily's backstory and setup for events to come. I'm not always a fan of flashbacks and I found myself sighing (not in a good way) when these sections came up at first, but the further into the book I got the more I wanted to know how her journals would end.

It Ends With Us is a good bit different from all of Colleen Hoover's other books. In the most obvious way I can't really discuss due to spoiling, but what is the same is that I really did feel everything that Lily feels. I felt her excitement with a new relationship, the nostalgia from her past, the hurt and frustration from being let down, the confusion and battle of head versus heart. It Ends With Us is a story of gray areas and how quickly you can find yourself in the exact position you thought you of all people would never be in. And if you read the author's note at the end (read only after finishing the book) then you'll see how deeply personal It Ends With Us was for Colleen Hoover. This was a story that needed to be told.

I laughed, I cried. I shook my head. I predicted. Even though It Ends With Us wasn't my favorite Colleen Hoover book, I still have to give it 5 Stars because she put me through the entire course of emotions. Any time a book can actually make me cry it deserves those 5 Stars. Have you read It Ends With Us? What did you think? Let me know!

PS I appreciated that this was a less physically descriptive book than the last couple that she's done as well.