Book Review: It Ends with Us

 

It Ends with Us

Colleen Hoover

Overall: 3/5

Plot and themes: 3/5

Characters: 2/5

Writing style: 2/5

Attention-grabbing: 3/5

It Ends with Us is a standalone contemporary romance that is sort of non-chronological as we see our protagonist, Lily, experience her present day romance superposed over the diary entries which summarized her first love. We get to see highs and lows from different perspectives of her life and then we get to see the big mash-up once everything gets super screwy and the timelines converge. 

I struggled with the ratings because, to be brutally honest, the first fifty percent of the book was bad for me. Lily was giving me major pick-me vibes and she really felt like she was being victimized by both of her love interests in different ways. I wasn't feeling the strength of the romance and I wasn't feeling her strength of character. But then a bunch of stuff happened during the second half of the book (like I'm talking a bunch of stuff we literally go through like two and a half years after the halfway point when the first half was like a year where nothing really happened). But it was pretty good after that point and had a nice message where I really saw some character development until the epilogue. I was satisfied with some elements and I thought I really felt like I was learning alongside of the protagonist.

I'm going to get into spoilers here though as to why I don't think the book is worth the hype. The romances should not have existed simultaneously and as contrary elements to one another. I think it's a great story of conquering your own limitations and growing up and finally understanding the position of a parental figure that you could never understand as a child. But I really think that the ultimate message should have stuck with that independence and drive rather than the convoluted message of first love that was attempted in the epilogue. I think that drained the significance of independence and fighting for your own goals that was built up in the second half. Not so much that she ended up with Atlas, but that she just ran after him and he was like "you've finally made it to shore" he should not have been her shore when the reality of the matter was that she was her own rock through the whole process. I appreciated that she didn't rely on him to pull her through the hard times cause that would've been an even worse message, but I didn't like the implication that her ultimate security and fulfillment was based on Atlas. Or that all that she had suffered was only to bring her back to him. 

So yeah, hate to be the one to say it but this book would've been better off staying a doomed romance. I didn't need the reward of a spare relationship. And when a person who really only reads HEA romances says that I think it's a pretty good indicator.