Book Review: It Ends With Us
12.3.2016
It Ends With Us is a harrowing story of love and abuse, and how abusive relationships aren't usually as black-and-white as we like to think. 'It Ends With Us' follows Lily Bloom as she opens her own flower shop and falls in love with a surgeon, Ryle Kincaid. With a history of abuse in the family and vivid memories of her mother covered in bruises and cuts, Lily knows too well the cycle of violence and apology that so many abusive men exhibit. But when her relationship with Ryle takes increasingly dark turns, she denies that anything is wrong. At first they seem like such small incidents -- things that could happen to anybody. We all lose our tempers, or lash out when we don't mean to. But as Ryle becomes her husband, and then the father of her child, his violence escalates. With her own daughter on the way, she's faced with a choice: be just like her mother, or leave.
'It Ends With Us' was deeply personal for Colleen Hoover, and that shines through in the novel. The characters are rich and sympathetic, and they show the nuance and shades of grey in an abusive relationship. It's easy to look in from the outside and judge victims of abuse for staying. How can they not see what's happening to them? How can they live each day with people who hit them, or scream at them? 'It Ends With Us' helped me understand how those relationships are like frogs in hot water, how abusive husbands can have a lot of good qualities and think they are good people (though make no mistake, they are monsters), and how it can be easy to explain away incidents of abuse. I won't spoil anything, but I will say that there's also a very happy ending, which was well worth sticking around for!
I was deeply touched by 'It Ends With Us', and came away not only with another good love story in my ears but with a deeper understanding of what victims of abuse go through. The mark of a great book is one that not only entertains and rivets, but that changes the way you move through everyday life and see the world.
