Book Review: "It Ends with Us" by Colleen Hoover

Oh. My. God.

Colleen Hoover, I don’t know why or how it’s taken me so long to read your books, but that is a mistake I will quickly rectify after reading this one!! I have officially joined your fan club.

"...sometimes, no matter how convinced you are that your life will turn out a certain way, all that certainty can be washed away with a simple change in tide."

Lily Bloom is in need of solitude so she escapes to the roof deck of a Boston apartment building late at night. Her reflection is broken by the appearance of a handsome man who needs to blow off steam—and kicks a lounge chair into submission. This is Ryle Kincaid, a neurosurgery resident who is having a disastrous day. Ryle and Lily are immensely attracted to one another but he admits relationships don’t interest him, so when Lily tells him she won’t just sleep with him, they part ways.

But as their paths keep colliding, and they cannot shake the pull of their attraction, they agree to try a relationship, because they know there is no way they could simply have sex and walk away. They realize how strong their connection is, that their feelings are more than lust, but actually love, and they begin planning to build a life together, as Lily pursues her dream business opportunity at the same time.

Lily’s love for Ryle reminds her of her first love during high school, Atlas, who left town to join the military and she never heard from him again. As her relationship intensifies with Ryle, an utterly unexpected incident forces her to confront feelings she never thought she would. And at that moment, she sees Atlas again, which further confuses her heart and her mind, and threatens the life she and Ryle have built.

This is a powerful, emotional novel about courage, all-consuming love, empathy, and the realization that doing something bad doesn’t necessarily make you a bad person, but loving someone doesn’t mean you have to love all of their flaws. This book has some steamy sex and some scenes of violence which may be a trigger for some.

I devoured this book in a few hours and it seriously choked me up. I won’t be able to get this one out of my head for a long time, and I now must read the rest of Hoover’s books!!