I feel confident in saying that most avid readers, especially those on social media, have heard of Colleen Hoover. She’s a New York Times bestselling author who has sold almost nine million novels this year. That’s more copies sold than the Bible and more sold than the combined sales of John Grisham and James Patterson. Basically, Colleen Hoover is everywhere. This week, she released It Starts With Us, the sequel to the extremely popular It Ends With Us, which was released in 2016.
I’ve spent the last few months putting off reading It Ends With Us. There’ve been polarising reviews online, and one review I read went as far as to say that the author glorified domestic violence. However, after realising I’d read Verity and Reminders of Him some time ago, both of which I enjoyed to some extent, I decided to give the series a chance.
So, here we go.
About the Books
The novels follow Lily Bloom, a florist who quickly meets, falls in love with, marries, and has a baby with Ryle Kincaid, a relationship-averse neurosurgeon. But as quickly as they fall in love is as quickly as all hell breaks loose. Ryle starts a pattern of physically abusing Lily; there’s a backhand in the kitchen, a push down the stairs, and an attempted sexual assault. Insert Atlas Corrigan, Lily’s teenage love, who comes back into her life after a stint in the military and forces her to start questioning everything.
There’s so much that’s inherently problematic with this novel that I’m looking sideways at all the five-star reviews. Did we read the same book? Am I being gaslit? What is going on?
Where’s the romance?
My primary complaint with It Ends With Us is that the publisher has touted it as a romance novel. Romance. Now, listen. I am all for readers defining what romance means to them, and I accept that romance looks different for each reader. But this is simply not romance!
When I read romance, I want to swoon. Let me fall in love with the MMC right along with the FMC. Give me the angst and the lust. I want to root for the MMC and FMC and their HEA. It Ends With Us gives me none of these things. I didn’t even care whether Lily and Atlas ended up together! And there are so many red flags from Ryle that I am not sure there are any redeeming qualities. How do you fall in love with someone when your first impression of them is a violent one? How do you fall in love with someone who literally hunts you down just to sleep with you? Make it make sense.
Domestic Violence
Furthermore, the issue of domestic violence is a serious matter. Do you mean to tell me that Allyssa knows her brother is abusing her best friend and does nothing about it? And then, by the time we get to It Starts With Us, Allyssa likens the abuse to not treating Lily well. She ended up in the hospital! What are you saying to me?! While I do not agree that the series glorifies domestic violence, I do not think the author handled it with appropriate nuance. If you want to write a romance, write a romance. If you want to write social commentary, do that. It takes an author with far more skill than is on show here to do both, and It Ends With Us simply missed the mark.
Unfortunately, It Starts With Us isn’t much better. Lily and Atlas try to navigate their new relationship with Ryle and two kids in the mix, and they ultimately get their HEA which we really don’t even get to see. Not even an epilogue a few years down the line? Come on! And do not even get me started on the literal pages of text the author grabbed and copied from the first novel into the second!
Where I was touched, though, was the Note from the Author in It Ends With Us. There’s so much heart in those few pages. Man, I cried. I wish more of that heart were in the novels. I think it would have made for far better reading.
Up next on my TBR is Love on the Brain by Ali Hazelwood. Fingers crossed it’s a good read because when I tell you I LOVED The Love Hypothesis! Please don’t let me down!
Did you read It Ends With Us and It Starts With Us? Have you read any of Colleen Hoover’s work? Let me know your thoughts in the comments!
Happy reading!
