I read It Ends With Us so you don’t have to.
And oh how I suffered!
A fun little disclaimer: Everyone is 100% entitled to read, watch, and listen to what they enjoy. Let me be the first to say that I am an elitist asshole BUT I am an elitist asshole who also thinks it’s dumb to consume fancy literary content all the time. Sometimes we need to escape into a silly little story to forget our existential doom. And that’s great! Hooray for comfort media! At the same time, while It Ends With Us may be categorized as a “romance” (those quotation marks are doing the work of Atlas – not the one from the book lol), but it is not only praised as a feat of literature (yike), but is also actively harmful (double yike).
tl;dr: I’m not here to wag my finger at you and say oNLy rEaD cAmERoN-aPprOvED LITERATURE. I don’t give a fuck <3
Ahem.
We’ve gathered here today to recount my reading of It Ends With Us, the New York Times #1 bestseller that has absolutely dominated BookTok (the side of TikTok where people talk about books, for those of you lucky enough to not know what it is) and taken teenage girls by storm.
Listen, I didn’t go into this reading with the best of intentions. I haven’t been a fan of Colleen Hoover since I heard of her. For one, I’m not really into romance. Secondly, I had seen some screenshots of her work on Twitter and Instagram and…hated it. Plus, she’s written 24 books in 10 years. Uhhh, something isn’t adding up here.
So, I started off as a hater. But here’s the thing…I would talk to other girls my age who told me that it wasn’t right for me to make a judgment without actually reading any Colleen Hoover. Okay, Kelly, you’ve got a point. And if I was going to be a hater, I might as well be a proper one who could pointedly critique the book. I refused to spend money on these books – largely because trusted sources had already told me that the book spread some pretty harmful takes on abuse and relationships – so I put a hold on Hoover’s most well-known novel, It Ends With Us, at the library.
And then I waited.
For, like, five months.
That’s how long the waiting list was.
FIVE MONTHS!
As I paced my living room like a true literary critic awaiting my next read, I thought that the book truly couldn’t be AS bad as I thought it was. Certainly, the novel had to have some merit to sell as successfully as it did and to capture the hearts of (quite literally) millions of people.
Oh, dear reader.
The fateful day arrived and I downloaded It Ends With Us on my iPad. The book is told from Lily Blossom Bloom’s perspective. Yes, you read that name correctly. Yes, I cried a little inside. She’s a 23-year-old living in Boston when she meets Ryle, a sexy neurosurgeon who, from the outset, has an anger problem (Lily encounters him when he’s going ham on some balcony furniture without him realizing that she’s watching). They don’t see each other for about six months, and by chance (through Ryle’s sister, who’s name is Allysa btw. Alley-sa. I know it’s pronounced “A-Lis-Sa” but come on now.), they meet again.
As I was reading, I realized Lily was just…so meh. She completely lacks personality, aside from being a fan of Ellen and loving flowers, and serves as a stand-in for any woman who might be experiencing abuse. The result is a universal portrayal that barely says anything at all, and the story reads more like a What Not To Do instruction manual, complete with faceless characters rather than a nuanced portrayal of this character’s experience.
Ryle proceeds to wave a thousand red flags before Lily and him even start dating, including:
Hanging a distorted version of a picture he took of her on the night they met in his apartment.
Saying he doesn’t “do” relationships. Lily, you’re not the exception for this type of man, honey.
Knocking on 29 doors in Lily’s apartment complex to try and find her when she’s already expressed that she doesn’t want to sleep with him.
When Lily says she doesn’t want to have sex with him, he brags about how he’s “really good at it.”
LITERALLY getting on his knees and begging Lily to have sex with him after she told him “no” multiple times.
Cornering Lily at a party and attempting to make out with her.
And, biting his lip. Just cause. Ew.
And ALL of this is framed as being hot! And that he’s just obsessed with her in a cute way! At no point – before or after the abuse – does Lily ever reflect that MAYBE his behavior from before they started dating was creepy as fuck. I mean…if a grown man EVER bit his bottom lip sensually at me? Straight to jail. STRAIGHT. TO. JAIL.
But, they start dating. Cause, yeah.
Meanwhile, we’re reading flashbacks through Lily’s old journal (written to Ellen DeGeneres, reader. Yes, I also cried a little inside.) and we learn about her childhood love, this guy named Atlas, who’s meant to be dreamy. Sound the alarm because we’ve got a 🚨 LOVE TRIANGLE ALERT! 🚨 Except…why is there a love triangle in this book? Why is the book framed as if it’s a fun little romance where Lily has to choose between two hunks who both adore her? Because the truth is: it’s NOT that kind of story. As the book goes on, Ryle begins abusing Lily – physically and emotionally – and most of the story centers of Lily grappling with this reality. Atlas is hardly in the book aside from the flashbacks. He mainly serves as a catalyst to Ryle’s abuse (Ryle thinks Lily is still in love with Atlas and he gets jealous) when Atlas and Lily conveniently run into each other at his restaurant.
As the book goes on, Ryle’s abuse gets more heinous and we see Lily struggle with the decision to leave. I think this is probably the only redeeming quality of the book, as I can appreciate that Hoover at least tried to make this struggle realistic, especially as Lily recounts her traumatic experiences growing up as a witness to her father’s abuse of her mother. When Lily flees Ryle after a particularly violent and calculated abusive encounter, she discovers that she’s pregnant (and Lily doesn’t even consider an abortion, which would be feasible at this point of the novel because Ryle doesn’t know she’s pregnant and it’s early on. So that was mystifying).
When her daughter is born, Lily decides to leave Ryle in a triumphant conclusion, showing that the cycle of abuse that flowed from Lily’s mother to Lily “ends with us” (title drop, hey-o). And it is a relief to see Lily leaving Ryle because I really did feel bad for her throughout the book. But then Hoover completely undermines Lily’s display of strength in the epilogue when she is shown co-parenting with Ryle and leaving her daughter unsupervised on “his days.” Um…what?
Ultimately, readers claim to love the book because of its depth and how it realistically portrays abuse. I am the first person to advocate for more fiction written by women that tackles themes of domestic abuse and shows the challenges that women face in these situations. However, It Ends With Us is a feeble attempt at capturing this nuance. I do think there was a valiant effort – emphasis on effort – to portray abuse, but the writing was too juvenile, the details were too light-hearted (e.g. Lily’s name, the letters to Ellen, etc.), the characters were too one-dimensional, and the ending was too flat to carry these themes.
Reading e-books from the library also offers the unique experience of seeing the most highlighted lines in the book, lines that I guess moved a lot of people and were worth remembering – and thousands of people highlighted them. But these quotes hardly say more than “people make mistakes” or “good people do bad things.” And “Just keep swimming” from Finding Nemo is meant to serve as an emotional climax in the novel. Seriously? Can we not demand more from a work of adult fiction that claims to sit with the heaviness of domestic abuse? Why must didactic lessons be shoved in our face so blatantly?
I don’t think I would hate this book QUITE as much if a few things weren’t true:
Earlier this year, Colleen Hoover announced an It Ends With Us coloring book. A COLORING BOOK, reader, for a book about domestic violence. Like…speechless.
I have seen young girls – as young as 12 or 13 – picking up It Ends With Us, along with other books by Hoover, at the bookstore. While an adult reader might be able to parse through the red flags and problematic elements of this book, I’m not so sure that young girls can. Not to say they aren’t smart – young women are great and capable! – but they have not had enough life experience to know. And with so many people on social media praising Hoover for her work (I even saw one praying for a redemption arc for Ryle! NO!), it’s just not appropriate. And that doesn’t even get into the sex scenes. Young girls: go read Percy Jackson! Read some quirky novel about twins surviving middle school! Read a wacky adventure! Please? Now I’m the one begging.
I do wonder what it is about this book that made so many people fall in love with it. Maybe it’s because the book makes you feel like you read something “deep” without really making you think. Maybe because we live in a society of influencing, so a few people on TikTok saying it’s good led to a lot of people saying it’s good. Maybe it’s because reading has become trendy and so any book is a good book just because you had time to read it for “self-care.”
Whatever the reason, I hope you spend your precious reading time on something else because my time reading Colleen Hoover ends with It Ends With Us (see what I did there? I can do it too, Colleen).
things i’m loving rn:
Arcane on Netflix.
Dolly Parton (obviously).
An Apple Fitness Beyoncé dance workout.
things i’m hating rn:
It Ends With Us, duh.
The return of the heat. No one invite me to anything unless I can wear shorts and a t-shirt.
Imagining how I look doing an Apple Fitness Beyoncé dance workout
Thanks for reading! I hope you enjoyed this first edition of thought monster. Share it with your friends! Do the marketing for me! Please! Self-promotion is YUCK!
<3 Cameron
for even more unhinged content, follow me on instagram: @bycameronkatz
Laughed out loud several times reading this - thoroughly enjoyed