Colleen Hoover: It ends with us

The book I read is written by an American author Colleen Hoover and is titled “It ends with us”.
For me, the title started to make sense at the end of the whole book. What is really ending in the
book is the main character Lily’s connection to abuse, that she has been a victim of from her
childhood. When she finally decides to end her toxic and abusive marriage she comes to the
“end” which is mentioned in the title. I think that character of Lily is the best drawn in the book,
which I expected because she is the main character. Trough the book we are reading the story
which is told in the first person but with a twist – we are also reading past Lily’s thoughts that
she had written in her diary. That is something I don’t see in love novels very often but when it is
included I really appreciate it because we can get to know the main character so much better, we
can also see how they have grown mentally and what impact does their past leave on their
present. The book is full of very harsh and violent scenes, which I think for some people would
be very hard to read, especially if they have some personal experience with abuse. Every one of
those scenes adds to the plot of the story. I think one of the strongest scenes is the first abuse that
Lily has experienced from her new partner Ryle. It happens when he accidentally burns his hand
on a hot pan and she finds it funny. We can then see how his emotions, his character completely
switch – it is like he becomes a different person. He hurts her and than just goes back to the Ryle
we have read about previously. I think that is the beginning of the end. I have mentioned that the
main problem in the book is the abuse that Lily can’t escape in her life. We learn that her father
was abusive to her mother and her and the story begins after her father passed away. She meets a
guy who seems nice at first, a little flirtatious, but nothing happens. Few months later their paths
cross again and this time he stays in her life. At first everything seems to be going good in their
relationship but soon after she discovers that he has a problem with anger and aggression. He
hurts her for the first time, than another and another and she, even though she is scared that she
will end like her mother, forgives him. She has had enough after one time his aggression took a
completely new level and he tries to rape her. That is the most violent and shocking scene in the
book, in my opinion, it gets even more shocking when she finds out she is pregnant with the
baby of a child who is constantly abusing her. The problem is solved with a divorce of the two
after which Lily completely removes Ryle from her life. It is very hard for me to say what is the
message of the book. I think everyone kind of pulls something different that sticks with them.
What I see as the message of the book is that love never comes with pain. If it hurts, it is not
love. I have once read the quote “An abusive relationship is easy to identify, but also the most
difficult to end.” and that is this book in one sentence. Lily shows us that no matter how much
we love someone, we aways must love ourselves more. That she shows when she gathers up the
strength to walk away from Ryle, to leave “them” behind and moves forward alone. This book is
often shown on social media and that is how I have heard of it. I know that there is a movie
filmed by this book that is about to come out in the near future and I am interested to see it. I
would like to end this report by saying that even though this book contains some disturbing and
violent scenes, it also brings up the emotions that victims of abuse experience and I think it is
worth reading.

Emilija Marić, 4.a