Tuesday 22 May 2018

It Ends With Us by Colleen Hoover

Book Title: It Ends With Us
Author: Colleen Hoover
Genre: Contemporary, New Adult
My Rating: ♥ ♥ ♥ ♥
Source: Library 
Goodreads, Amazon UK

Plot: Lily hasn’t always had it easy, but that’s never stopped her from working hard for the life she wants. She’s come a long way from the small town in Maine where she grew up
— she graduated from college, moved to Boston, and started her own business. So when she feels a spark with a gorgeous neurosurgeon named Ryle Kincaid, everything in Lily’s life suddenly seems almost too good to be true.
Ryle is assertive, stubborn, maybe even a little arrogant. He’s also sensitive, brilliant, and has a total soft spot for Lily. And the way he looks in scrubs certainly doesn’t hurt. Lily can’t get him out of her head. But Ryle’s complete aversion to relationships is disturbing. Even as Lily finds herself becoming the exception to his “no dating” rule, she can’t help but wonder what made him that way in the first place.
As questions about her new relationship overwhelm her, so do thoughts of Atlas Corrigan, her first love and a link to the past she left behind. He was her kindred spirit, her protector. When Atlas suddenly reappears, everything Lily has built with Ryle is threatened.
What did I think?

It Ends With Us is brilliant. It's a bit out of my comfort zone, since I'm mostly a science fiction and fantasy reader, but every now and then I like to dive into the contemporary section and dabble in a bit of romance (and no, this book is not romance, despite its marketing, however there's romance in this book.)

Don't read up on this. Don't spoil yourself. If you don't mind a bit of romance, like contemporary and strong female characters, and don't mind heavy subjects, pick this one up and dive right in without knowing anything.

Trust me.

It has amazing, well developed characters. The plotting is tight, the pacing quick and the prose is very enjoyable. Lily is such an approachable protagonist. She's hardworking and ambitious and she's got a whole bunch of emotional baggage she's dragging around. I loved reading about her.

This is a powerful story and a smart one, one that knocked me down and made me cry, and if you want to know why, look it up on Goodreads. Plenty of reviewers talk about what this book is about, and I know not everyone likes to go in blind, and that is okay.

At the end of the novel there is a personal message from the author which explains the motivation for writing this book. Read it after you're done with the book, and you'll get knocked down a second time.

I hope writing this was cathartic for Collen Hoover. I've never read her before, but I admire her a lot for writing this book.

5 comments:

  1. I really need to read this book. It sounds like such a beautiful story and I've actually checked it out of the library twice now and ended up turning it back in unread because I keep getting behind on ARC reviews.

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  2. As much as it broke my heart, I really loved this one. Lily’s perspective shone a light on issue I don’t often read about and showed all the nuances and emotion. From the outside it seems so black and white. But Lily’s story showed all the emotion attached to the situation and really touched my heart.
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  3. yup this was out of my comfort zone but when I stop blogging altogether back in 2016 because I was having reading slumps all the time I realized I had to add some variety to my TBR and this was one of the books I picked! Even though this particular one was 3.2 stars I could see all the hype around CoHo! She is such a good writer!

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  4. Great review. I love Colleen Hoover’s writing. This one sounds perfect for me.

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  5. I am getting all emotional just thinking about Hoover's message. I have been CoHoed so many times. She writes really intense, emotional books, and they never fail to make me feel so much. I am glad you enjoyed your first CoHo book.

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