Sumayah El-Ganainy's Reviews > It Ends with Us

** spoiler alert ** This book is a very important book with intense scenes, yet so engulfing.
I read Ugly Love and hated it and it caused me to dislike hoover in general. So it took me a while to read this book. But, oh, how glad i am that i read this.
The way hoover wrote such intense mindful words in the brain of Lily about love, abuse, charity, and compassion is just astonishing. I would put the book down sometimes and think to myself how beautifully she put it to where everything just made sense to me.
Lily as a character alone is so awesome. she is so strong and did things i genuinely didn’t expect her to do. she definitely grew as a character throughout the book and y’all know i’m ALL about character development. the way hoover made her mind work and evolve was so realistic and understandable.
what’s so crazy is i thought this book was just going to be some smutty stupid romance. but listen y’all this thing was anything but. this book had meaning. this book might look like some playful story at the beginning with all the Ellen talk, but everything tied in to something deeper at the end. lol but ngl sometimes Lily was kinda stupid 1) she married a dude after truly knowing him for only two months. 2) the question that she thinks determines if a person is good or not is, “do u give to charity” like…. that’s a dumb question to ask people hahahaha.

anyways, i one hundred percent thought she was gonna get back with ryle then she divorced him so then i one hundred percent thought omg i’m so sad now she has nobody… BUT NO. how beautifuly did it end!! she got with atlasssss!!! i know it’s kinda fricked up that she has a baby with ryle and marries atlas, but like the book says, that’s how it looks on the surface. but after reading this book i can wholeheartedly see why she would do that. actually after finishing the book i can see why she did everything!!! when she told ryle she wanted a divorce after just giving birth i was like what the actual heck u r hurting this dude too much. but when i keep thinking about it, it was what needed to be done. she wanted to end the cycle. she knew that even if someone is so nice most of the times, the worst moments are the ones that stick... she didn’t want that for her daughter.

Okay, can we literally take a moment and acknowledge the smart name of this book. the pink flowers on the cover— the romance, y’all know u thought “us” was with ryle or atlas. ITS HER AND EMERSON!! that was slick. and honestly so touching ngl. it rlly just shook me when i read it. “It stops here. With me and you. It ends with us.” and not only that, but not “ends” like we are the result of love, but it “ends with us” meaning we are the end of the non ending cycle of abuse. periodtttt!!

while reading this, i was like there is no way in hell that colleen hoover can write so well about this topic without having experienced it all herself, and i was right. all the thoughts and happenings were so well thought about and written. so when i read the “note from the author” portion about hoover’s life, my respect for her rlly went up. she dealt with the same hardships as lily. this piece from what she wrote hit different:
“In the past, I’ve always said I write for entertainment purposes only. I don’t write to educate, persuade, or inform.
This book is different. This was not entertainment for me. It was the most grueling thing I have ever written. At times, I wanted to hit the Delete button and take back the way Ryle had treated Lily. I wanted to rewrite the scenes where she forgave him and I wanted to replace those scenes with a more resilient woman—a character who made all the right decisions at all the right times. But those weren’t the characters I was writing.
That wasn’t the story I was telling,”

WOW

overall this book rlly rlly touched me on so many levels whether it’s if i related to her 😕 or just felt for her… i’m so glad i read it!!!! it’s such an important book, and thankfully it’s an entertaining read. although, i will say, it is a heavy read. i would read at times and i couldn’t stop thinking about what i just read all day lolll.
but aren’t those books the best? :) (my answer is yes)
highly recommend this book; to literally anyone.

Omg this part was also so cool:
“You can stop swimming now, Lily. We finally reached the shore.”
that’s what atlas told her at the end… *chefs kiss*