It Ends With Us (It Ends With Us #1) by Colleen Hoover
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.
Review: Lily Bloom grew up in a house punctuated by her father's physical abuse of her mother. But she's worked hard to move away from her childhood in a small town in Maine and has just opened her own floral shop in Boston. And is dating a gorgeous neurosurgeon named Ryle Kincaid. Despite his aversion to relationships and stubborn personality, he is irresistible to Lily. But as their relationship progresses, significant red flags are raised by Ryle's behavior that makes Lily question if she should continue dating him. In the middle of this stormy relationship, Lily's first love comes back into her life. Atlas Corrigan has also overcome much in his life but the connection between the two is still very real.
This is the second book I have read by Colleen Hoover. Unlike many readers, I was not a fan of Verity and had very low expectations going into this novel and was pleasantly surprised to like it much more. While some critics have criticized this book as romanticizing abuse, I think Hoover did a great job of how love can blind you and make you accept actions that are unacceptable. It shows how easy it is to stay and how hard it is to walk away. I also loved that Hoover explained in the afterward that this novel was inspired by her parents' marriage.
It was very cringe for me that the main character of this book was a floral shop owner named Lily Bloom. That is just too much for me. Atlas was an amazing character and almost too good to be true. Likewise, Ryle, while flawed, was ultimately too sweet and accepting in the final chapters and it didn't feel realistic to me. It felt like an easy and tidy conclusion and not true to how someone like him would actually respond.
Stars: 4
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