Pre-movie adaptation book review: 'It Ends With Us'

BY PAYTON MARKS / Multimedia Journalist

It should be noted that this is a book review of “It Ends With Us” by Colleen Hoover and will feature slight spoilers. The book itself, along with some of the spoilers, covers many heavy topics such as mention of suicide, sexual assault and domestic violence. 

It is no secret that when a book blows up, sells enough or gains enough traction often it will result in a book-to-movie adaptation. It has happened with books such as “The Hunger Games”, “Divergent” and “The Fault in Our Stars”. (Currently in the works is an adaptation of “People We Meet on Vacation” by Emily Henry and later this year the world will get a movie release of “It Ends with Us”.)

The film started production last year but was cut short for several months due to the SAG-AFTRA strike that took place this past year. The film is directed by Justin Baldoni and will star Blake Lively, Brandon Sklenar and Justin Baldoni as the three main characters. 

“It Ends With Us” is based loosely on the story of Hoover's parents. It is narrated in the first person and follows the story of the protagonist Lily Bloom who grew up in a household with her mother and her father, who domestically abused her mother.

The book showcases Lily’s life as it switches from her past to the present day through the use of her old diary entries touching base on her opinions of her mom’s experience with domestic violence and the story of her first love, Atlas. 

A big plot point within the book is when her past and her present begin to intertwine in more ways than one. 

The book starts off on a serious note from the very first page. We very quickly see through Lily’s internal monologue that she is thinking about death. 

While up on the roof, Lily meets one of the vital characters for the story, Ryle Kincaid. 

The two quickly hit it off and share a very vulnerable side of themselves with each other. Lily even confides in Ryle about the passing of her father.

“My parents died this week,” Lily said after a remark Ryle made about parents.

Their interaction is cut short when Ryle, who is a neurosurgeon, is called into work. 

However, two chapters later they meet again through Ryle’s sister, Allysa, who has just taken on a new job working for Lily, who recently sustained an injury. In my opinion, this is one of the funniest interactions they share in the whole book.

Good characters tend to have some form of character development and sometimes it’s fun to watch a character’s villain arc. In this case it’s not and Ryle is essentially the antagonist.

In the fourth chapter, we get another flashback to when Lily was younger and we get more of an insight into her, dare I say very wholesome, relationship with the ever-so-dreamy Atlas.

I’ll save you all of the details about Ryle and Lily and how they get together and their relationship because it’s not entirely crucial, however, spoiler alert, as if you didn’t see it coming, Ryle and Lily do eventually end up together. 

The first bump in the road starts in chapter ten when Lily goes out to eat at a new restaurant with her mother and Ryle. And what could be wrong with that? Well, interestingly enough their waiter at the restaurant turns out to be Atlas, also known as Lily’s first love. Even more interesting in my opinion is the fact that Atlas wasn’t actually a waiter, he’s the head chef.

Quickly upon realizing that this waiter is the man Lily has thought about for the past nine or so years, she excuses herself to the bathroom. 

Lily takes a moment and stands in the hallway, and as fitting as it possibly can be Atlas comes over to the hallway and the two reunite. This interaction is the start of a very beautiful rekindling, well beautiful for these two, not so much for Ryle.

A storyline that Hoover briefly touches on happens two chapters later when Alyssa, Ryle’s sister, breaks the news to her brother and best friend, Lily, that she’s pregnant. Amidst her news she accidentally let it slip that Ryle and Alyssa both had another sibling who had passed. Hoover is vague with the details about their sibling at first but does reveal more later.

The chapter ends with more build-up of Ryle and Lily’s relationship. And throughout the next chapter and a half they are officially dating. 

However, things quickly begin to go downhill. In chapter 14 Lily and Ryle are having a date night at Lily’s house where Lily is making Ryle dinner. While talking to Ryle and having a phone call with her mom Lily spaces out and forgets about the casserole that she has cooking in the oven and Ryle goes to pull out the dish, burning his hand in the process. In case you’ve forgotten, Ryle is a neurosurgeon so burning his hand is a very bad thing, however it doesn’t justify his actions that follow. As Lily leans down to check on Ryle’s hand things take a turn for the worse.

“Ryle’s arm came out of nowhere and slammed against me, knocking me backward,” Hoover wrote. 

This is not the only example of domestic violence throughout Lily and Ryle’s relationship. In fact, the longer their relationship goes on I’d say that their relationship becomes more toxic, and Ryle’s actions become much worse. 

One night Lily calls Atlas for help and he takes her in, she eventually finds out she’s pregnant with Ryle’s baby, and even though Atlas tells her to leave him, at first, she refuses and makes similar excuses to that which her mom made for her dad, again mirroring her parents. 

Eventually, Lily decides it is in her and their daughter's best interest to leave Ryle. 

Overall, the book was interesting but very serious and probably not something I’d read again. Some of the criticisms online also hold a lot of validity and weight, and these aren’t topics that society should be romanticizing. While I get why Hoover wrote the book, I do think it paved a path to give people the opportunity to romanticize being in a toxic relationship and almost excuse or romanticize domestic violence. 

While I do think empathy and sympathy is important for the victims of domestic violence, as  a society, we cannot justify and romanticize these kinds of situations or actions.

I also see a lack of focus on the trauma that these situations often create, and I feel like that could have been more important in the bigger picture as far as the book goes but I also know that Hoover has said that she wrote the book based on her parents. If you aren’t one for heavy reading, or discussing heavy topics this is not the book for you and I’m not entirely sure it is for me. 

The movie adaptation was originally set to be released on Feb. 9, 2024, however, due to the SAG-AFTRA strike that date has now changed and the release date is currently unknown.