(Book review)

“It stops here. With me and you. It ends with us.”

‘It ends with us’ is a novel written by American writer Colleen Hoover in 2016. This book is considered to be the best book, the magnum opus, written by the author. It became widely popular after being often mentioned on BookTok (Bookish side of TikTok).

It follows a story about Lily – a young woman who has just buried her abusive father and moved to Boston to start a new life. One day, sitting on the rooftop of a building, she meets a handsome and attractive Ryle. After a nice talk they just return to their lives and think they will never meet. However, life can surprise you. Ryle and Lily meet again and decide to start a relationship. Everything is fine till Ryle does something horrible and that situation forces Lily to think over her attitude to their relationship and remind her of the first love – Atlas, whom he has never seen since her youth. But what if everything happened for a reason and now she needs to decide how she feels about both men and if she ever has the courage to forgive Ryle.

“Fifteen seconds. That’s all it takes to completely change everything about a person. Fifteen.”

I can state that ‘It ends with us’ is one of the most heartbreaking books I have ever read. Firstly, it was fine, and I thought that this book would be another summer romantic book. I was really-really wrong. The story raises a series of crucial issues like domestic violence towards children, abusive relationship, the ability to forgive and the art of making painful but needed decisions. Talking about characters, I adored the way the author introduced them to us and the way they developed throughout the book. I felt sorry for everyone.

“There is no such thing as bad people. We’re all just people who sometimes do bad things.” This quote perfectly describes ‘It ends with us.’

However, I read this book in Ukrainian so I didnt quite like the translation. Sometimes, I caught myself thinking the translation didnt deliver the exact message the author wanted to be delivered.

I strongly recommend you to read it if you like deep, ambiguous stories and if you like to cry. Cry a lot. Although it seems to be a romantic novel, check trigger warnings before diving into it.

I give it 9/10.

P.S. Stay tuned to see what happens next. Colleen Hoover announced a sequel to ‘It ends with us,’ which will be out on October 18^th and is called ‘It starts with us.’