A Heartbreaking Journey: A Review of Colleen Hoover’s “It Ends with Us”

ByPeter Joeseph 'Briefcase Maker' Kalafatis
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Lily Bloom is a florist who has just opened her own shop in Boston, and by the end of the first third of It Ends with Us she has fallen for a neurosurgeon who tells her up front that he does not do relationships. Most readers arrive expecting a romance. Colleen Hoover’s novel keeps that shape for a while, then bends it into something harder to categorize, and readers have been arguing about where it lands ever since.

The book came out in 2016 and sat as a respected seller for years before a social media surge turned it into one of the best-selling novels in the country. This review covers where it came from, what it does well, where critics have pushed back, and how the 2024 film fits into the story.

The Author and the Book’s Publication History

Colleen Hoover was born in Sulphur Springs, Texas, in December 1979, and holds a degree in social work from Texas A&M University–Commerce. According to her Wikipedia entry, she began writing in November 2011 and self-published Slammed in January 2012. Atria Books republished her first two novels that August, and her self-published Hopeless reached number one on the New York Times list that December. Time named her to its 100 most influential people list in 2023.

It Ends with Us was published by Atria Books on August 2, 2016, as a 376-page paperback. It won the 2016 Goodreads Choice Award for Best Romance. Hoover has said the story was loosely inspired by her parents’ marriage. She told TODAY that her mother left her father when Hoover was two, and that the divorce is the part of the family story she holds up as strength. A sequel, It Starts with Us, followed on October 18, 2022, and a collector’s edition published April 18, 2023 includes a Q&A between Hoover and her mother.

Sales came late. The novel reached number one on the New York Times combined fiction list in January 2022, after a 2021 surge of attention on BookTok. Publishers Weekly reported that it sold more than two million copies in 2022 alone, in a year when Hoover held the top three spots on its list of the best-selling print books.

What Happens, Without the Big Spoilers

Lily moves to Boston to open her flower shop and becomes involved with Ryle Kincaid, a neurosurgeon. Diary entries from her teenage years, addressed to Ellen DeGeneres, return to her first love, Atlas Corrigan. When Atlas re-enters her life, the relationship with Ryle comes under pressure. The publisher’s own pitch describes a workaholic with a too-good-to-be-true romance who cannot stop thinking about her first love.

Hoover is direct about what the pressure is. The relationship turns violent, and the novel follows Lily as she works out what she is looking at. The book’s answer to why that takes time is not that Lily is weak. It is that the person hurting her is also attentive, apologetic and loved, and the story insists that those facts do not cancel the rest.

Florist's workbench with loose stems, twine and shears in early morning window light

Themes: Why Leaving Is Not a Simple Decision

The most useful thing the book does is refuse the standard version of the abuser. Ryle is not a stranger or a brute at the start. Hoover gives him a painful history and real tenderness, and then shows him hurting the woman he loves. Kirkus Reviews, posted May 30, 2016, called it:

Packed with riveting drama and painful truths

Kirkus Reviews, May 2016

The title is itself a statement of intent. “It ends with us” reads as a decision about what a family passes down, and the final chapters turn on whether a cycle of abuse can be stopped by one person’s choice. The book gives a definite answer, and it does not pretend the answer is painless.

Hoover has called the book the hardest she has written, a claim repeated on its Wikipedia page. In her TODAY interview she describes the long bestseller run as bittersweet, because readers connect to it for painful reasons. She also recalls that one of her earliest memories was her father throwing a television at her mother. The novel is fiction, but it is not detached from the author’s life, and that shapes how many readers take it.

The Criticisms: Romance Packaging, Excused Violence

The case against the book is serious and comes from several directions. The first is genre. The book is shelved and marketed as romance, with a love triangle at its center, and critics argue that placing abuse inside that structure makes it read as romance. Eliza Sullivan, writing in F Newsmagazine in April 2023, makes that argument and worries about the book’s young readers:

dangerous romance is the first definition of love

Eliza Sullivan, F Newsmagazine, April 15, 2023

The second objection is about Ryle. Sullivan argues that explaining his violence through his history comes close to excusing it. A separate reader review on the ELAC Gazette Substack, written by a reader named Rachel, rates the novel 3.25 stars and sounds similar notes. She calls the prose simple and the pacing clunky, and she questions an early relationship between Lily as a teenager and Atlas at about 19. She also fears that romance marketing could lead readers to excuse Ryle. She does grant that Hoover captures why victims stay.

There is a fair answer to both points. The novel does not present Ryle’s violence as acceptable, and Lily’s choice at the end is the opposite of the romantic default. Still, a book can intend one thing and be read as another, and the second reading is common enough that anyone recommending it to a teenager should say so.

Open paperback beside a mug on a rainy windowsill with a soft-focus bouquet

When the Marketing Went Wrong: A Coloring Book

The sharpest example of that gap came in January 2023. Atria Books announced a tie-in, The Official It Ends With Us Coloring Book, and cancelled it on January 11 after a wave of objections, according to The Bookseller. Hoover answered on Instagram that the book had been made with Lily’s strength in mind, then added: “I can absolutely see how this was tone-deaf.” The episode is a small one, but it shows how easily a story about domestic violence slides into merchandise.

The 2024 Film

Justin Baldoni optioned the novel in 2019 through his company Wayfarer Entertainment. He directed the adaptation and played Ryle, with Blake Lively as Lily and Brandon Sklenar as Atlas, from a screenplay by Christy Hall. Sony released it on August 9, 2024. Against a reported $25 million budget it earned about $351 million worldwide, according to the film’s Wikipedia page, and the novel returned to number one on the New York Times list two days after release. Reviews were mixed. Rotten Tomatoes lists 55 percent positive from 198 reviews, Metacritic gives it 53 out of 100, and audiences polled by CinemaScore gave it an A–.

The trailer, as uploaded by Sony Pictures Entertainment:

The film drew the same argument the novel had, in a louder form. Reporting from NPR, republished by KQED, found survivors and advocates objecting that promoting the film as a love story, without content warnings, could be triggering and could blur how young viewers recognize abuse. Advocate Ashley Bendiksen said, “When we use trauma as entertainment, it can feel really exploitative.” Others praised Baldoni for stressing the story’s hope.

Off screen, the production became a dispute of its own. On December 20, 2024, Lively filed a complaint with the California Civil Rights Department alleging a hostile work environment and retaliation against Baldoni, a producer and Wayfarer. Baldoni denied the allegations. Per Wikipedia’s account, his countersuits were dismissed in 2025, a court dismissed most of Lively’s claims in April 2026, and the remainder settled on May 4, 2026, with no payout reported. Readers who want the details should follow current reporting, because those accounts have kept changing.

Frequently Asked Questions

Is It Ends with Us a true story?
No. It is a novel. Hoover has said the marriage at its center was loosely inspired by her parents’ relationship, but Lily, Ryle and Atlas are invented.

Do I need to read it before It Starts with Us?
Yes. The sequel, published October 18, 2022, picks up directly from the first book and centers on Lily and Atlas.

Does the book contain content readers may want to avoid?
It depicts domestic violence and emotional abuse. Readers sensitive to that material should go in prepared.

Is the movie faithful to the novel?
Reviews were mixed, as noted above, and this post does not attempt a scene-by-scene comparison. Lively has described the film as a story that covers domestic violence but is not about domestic violence.

Woman seen from behind at a rooftop railing at dusk above a blurred city skyline

Where to Read It

It Ends with Us by Colleen Hoover (affiliate link). This is the Atria Books paperback edition, the same one linked from the buy button at the top of the page.

Further Reading

F Newsmagazine carries the harshest critique of the novel’s genre framing. The ELAC Gazette offers a mixed reader review that predates the film, and the NPR/KQED report covers advocates’ reactions to the film’s marketing.

Sources

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