It Ends With Us: The emotional #1 Sunday Times bestseller. Now a major film starring Blake Lively and Justin Baldoni (Lily & Atlas, 1)

**TW** Domestic ab*se, r*pe, manipulation, s*icide, homelessness, child neglect, death, substance ab*se This book contains a lot of sensitive themes, if a sensitive reader, this book may not be suited for you. Where to begin? This book was powerful in its own way. The character development of Lily was amazing and she definitely showed what it was like to come out on the brighter side. Her relationship with Ryle though, that was clearly toxic from the start with many red flags to view. But she loved him and it can be difficult to see past the love you have for someone. There were scenes where he was kind and gentle with her but coming into the middle of the book, and onwards, his behavior started to change and his attitude towards Lily was not at all kind and gentle. Reading the interactions they have together really makes you think long and hard about the type of people they are. Yes, they cared for each other, but they had to think of themselves too. Lily's mother gave some great advice towards the end of the book and I love that. Speaking of Lily's mother, their relationship had some great development as we got further and further into the book. Their bond grew stronger as they found some common ground. Lily's mother gently pushed her daughter to make the decision that kept her safe. Of course, if anyone has been on TikTok or Instagram, then you know there is another love interest mentioned in this book and his name is Atlas. Dear, sweet Atlas. Always compassionate Atlas. Our first encounters with him are mostly through Lily's journals and we learn an awful lot about his character. At such a young age, Lily showed strong compassion and determination when it came to Atlas, and giving him what felt like a home, and he never once took advantage of her. Their connection with Ellen DeGeneres was beautiful and the continuing messages of 'Just Keep Swimming' was enough to put a sop smile on my face while reading. The ending of this book was beautiful. I loved that there was a positive and that everything seemed to start to slot itself in place. It truly showed the development of Lily's character. And, as her mother said, Lily is definitely brave and bold. This book deals with many issues that people face in real life and it truly gets you thinking about your own life and values. Many people have advertised this book as a romance, but I see it differently, it's a book of life. Of a difficult life that does have a brighter outcome. Even when everything may feel wrong, it can get better. I do highly recommend this book and I look forward to reading more of Colleen Hoover's books in the near future.

𝗖𝗼𝗻𝘁𝗲𝗻𝘁 𝗪𝗮𝗿𝗻𝗶𝗻𝗴𝘀: Domestic abuse (physical/emotional), Attempted rape, Child death, Potential PTSD “𝘛𝘩𝘦𝘳𝘦 𝘪𝘴 𝘯𝘰 𝘴𝘶𝘤𝘩 𝘵𝘩𝘪𝘯𝘨 𝘢𝘴 𝘣𝘢𝘥 𝘱𝘦𝘰𝘱𝘭𝘦. 𝘞𝘦’𝘳𝘦 𝘢𝘭𝘭 𝘫𝘶𝘴𝘵 𝘱𝘦𝘰𝘱𝘭𝘦 𝘸𝘩𝘰 𝘴𝘰𝘮𝘦𝘵𝘪𝘮𝘦𝘴 𝘥𝘰 𝘣𝘢𝘥 𝘵𝘩𝘪𝘯𝘨𝘴.” ✮ ✮ ✮ ✮ ✮ 𝐒𝐰𝐢𝐩𝐞 𝐟𝐨𝐫 𝐬𝐲𝐧𝐨𝐩𝐬𝐢𝐬 ➡️ I have not ever cried this much at a book. I don’t know what I was expecting when I read this, but it sure as hell wasn’t this, this is not a romance novel. I can’t even fathom putting my thoughts about this book on paper, because I am still crying an hour later. They are now happy tears, but they were sad tears. What a story. I had planned to read this book this month anyway, but I pushed it forward after being selected for the 100 person Tandem Readalong for the sequel, starting after release day. I’m glad I did read it sooner. Sometimes do you ever feel like you just need a good cry, but not for any reason in particular? Maybe your just overtired. Overworked. Okay that was me, and this book released my pent up ness through the tears I shed. Perfect book, perfect timing. This was a really hard read, but an impressive one. There were a lot of incredible quotes and life lessons that could be taken from this. I please urge anyone who hasn’t read this to check the content warnings carefully, because it can be an extremely uncomfortable read at times. The character development was spot on. I love Ryle (to start with), I loved Atlas, I loved Lily and I loved Allysa. None of the characters could have been better built. You’ve got the attractive but troubled neurosurgeon, the once troubled “ex”, an MC who is repeating her mothers experience and a best friend who is perfect in every way! Go and buy the book. I think that’s all I can say.

Great book. Better than the movie. Finished the book in 5days.

I put off reading this book for ages, it was in my house on the TBR pile but we all know that the TBR pile is like a big black hole!!! As soon as It Starts With Us was announced though, I preordered that and decided to wait and read them together. I am so happy with that decision and I can tell you that I devoured this in a day and was so happy that I could immediately start on It Starts With Us. This story actually touched so close to home, I grew up in an abusive home and all I can say is that it wasn’t pretty, unlike this story though, my monster was my mother, the one person that should be protecting us. (Absolutely not looking for sympathy I’m just sharing that I can understand the fear that this book portrayed) With that said though, I absolutely loved this book, there were so many moments that just broke my heart while I read it, but equally there were so many moments that filled me with so much love, joy and hope. This following quote sent chills through my body. My mother went through it, I went through it I’ll be damned if I let my daughter go through it. I kiss her on the forehead and make her a promise. It stops here, with me and you, It ends with us!!! I have been there and had to make that same choice for the exact same reason, someone needs to break the cycle of abuse. Atlas and Lily both live a life of abuse, both different kinds of abuse, but abuse nonetheless. As teenagers this pair were each other’s hope, each other’s rock and each other’s home, sadly of course things never turn out how we think it will and they are definitely in for a time of disappointment. I think this storyline was told so well and after reading the authors notes at the end I can understand why. Obviously the book wasn’t all about Lily and Atlas, we got to meet Alyssa and Marshall who were the sweetest couple ever. Of course we then meet Ryle, Alyssa’s brother, there is a lot more to this guy than meets the eye, which is all I can say without spoiling too much. Absolutely brilliant read that I wholeheartedly recommend.

So good!

"All humans make mistakes. What determines a person’s character aren’t the mistakes we make. It’s how we take those mistakes and turn them into lessons rather than excuses." Wow. Just wow. This was such a powerful and emotional book for me! When I first heard about this one, it was through Goodreads and all of the hype it was getting. For the first few months, all I saw for this one was 5 star reviews. Everywhere I looked on this one there was a five star review and enthusiastic reviews. I think by this point I had read Never, Never and I was just kind of like well there's a lot of hype/5 star reviews and I liked her other books so why not? I think I tried reading it soon after I bought it and after I got to 8%, I just couldn't go on so I put it down. 3 months later I finally decided I would try this on again and hopefully it would get me out of my slump. The first few days were a struggle for me. Like I usually do in slumps, I spent them rereading unnecessary passages many times and getting distracted. But after those first few days, I was still using my finger to keep track of where I was but I slowly went out of doing that and back to regular reading. Unfortunately, through reviews on GR I got spoilers as to the overall book and I immediately hated the character involved in it and screamed for the MC to not get into a relationship with him. The beginning was a little rough to me because I felt that while I liked the content of them and Atlas, it was harder for me to switch between the letters to Lily's POV but I think I ended up getting over this and really liking them because I loved Atlas as a character. Because of the spoilers, I think I was kind of biased towards Atlas but I really loved how sweet he was and their relationship (except for the scene on the couch!). After I got through the rough patch and my slump, I really started to enjoy this book and start to fly through it. I even stayed up until 2 A.M. to finish this one and read over 40% in the same day! Besides the sexy scenes, this one was an amazing ride. I found it really easy to get invested in Lily's story. The story begins on a rooftop with Ryle and Lily's first meeting. Then, about a year later, they meet again when his sister Alyssa comes into Lily's shop asking for a job. Side note: I love Alyssa as a character. She was such a good friend and I'm so glad she and her husband moved past their struggle! They then begin to see each other more often and Ryle even comes to her shop and apartment begging her because he can't get her out of his mind. They eventually begin a relationship (SPOILERS AHEAD! BEWARE!!!) that is great for a while, until Ryle's dark side shows up. I was kind of mad at Lily because she chose to stay with him even after seeing the signs but towards the end of this one, Lily speaks about this and the way Hoover writes really makes you feel for those in abusive relationships and the struggles (both internally and externally) that they have to deal with. Ryle keeps trying to win her back but Lily finally says she isn't gonna stand for it anymore. Just when she says this and stays with Atlas, she finds out she is pregnant with (her husband) Ryle's baby. Ryle again keeps trying to win her back but Lily refuses to stand for it and handles the situation really well. She asks Ryle for a divorce but allows him to be in his child's life and even help build the nursery. Although Lily can never be at the same spot in their relationship that they were in before, she chooses to rise above and make a new kind of relationship. The story ends with Lily having had her baby and walking to take her to give to Ryle for the day. On her way there she sees Atlas but doesn't talk long. In the end, she runs back to him to tell him her little girl's middle name (which is Dory, BTW. I'm not a huge fan of it but whatever.). And Hoover seems to leave it off with an open end about their relationship, to which I was screaming, "JUST GET TOGETHER!!!" {END SPOILERS!} This one was a really emotional ride for me and such a profound and compelling novel. I really felt for the characters and got so involved in the novel. I was gonna knock off a star for the sexy scenes but the end made me push it back to 5. There really is no other way to rate this one for me.

!!! Spoi Olabilir!!! Yazar 2.kitabi çıkaracağını duyurduğu ve amazonda İngilizce versiyonu çok uygun bir fiyatta olduğu için hemen aldım. Türkçe basımını daha önce okumuştum. Ama kapak tasarımı ve kitabın adı açısından beni üzdü. (çünkü 2.kitabin adını da ilk kitapta kullandılar)