Romance was always one of my favorite genres to read. In fact, I wouldn’t correct you if you said it is the only genre I ever read. This also means that I have spent many nights immersed in many different romance novels — at least the ones that are all over BookTok (Yes, I scroll through BookTok everyday), and I have loved every one of them in their own ways. However, when I first read It Ends with Us, I knew this book would take up a special place in my heart for a long time.
It Ends with Us by Colleen Hoover is mainly about Lily Bloom and Ryle Kincaid, who fall deeply in love with each other, but gradually find themselves entering an abusive relationship. I strongly recommend you go through the trigger warnings beforehand, because there are many scenes that may be disturbing and triggering. Even if you are ready, just know that you are in for a bumpy ride, because it was no joke when the reviews said they sobbed their way tothe finishing line.
Lily grew up in an abusive household and never really understood why her mother never left her father, despite the evident abuse she was suffering from. I think this is a very important point to discuss, because as Lily also questions towards the end “People spend so much time wondering why the women don’t leave. Where are all the people who wonder why the men are even abusive? Isn’t that where the only blame should be placed?” many people fail to realize that the victim is not the one to blame.
To speak the naked truth, I was one of those people too before encountering this novel. However, diving in and turning one page after another, I’ve come to understand how one enters an abusive relationship, tries to escape, fails to, and gets trapped in a vicious cycle until they eventually get used to mistreatment. The start is no different from other loving relationships, both love each other no less than any other lovers would, and that is the veryreason why it was so difficult for Lily to cut ties with Ryle the second he made a mistake. “Just because someone hurts you doesn’t mean you can simply stop loving them. It’s not the person’s actions that hurt the most. It’s the love. If there was no love attached to the action, the pain would be a little easier to bear.”
Furthermore, Lily’s mother’s words gave me a further understanding of what goes inside one’s mind when being mistreated. “We all have a limit. What we’re willing to put up with before we break. The first time your father hit me, he was immediately sorry. He swore it would never happen again. The second time he hit me, he was even more sorry. The third time it happened, it was more than a hit. It was a beating. And every single time, I took him back. But the fourth time, it was only a slap. And when that happened, I felt relieved. I remember thinking, ‘At least he didn’t beat me this time. This wasn’t so bad.’”
I am not in any way condoning abusive behavior. I just hope people understand that it isn’t so easy to escape such a scene when that person was and is a big part of your life, and that it should not be the victim who should be condemned for not choosing or “not trying hard enough” to leave, but the one perpetuating violence.
The true romance in this novel is not the love between Lily and Ryle, but between Lily and her baby child, because she was the ultimate reason that motivated Lily to eventually make the difficult decision of leaving Ryle. As the title of the novel literally states, “It Ends with Us,” Lily wanted to break the vicious cycle she and her mother had been trapped in for her newborn child. “As hard as this choice is, we break the pattern before the pattern breaks us.” Even though I knew it was the right thing to be done, I have become so attached to Ryle and Lily that it physically hurt me to read the ending. I recommend this book to those who have never understood the dynamics of an abusive relationship, or those who are looking for an emotional read. It won’t let you down.