Reviews with content warning for Adult/minor relationship - It Ends with Us

Lily is a young woman who has grown up in an abusive household where her father regularly would beat her mother and the book starts with the death of her father, for which Lily feels no grief. After the funeral, she meets Ryle who is a charismatic neurosurgeon and they have an instant attraction but he is opposed to commitment and therefore the relationship does not progress.

Later, Lily achieves her dream of setting up her own floristry business and becomes friends with a rich friend Alyssa, who she later discovers is Ryle's sister, thus her relationship with his restarts. This progresses to a serious relationship, resulting in the couple moving in together and later getting married. However, during this time there are frequent episodes of Ryle getting angry and assaulting Lily, echoing the behavior of her father during her childhood. Whilst the relationship is blossoming, Lily recalls her first true love who was a boy named Atlas, who she met when he was homeless and living in an abandoned house next to her when she was 15. The flashbacks feature how the support she provided to his of food, clothing and eventually a warm place to sleep developed romantically, but was cut short when Atlas had to move in with his Uncle in a different state. Atlas was also the only person who knew of the abuse Lily's father inflicted and was even the recipient of the abuse when he was attacked by

Atlas reappears in Lily's life as a restaurant owner and he instant she is living with and urges Lily to leave her husband, which she eventually does but when she finally leaves, she discovers she is pregnant. Atlas initially provides a safe lace for Lily to live, however she eventually returns to the house she lived in with Ryle and the relationship restarts.

When the baby Emma is born, Lily finally sees that she needs to break the cycle of abuse of the women in the family as 'It ends with us' , so leaves Ryle for good. In the epilogue Lily has the baby and is separated from Ryle. She again bumps into Atlas and can see that finally they can be together.

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brzezinski's review

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challenging emotional reflective sad medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? It's complicated
Diverse cast of characters? No
Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

5.0

A very insightful perspective on learned helplessness and domestic violence victimization. Does not romanticize violence.

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citrus04's review

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sucked ass and butt

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e_milyking's review

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challenging emotional medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Character
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? No
Diverse cast of characters? No
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

2.0

I personally didn’t enjoy this book, I think it’s important to touch on themes of domestic violence carefully and this didn’t feel like a careful book. I thought that some of the plot and internal dialogue painted a good picture of the realities of domestic violence, and some provided excuses for the perpetrator. I appreciated that it came from a lived experience perspective, but I think it’s potentially damaging to market this book as a ‘romantic triangle’ to young audiences and have the ending not provide any sense of actual justice. The writing was good and easy to read, but the character development was a bit undercooked and the concepts felt half-baked. Also why was a minor-adult relationship in there???? And he was meant to be the good guy???? I don’t like what messages it portrayed at times, overall the thread of ending the cycle of violence is great but it could’ve been done a LOT better. Could rant about this book at length clearly

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nixicat1's review against another edition

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challenging medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Plot
Strong character development? No
Loveable characters? No
Diverse cast of characters? No
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

1.0

I understand why this book is so polarising and why some people connect with it. Although I agree with the intention to provide more lived experience of domestic and intimate partner violence, the failure of execution was too hard to overcome for me. The writing and characterisations are cliche and simplistic. There is a stunning lack of research or logical reasoning applied to the world building or plot progression. Although a bit of creative license is necessary to any fiction, I found it impossible to believe in these characters or the world they inhabit.

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lyssie03's review against another edition

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challenging medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Character
Strong character development? It's complicated
Loveable characters? No
Diverse cast of characters? No
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

0.5

well. this was a ride. oscillating (still) between 1 and 2 stars. need to figure out a personal rating system. i think 1 means i absolutely abhorred everything about it. this book had some moments where i didn’t hate it or didn’t cringe; and i understand the message and i think, honestly, when i had gotten to the end, the 2 star i was contemplating was due to the message, but i don’t believe coho handled the topic as well as she should have. while i appreciate that this is personal to the author, this is a dangerous narrative to push to impressionable young readers while glorifying and romanticising aspects of it. while atlas was also one of the ‘better’ (tbh, everyone in this story pissed me off at least once; marshall’s might have been the least offensive but i am still undecided) character, he is still not the perfect man and while i’m glad he was there to help that night, it would have been more powerful if someone else could have been the person for lily to lean on—e.g., allysa or her mother.

the attempted rape, graphic sexual assault and humiliation of lily that night should have resulted in ryle never spending unsupervised time with his child, or any children. like i need him locked up. and i wish it was stressed by others in the book at how terrifying this was. allysa, as his sister, would’ve loved for lily to give him a second chance? what the fuck? whether speaking as his sister or her best friend, you should STILL want her to have nothing to do with that man ever again? in fact, you shouldn’t even want anything to ever do with that man. [also pissed me off when she made him tell lily about their brother as if that had anything to do with anything. whole time i was sat there like... is this supposed to make up for you shoving her down the stairs and then GASLIGHTING her about it? talmbout “you fell”??] the fact that it was so different from the first two “incidents” in the fact that it was calculated should have sounded warning bells that this is not just a “damaged” man who is dealing with inner demons. he planned to humiliate and harm her that night. he does not need to be redeemed or coddled or talked down to in order to understand why lily cannot stay in their marriage (“what would you say if it was your daughter?” good god. he is not a child.)

also. regarding atlas, depending on the situation, i tend to have few problems with 16–18 relationships [dependent on the fact that there are no power imbalances, grooming, and that no one is being harmed, etc]; e.g., if the older person had just turned 18/the younger person’s 17th is soon/they had been together prior to one partner turning 18. however, there was genuinely no need for them to have sex. their relationship, to serve as the comparison to ryle and lily’s, worked well enough before the scene and it would have had the same impact had she left that scene out as it had already been established how much they meant to each other and how crucial he was as a fellow child of an abusive home.

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