Reviews tagging 'Death of parent'

It Starts with Us by Colleen Hoover

13 reviews

ink_and_wings's review against another edition

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

3.75


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eliya's review against another edition

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hopeful relaxing medium-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? Plot
  • Strong character development? No
  • Loveable characters? It's complicated
  • Diverse cast of characters? No
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? No

2.0

just as quick a read as the first one, which i do love about colleen hoover books. she attempted to do the same fake-aware bs that she did in the first one but she wasn’t as bad in this one. 

i’m happy i read this book, it took me about 8 hours in-app (im a slow reader). 

i’m really happy we got to see atlas and lily have their happy ending. really nice to see best-case scenarios work out

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mrs_gale's review against another edition

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emotional hopeful reflective sad medium-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? Plot
  • Strong character development? Yes
  • Loveable characters? Yes
  • Diverse cast of characters? No
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? No

4.5

Loved it. A wonderful read. Wish the ending was longer, it would have been great to find out more about the other characters at the end but I'm just so happy this book exists. 

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issyd23's review against another edition

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challenging emotional hopeful inspiring reflective sad tense slow-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? Character
  • Strong character development? Yes
  • Loveable characters? It's complicated
  • Diverse cast of characters? No
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

3.0

Surprisingly enjoyable after detesting the first book 3🌸 

NB I picked up this book expecting to hate & make fun of it, but ended up liking the story. I found it really satisfying & empowering to see Lily call out Ryle’s abusive behaviour & get a second chance of love with Atlas. There are still Ellen DeGeneres diaries but thankfully not as much as book 1 + the inclusion of Atlas’ perspective was a good addition. 

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valeria_balzan's review against another edition

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

4.0

Colleen Hoover, you will see my hands for this one. How dare you make me feel this way?

I feel like we been knew that I looooove the friends to lovers, and it was one of the reasons why I read it ends with us. When she announced this book I was ready to eat it up. So I did.
Girl, don't ask me for a single plot point of this because I have none, I just like the fluffy nice rosy coloured feelings I get from this. 
They're so cheesy and cute together.
Ugh. It hurts.

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irisvdn's review against another edition

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

3.0

This book was really easy to read and very hard to put away. But it also had a lot of cringeworthy content, so just 3 stars.
I liked Atlas's story waaaay more than Lily's, it could've (and should've) been it's own book

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_rae6021's review

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emotional funny hopeful inspiring lighthearted sad tense medium-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? Character
  • Strong character development? It's complicated
  • Loveable characters? Yes
  • Diverse cast of characters? Yes
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

3.5

Overall alright read, not as good as the first one. Was quite long winded and seemed at a loss for storyline at times it seemed like they were just tryna keep the book going when it didn’t need to.

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lovelymisanthrope's review against another edition

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dark emotional hopeful lighthearted sad tense fast-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? Character
  • Strong character development? It's complicated
  • Loveable characters? Yes
  • Diverse cast of characters? No
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.0

I read "It Ends with Us" earlier this year and was blown away by how much I enjoyed the story. I knew I wanted more, especially from Atlas, so I quickly added "It Starts with Us" to my TBR.
"It Starts with Us" picks up almost immediately following the end of "It Ends with Us". Lily and her ex-husband Ryle have been separated for a while, but they have come together to create a great coparenting system for their daughter. Although there is no chance of reconciliation, they are living in relatively good harmony. Lily is happy and ready to move on with her life when she bumps into Atlas on the street, and she enthusiastically agrees to go on a date with him. The timing seems perfect, and everything seems to FINALLY be falling into place for Lily and Atlas. The only thing that could come between them now is Ryle.
This story alternates between Lily's and Atlas's perspectives, which was a great treat for those who adored Atlas in "It Ends with Us". Atlas is such a good guy, and after such a difficult life, it was really nice to see him have some wins and finally get a real shot with Lily. I do think he suffers from being too perfect, but in the most ideal world, it was fun to see "the perfect man".
In "It Ends with Us", Lily becomes best friends with Ryle's sister, and I was curious to see how their friendship was affected when it came out that Ryle is abusive. I was pleased to see that the two girls remained friends and Ryle's sister stood by Ryle and Lily's sides. She acknowledged her brother was wrong and out of line in his treatment towards Lily, but she supported him getting better and getting to spend time with his daughter. She also supported Lily and was nothing short of a best friend for her.
I do not think you have to read "It Ends with Us" before you pick this up, but you will definitely have a better appreciation for the characters if you do. The only thing that would have made this better for me is if the book was solely Atlas's perspective. I appreciated seeing Lily's character grow and stand up for herself, but I wanted this book to finally see Atlas's side of the story. I think we still could have gotten an update about Lily through Atlas's point of view.

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literallysam's review against another edition

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emotional funny hopeful inspiring lighthearted sad medium-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? Character
  • Strong character development? No
  • Loveable characters? Yes
  • Diverse cast of characters? Yes
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? No

3.75

I'm not going to compare it with IEWU because this book is written as a gift for the fans of IEWU, like a 'thanku', and was never really meant to be anything more than that.

I liked how we get to know about Atlas's past. I absolutely adored the new characters, they were a really nice addition to the story. I mean this book has my one of the most favourite sub-characters, you'll see when you read!
Also I loved the jokes in the book, they had me rolling. So overall, this book was definitely a source of peace and pleasure after the kind of devastation that IEWU caused. It's not much about the plot but the way it makes you feel.
Also, I absolutely loved the letters written by Atlas.

Apart from that nothing else was really new because we kind of picked up where IEWU left off and just ran with it. We already knew that the co-parenting wasn't going to be easy. What we actually needed was Ryle's character development but instead of that he is shown extremely ignorant even after we saw how he had changed in the ending of IEWU. I wanted to see Ryle getting better and moving on in his life.
This book was so anticipated that after reading it I just ended up wanting more & more and I think that there could've been some really good twist and turns.

I really appreciate Colleen for writing this and giving us a HEA to the story but personally I don't think that there was any need to write a sequel of the book and it wasn't really necessary, especially when the first book had done so well. But then I absolutely loved IEWU so I just had to read this one.

Nonetheless I really liked this book. The story is sweet, short, simple and intoxicating. And If you like reading HEAs than you should definitely go for it.

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bookswstella's review against another edition

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adventurous challenging dark emotional funny hopeful sad tense medium-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? A mix
  • Strong character development? It's complicated
  • Loveable characters? It's complicated
  • Diverse cast of characters? Yes
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.0

Omg😭😭
It was so good!! I didn’t want it to end💔

I’m so so happy that Atlas and Lily got their happy ending!! They are perfect together! 
If I wasn’t in love with Atlas Corrigan after reading It ends with us, I definitely am now!! How he treats Lily is so so heartwarming and I can’t get enough of him together with Emerson🥹🥹 

My favorite character is Theo for sure! He’s so funny with his little comments and I love when he’s mocking Atlas because of his cheesy words to Lily! I love the relationship he and Atlas has! And I love Josh too!!  

I don’t know if I like this one or IEWU more, probably this one because it’s not as sad and hurtful but at the same time sad and hurtful books is good in their own way. And I’m also not sure of my rating, it’s definitely a four but I need to process it to be able to give it my final rating🫶🫶 



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