A review by humanhazel
It Ends with Us by Colleen Hoover

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

4.0

Picked up a CoHo book for the first time again in over seven years (after a looong hiatus of reading 
and guess what? 

She’s still built different. 

 
There’s a lot to unpack here.. 
 
And by "unpack," I mean I felt as though heaps of heavy emotional weight had just been unloaded from me, left me mentally depleted and reeling in from the effects of emotional turmoil that I’ve just experienced 
 
Granted, the experience of reading this book was not a pleasant one for me but maybe that’s the whole point of it. It’s supposed to make you feel a myriad of extreme emotions and lets you experience deep trauma and pain through the MC’s point of view 
 
I’m pretty sure majority of you felt at least: 
 
  • stressed out 
  • angry 
  • disturbed 
  • anxious 
  • sad 
  • frustrated 
  • conflicted 
  • exhausted 
  • broken 

and that's fine because it’s meant to be messy and unenjoyable and uncomfortable


One thing about Colleen is that she’s always capable of doing soul shattering earth quake level of damage to her readers. The kind that rips you apart from the inside-out, breaks you then puts you back together as an entirely different person. Not sure how she does it but this author understands the assignment each time and that to me, takes a very special level of talent + skill 
 
Fun fact: Slammed was actually one of the 1st indie books I read shortly after joining the online book community. And it was sublime. It changed my thoughts about what NA genre could be. Colleen gets better with each new body of work and in my opinion, this is her most BRUTAL yet. Granted it was polarizing, controversial and even far from perfect- definitely not a book for everyone but still a well-crafted work of art in my eyes. I did not expect this from Colleen at all but I appreciate that she went against the grain with this one to make a statement. We all know it’s not the usual type of stuff and content she writes and I love that she decided to be “brave and bold”. As she should. Tho I honestly found myself questioning quite a few times whether it was really Coho I’m reading and not Tarryn Fisher. Lol I guess being besties with the villain herself will eventually rub off at some point :D 
 
All things considered, any material that can manage to elicit or trigger these emotional layers from me deserves my utter admiration and respect. Having said that the only reason I knocked 1 star off is because there are some aspects that took me out of the experience as a whole. Objectively speaking I really don't like how the final chapters felt jammed in as I def feel like more things could’ve been elaborated on. I also felt the dialogues could’ve been much more razor sharp to dial up the shock value parts (but that’s just me being an avid dark romance reader hehe) 
 
I don’t really want to say much about the story seeing as abusive toxic relationship is a major plot point. Subject matter is something very personal to the author esp to the victims of
Domestic Abuse
so obviously there’s some heavy things covered here and it’s not really my place to comment about it but instead I'll just let the whole journey wash over me and haunt me. Everyone has a different outlook reading this book and everyone is entitled to form their own perspective so it's better to just let you guys make your judgement. Same goes with the characters she created even though it's fiction they also parallel real life scenarios/people however I feel like doing an analysis of each person would only propel me to overthink again and go as far as to humanise their actions (ugh the life of an empath is rough I tell ya)  
 
But to top all of what I want to say in general, It Ends With Us had become a massive sensation and I would say - “rightfully so”. As someone who’s into women empowerment myself this deserves to be recognized. It’s an impactful and vital read that will stay with you and will wreck you beyond words.  All in all this book has flaws but an eye-opener to say the least 
 

4—Ms—Hoover—has—done—it—again—stars!!! (less)

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