A review by elenafrancesca
It Ends with Us by Colleen Hoover

1.5

I had to sit on this one before writing my review, and I think I am finally ready to say my piece. This book is not poorly written (although it's not extraordinary by any means). This book I think could have been a great deconstruction of how we fall into toxic relationships as well as the cycle of abuse. However, this book was marketed and labeled as a romance. I had no idea that there was any discussion of abuse let alone the explicit scenes of abuse and they come out of nowhere. If this was properly labeled or even marketed as literary fiction instead of romance then I would have fewer problems. One of the reasons we have trigger warnings is to give people the option to not pick up a book. Another reason is to let people be prepared to experience scenes that they may not be able to handle when surprised with. On a subjective level this was not the most disturbing book I read in 2023 content wise. However, because I was so blindsided and misinformed on the type of book that this was (again, I found it under romance) that I had a more visceral and harmful experience reading this than any horror  novel I read last year. 

My main gripe, which I think is a pretty significant one, is this book was irresponsibly marketed and the publisher and the author should understand that being this negligent causes real harm. 
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