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peachachu 's review for:
It Ends with Us
by Colleen Hoover
I cannot BELIEVE I actually read this flaming pile of dog crap!!! I will never trust a recommendation on BookTok ever again. Here is just a brief and incomplete list of the ways Colleen Hoover personally victimized me with this book:
1. Main character is a florist named "Lily Blossom Bloom." Bffr
2. Male love interests are named "Ryle" and "Atlas." Personally, I think naming your characters with edgy unconventional names like this is so cringe and should be illegal
3. The fact that she addresses her diary entries to ELLEN DEGENERES... screaming, crying, throwing up. Not to mention this aged like spoiled milk with all the recent accusations about Ellen being a piece of shit human being. There's a metaphor in here somewhere...
4. "Just keep swimming"
5a. The fact that Lily opened a business without even the SLIGHTEST business plan or even a theme in mind? And I'm supposed to believe she has a business degree??? Such lazy writing...
5b. The fact that the store theme she eventually settles on is literally just putting CHAINS AND STUDS on the flower arrangements—like some edgy BDSM extravaganza
6a. Ryle TRACKING DOWN HER ADDRESS and begging for sex on his hands and knees
6b. The fact that Lily finds this behavior sexy and not at all a red flag
7. Ryle taking a photo of Lily when they were essentially strangers and hanging it on his wall
8. Lily "saving" Atlas before he kills himself because he saw her "angelic presence" in the window across the street right before he does it—magically restoring his will to live
9. Atlas and Lily's romance when he is 18 and she is 15.... yikes
10. Ryle justifying his abusive behavior because he accidentally shot his brother as a child and has trauma... promptly breaking his back with that reach. But seriously... why was this dropped suddenly only to be never mentioned again??
11. Lily's pregnancy with literally zero discussion of termination—as if a young, ostensibly liberal woman wouldn't even consider this as an option. Completely avoiding this topic while trying to portray a "realistic" portrait of domestic violence strikes me as incredibly lazy and a weak attempt to avoid controversy.
12. Lily deciding to co-parent with Ryle because she just "knows" that while he would abuse her, he would "never" abuse their child. BITCH YOU DON'T KNOW THAT!!!!!! This might be my biggest beef with the book and practically had me screaming. Somehow, after all of this bullshit, Lily believes that her experience (her dad abusing her mother, but never hurting her) must be universal and apply to Ryle as well. It becomes her "duty" to divorce Ryle so that her daughter can grow up and have a relationship with him. All in all, I think this promotes a really gross narrative that abusive relationships are only worth leaving once kids are involved, and that it's the victim's responsibility to set the stage so the abuser can have a relationship with the kids. I'm sure that's not what Hoover intended (this book is largely based on her own parents' relationship where he dad abused her mother, but never his kids—allowing her to have a "good" relationship with her dad), but you can't deny there's some absolutely disgusting underlying subtext here. Relationships don't exist in a vacuum, and while I agree you shouldn't be dragging young children into your relationship dynamics, I absolutely hate that Ryle is basically given a "redemption arc" where he gets to be a better man and father. Some people don't deserve that
13. Lily names her daughter "Dory"... I can't
Anyways, these are my 13 reasons.
But seriously, this book is cringe at best and toxic and harmful at worst. While slightly eye-opening to the complex and contradictory emotions surrounding abusive relationships and their cyclical nature, it's not enough to offset how astoundingly bad the rest of it is. Worth a hate-read, but nothing more.
1. Main character is a florist named "Lily Blossom Bloom." Bffr
2. Male love interests are named "Ryle" and "Atlas." Personally, I think naming your characters with edgy unconventional names like this is so cringe and should be illegal
3. The fact that she addresses her diary entries to ELLEN DEGENERES... screaming, crying, throwing up. Not to mention this aged like spoiled milk with all the recent accusations about Ellen being a piece of shit human being. There's a metaphor in here somewhere...
4. "Just keep swimming"
5a. The fact that Lily opened a business without even the SLIGHTEST business plan or even a theme in mind? And I'm supposed to believe she has a business degree??? Such lazy writing...
5b. The fact that the store theme she eventually settles on is literally just putting CHAINS AND STUDS on the flower arrangements—like some edgy BDSM extravaganza
6a. Ryle TRACKING DOWN HER ADDRESS and begging for sex on his hands and knees
6b. The fact that Lily finds this behavior sexy and not at all a red flag
7. Ryle taking a photo of Lily when they were essentially strangers and hanging it on his wall
8. Lily "saving" Atlas before he kills himself because he saw her "angelic presence" in the window across the street right before he does it—magically restoring his will to live
9. Atlas and Lily's romance when he is 18 and she is 15.... yikes
10. Ryle justifying his abusive behavior because he accidentally shot his brother as a child and has trauma... promptly breaking his back with that reach. But seriously... why was this dropped suddenly only to be never mentioned again??
11. Lily's pregnancy with literally zero discussion of termination—as if a young, ostensibly liberal woman wouldn't even consider this as an option. Completely avoiding this topic while trying to portray a "realistic" portrait of domestic violence strikes me as incredibly lazy and a weak attempt to avoid controversy.
12. Lily deciding to co-parent with Ryle because she just "knows" that while he would abuse her, he would "never" abuse their child. BITCH YOU DON'T KNOW THAT!!!!!! This might be my biggest beef with the book and practically had me screaming. Somehow, after all of this bullshit, Lily believes that her experience (her dad abusing her mother, but never hurting her) must be universal and apply to Ryle as well. It becomes her "duty" to divorce Ryle so that her daughter can grow up and have a relationship with him. All in all, I think this promotes a really gross narrative that abusive relationships are only worth leaving once kids are involved, and that it's the victim's responsibility to set the stage so the abuser can have a relationship with the kids. I'm sure that's not what Hoover intended (this book is largely based on her own parents' relationship where he dad abused her mother, but never his kids—allowing her to have a "good" relationship with her dad), but you can't deny there's some absolutely disgusting underlying subtext here. Relationships don't exist in a vacuum, and while I agree you shouldn't be dragging young children into your relationship dynamics, I absolutely hate that Ryle is basically given a "redemption arc" where he gets to be a better man and father. Some people don't deserve that
13. Lily names her daughter "Dory"... I can't
Anyways, these are my 13 reasons.
But seriously, this book is cringe at best and toxic and harmful at worst. While slightly eye-opening to the complex and contradictory emotions surrounding abusive relationships and their cyclical nature, it's not enough to offset how astoundingly bad the rest of it is. Worth a hate-read, but nothing more.