olivia miss_ipkiss_reads's Reviews > It Ends with Us

I don’t believe in disliking things just because they are popular. I went into this with the intention of liking it, but ended up feeling uncomfortable by the tone of this book. Although I wholeheartedly respect the personal nature of this story, the author’s note does not exempt this work of fiction from criticism, especially when it comes to a topic as serious as domestic abuse.

I empathize with the main character Lily and I appreciate the effort that was made to highlight how trauma distorts and lingers, but I don’t believe this captured the severity or nuance that a topic this heavy deserves in fictionalized work. This book is marketed as romance, and the synopsis makes it seem like a lighthearted love triangle instead of a woman’s experience with spousal abuse. In comparison to Kate Elizabeth Russell’s harrowing depiction of abuse in My Dark Vanessa, the tone of It Ends With Us feels acutely inappropriate. It reduces domestic abuse to a lovers quarrel and presents a tactless caricature of the realities of abuse. I can acknowledge this may not have been the intention, but the elaboration in the authors note does not absolve this book of its reckless and irresponsible marketing.

It Ends With Us has the bones of a powerful story but reads like a low budget Hallmark movie pushed forward by ridiculous plot revelations. Hoover’s attempt to make Ryle into a three dimensional character completely flops. At first, I thought the accelerated relationship between Ryle and Lily was meant to emphasize how witnessing abuse in early age might make you less likely to spot red flags in others; however, it turns out Hoover was really trying to create a deep relationship between these two. Her use of “Naked Truth” to build their relationship was a lazy ploy to circumvent true development and simulated an unsatisfying and unearned intimacy. I also found the use of teenage diary entries in the form of letters to Ellen DeGeneres to have aged really badly, and comes off as a corny device to tell rather than show readers about Lily’s relationship with Atlas.

The single redeeming quality of this book is the empathy that Lily develops for her mother towards the end, but this moment, as well as the ending, lacks sufficient nuance. I wanted more discussion, I wanted more development, and I wanted less telling and more showing. Although the message that the cycle of abuse “ends with us” is personal for Hoover, I feel like this depiction is reductive and makes it seem like walking away is a choice all women have. Hoover maintains that this book was meant to show that domestic abuse isn’t black and white, but I don’t think it achieved that at all. She made the conscious decision to pit romance and abuse against each other, packaged it with a pink cover, a synopsis free of any mention of abuse, and marketed it to impressionable young adults. However well intentioned this cathartic passion project was, its reception as a work of fiction is devout of nuance, the white knight message of It Ends With Us completely undercut by its blatant romanticism of abuse.