It Ends with Us Summary and Review

85 percent of women return to abusive situations. This book is important for everyone to read so that if they ever find themselves in an abusive relationship, they know that “they deserve to be loved the right way”(249), and so that they if they know a victim of domestic violence they have more distaste in their mouths for the abusers than for those who continue to love the abusers (211). People need to know that when you experience it firsthand, it isn’t so easy to hate the person who mistreats you, as we think it is as outsiders (254). We believe that we would walk away without a second thought if a person mistreated us, but that just isn’t the case. There is no way a summary of “It Ends With Us” can do justice to the way Colleen Hoover conveys Lily Bloom's emotional turmoil, and the complexity of her love interest. This summary can’t explain how much pain and uncertainty Lily Bloom faces in the book, but in the interest of making a book blog, here it is:

When Lily Bloom and Ryle Sinclair start dating, he love bombs her. Their relationship develops at Mach speed. When she laughs at him for forgetting to put on oven mitts to take out their casserole, Ryle’s arm comes out of nowhere and slams against her. She stumbles into a cabinet but he pleads that he never meant to cause her any pain and spends the whole week making it up to her. She questions everything she ever knew about him, and promises that the next time something like that happens it’s over. 

 One night they go out to eat and in a crazy coincidence, Lily’s highschool boyfriend, Atlas, is their waiter. Due to his past experience with the abuse in Lily’s household, her bruised eye and his busted hand make it instantly clear to him what happened. In a frenzy, he attacks Ryle, and accidentally puts Lily in an even worse position. Later, Atlas visits Lily and slips his number under her phone case.

 Soon after that incident was forgiven, Ryle and Lily get married in Vegas because they can’t wait any longer. 6 weeks into their marriage and Ryle becomes a monster again. While Lily’s showering, Ryle finds the post-it note with Atlas’ number. He chucks Lily, and her phone (not in that order) down the stairs. It destroys him to see her in pain, but he has no excuse. She vehemently kicks him out of their apartment but she can’t bring herself to hate him, like “(She’s) supposed to”(181). She still “loves her husband and wants more than anything to be able to help him… (because) There is so much more good in him than bad.”(182). They patched things up for the 3rd time, before suddenly, Lily takes the worst attack yet when Ryle reads her teenage diaries. 

She stays with Atlas. The few days after that are the most alone she’s ever felt (211). She blames herself and feels lost (203). Some of the days she’s “so mad at him that the thought of ever forgiving him is ludicrous. But some days [she misses] him so much [she] can’t breathe”(246). She tries so hard not to forgive him and hates herself for wanting to (211). 

Eventually she builds up the courage to talk to her mom. Instead of having to defend herself to her mom like she expected, she “tell[s] her everything [she hadn’t] even been brave enough to fully admit to [her]self (248). Her mom warns her that, “Every time [she] chooses to stay, it makes the next time that much harder to leave. Eventually, [she’ll] lose sight of [her own] limit altogether…[and] if Ryle truly loves [her]… He would make the decision to leave [her] himself so that he knows for a fact he can never hurt [her] again. (249)

-Sophia Deltas