TW: abuse in relationships and *warning: spoilers ahead*

Abusive relationships are something that no one would ever long of being in nor would ever believe they could possibly be in one. Many people even believe that if they were ever in one, they would immediately leave. This is what It Ends With Us accentuates, abuse. 

In It Ends With Us by Colleen Hoover Lily was the same way, she had always told herself she would never be in an abusive relationship and if she ever encountered one, she’d leave him extremely fast, she even stated she’d leave him right away. Throughout her youth, she watched her mom go through an abusive relationship and essentially hated her father throughout her life which resulted in her believing she would be strong enough to leave a man who physically hurt her. 

This was presumed to be true up until she met Ryle Kincaid, although he was an amazing boyfriend–at first–and their love story was epic, he became abusive and blamed it on his heart-aching past; he accidentally shot his brother while playing with a gun at the ripe age of 6. Ryle told Lily that he couldn’t control his anger and he blacks out, she used to think to herself, “I would leave him if he ever abused me”, up until she was in the exact same predicament and making excuses for Ryle as her mother did for her father. 

It Ends With Us really highlights the reality of abusive relationships and how hard it is to leave someone you love–even if they are abusive–, she then realizes that her mother was not a weak person and came to a conclusion that her mom genuinely just loved her father so much to the point that it was hard to leave him even at his absolute worse. This was Lily with Ryle for years, although he did not abuse her many times, he still did physically hurt her–if she stayed it would have gotten worse throughout their relationship. 

Lily came back to her first love–he never actually left her heart or her mind–and this was a big issue in Ryle and Lily’s relationship. Ryle was scared that Lily would leave him for Atlas–her first love. Atlas saw Lily’s abusive dad first hand and knows how bad he could get, so when Atlas saw Lily hurt at his own restaurant, he stood up for her. This genuinely demonstrates that there are people who notice the sign of abuse and help them.

Although Lily was in denial at first when Atlas attempted to help her, she knew deep down that Ryle was no longer good for her. It Ends With Us highlights the importance of self-love. Sometimes people love their significant other so much, it consumes them and therefore the person forgets how much they need to love themself. It Ends With Us also demonstrates that someone needs to come to a realization by themselves, no one can do it for them because nothing will actually go through their head. Atlas continuously told Lily that Ryle was not good for her, but she failed to listen to him; she had to realize it on her own and essentially leave him on her own.  She didn’t realize she needed to leave him until he attempted to rape her which led her to realize, “what if our daughter was in that position, what would Ryle do then?” That is where Colleen Hoover got the title from, it ends with her, it ends with her and her daughter.

It Ends With Us does an exceptional job of representing abusive relationships and why it genuinely is hard for abuse victims to leave their abusers. It has to do with love and denial; Colleen Hoover does an amazing job of highlighting it. She puts her readers in Lily’s point of view and her whole thought process while being in a relationship with Ryle; even though it was hard to leave Ryle, she did it because she knew how bad it would have gotten. Colleen Hoover shows her readers the reality of abusive relationships and how much strength and courage it would take to leave the abuser as well as the thought process behind the decision to forgive, forget, or leave.

You can get It Ends With Us on Amazon!