Review: It Ends With Us by Colleen Hoover

There is no denying that Colleen Hoover is one of the famous authors of her genre. Her novels have been loved by readers (and this blog,) for their young, working class characters, who triumph against against the odds. There is always a whole lot of heart, and sometimes the hero and heroine bond in an intentionally comical way, one that is pleasing to read. (Very few authors can pull of a line of dialogue such as, "I like you, you stupid fuck-face," the way Hoover can. It's trashy, it's hilarious and it fits in with the characters and their situations perfectly.) There is something human and vulnerable about her characters, who often experience the kind of romances that we all secretly wish we could have against a dramatic backdrop. It Ends With Us remains true to form while, paradoxically, taking a new and darker turn. 

Told entirely from the perspective of Lily, it tells the story of a university graduate who has recently moved to Boston. Lily's life has not been an easy one. She grew up with a father who was as important and respected in his community as he was a violent bully behind closed doors. Lily was a sensitive kid with a big heart--she helped out a homeless boy from her school, and kept a 'journal' in which she wrote letters to a popular talk show host, describing her life, and how she eventually falls in love with the homeless Atlas--a love that is ultimately doomed.

The adult Lily is in disgrace after ruining her father's funeral with a cold hard dose of truth, and finds herself bonding with an attractive doctor that she meets by chance on an apartment rooftop. Chance and circumstance (including a missed chance with Atlas who is now running a successful restaurant in Boston,) led to a relationship between Lily and Ryle, but it soon becomes obvious that all is not as it seems, and that Ryle and Lily's father may have something in common. 

I found this one dark, truthful and occasionally difficult to read. The author gets to the heart of the complexities of violent relationships--and the reason why a woman doesn't just leave him. Through the character of Atlas, the author also shows just how someone can support a woman who is going through the same thing as Lily, with patience and without judgement. Ryle himself is shown as a complex character, who regrets his actions, yet remains unable to control them. 

Highly recommended.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Peppermint Patty: I Cried and Cried and Cried

Image
Unrequited love is a common theme in the Peanuts Comics and is one that I have previously explored on this blog. We know that Lucy loves Schroeder, Sally loves Linus and Charlie Brown has a crush on the unseen, unnamed and utterly unattainable Little Redhaired Girl. But perhaps the saddest unrequited love stories from the comic is that which ran in late June 1972. It was the series of strips where the usually self-confident Peppermint Patty came face-to-face with the Little Redhaired Girl with the intention of thumping her and then something surprising happened: Here we have a usually self-confident girl, who is funny, unashamedly herself and talented at sports reduced to tears by the realisation of who she is not and never can be. I really feel for her in this series of comic strips. She knows that Charlie Brown can never love her, when he is so hung up over a girl who represents a supposedly ideal feminine beauty. Fortunately Linus, the most spiritual member of the Pean...
Read more

Charlie Brown, Lucy Van Pelt and the Football

Image
One of the longest, and arguably, most infuriating, running gags in Charles Schulz's otherwise brilliant Peanuts comic strip, is where Lucy promises to hold a football for Charlie Brown and then pulls it away at the last minute, causing Charlie Brown to fall flat on his back. A typical strip looks like this: Source: Go Comics The gag is one of the darker themes in the strip. It works on the concept that every year, Lucy promises to hold a football for Charlie Brown. Every year, Charlie Brown is initially filled with doubt but is eventually pushed on by a kind of optimism that perhaps, this time, Lucy might just let him kick it after all. As a metaphor for life, it is pretty simple. It talks of the moments when we choose to put our trust in people who have let us down only to be taken by surprise when they let us down, again. Lucy is, arguably, one of the crueller characters in the comic. Described as crabby by the other characters, she is often selfish, takes delight in wilfully hu...
Read more

Phrases and Idioms: Tickets on Himself

To have tickets on himself: (Australian slang.) To be conceited or vain. To have an overinflated opinion of oneself.  He's got tickets on himself if he thinks that any woman would fall for that. I was thinking about this particular bit of Australian slang the other day, after my boss said, "He's got tickets on himself," to describe the actions of a particular individual. At the time, I smiled, knowing exactly what the boss meant. Later on, I started to ponder on this unusual phrase and wondered where it might have come from. A search on google helped me find the definition, but that was about all. There are no references to it being used in pop culture or literature (if you find one, let me know,) and at the time of writing this post, Tickets on Himself was not listed on Urban Dictionary. (I tried to add it, but the fuckers rejected my definition. They probably think I have tickets on myself or something for trying to add a relatively common piece of A...
Read more