From the author: “It Ends with Us is the one book I have been adamant that I would never write a sequel for. I felt like it ended where it needed to end, and I didn’t want to put Lily through more stress.
But then #BookTok happened, and the online petition, and the messages and videos, and I realized most of you weren’t asking for me to put them through more pain.”

She gave the audience what they were asking for – a happy end. My issue is that I’ve never read “It ends with us” so I’ve never been acquainted with the characters or had any idea who they were. But man, I really learned to like Lily and the Adonis 😀

From what I’ve gathered from the book, our heroine, Lily, had a teen romance with a good guy from a bad background and her parents put an end to it with violence. The guy ended up joining the army and then retiring and opening a few restaurants which had moderate success.

I would say the story happens at least a decade later from the first book, when single mother Lily divorces her husband, Ryle, on grounds of domestic violence, and then slowly gets together with her first love, the man she could not forget.

Imagine all the people you meet in your life. There are so many. They come in like waves, trickling in and out with the tide. Some waves are much bigger and make more of an impact than others. Sometimes the waves bring with them things from deep in the bottom of the sea and they leave those things tossed onto the shore. Imprints against the grains of sand that prove the waves had once been there, long after the tide recedes.

The book navigates big emotions that someone must have gone through at least once in their life-times: a husband, once well loved, turned jealous ex. A blast from the past. A kiss not forgotten. Dating with a small child. Dealing with custody issues when one parent is not playing nice. And I kinda new Ryle was going to be an ass just from the name 🙂

It’s difficult because I still have to interact with Ryle. He still possesses all the good qualities I fell in love with, and now that I’m no longer in a relationship with him, it’s rare I see the negative side that ultimately ended our marriage. I think that has to do with the fact that he’s on his best behavior. He had to be agreeable and not put up too much of a fight because he knew I could have reported him for all the incidents of domestic violence I experienced at his hands. He could have lost a lot more than his wife, so when it came to the custody arrangement, things were more amiable than I expected them to be.

So here’s one for you ladies. Keep silent or drag your ex through mud during the divorce?

Lily kept silent in hopes of having a good co-parenting relationship and it seemed to work, as long as her ex was still able to come and go as he pleased in her life, letting himself into her apartment with the key she gave him for emergencies, or showing up for unplanned visits with a bottle of wine and an apology.

She had conflicting emotions – all because he was charming and they did have good times together, but Lily can fight it with a list she made with all the horrible things he did that lead to the divorce. She has some good friends including her former sister-in-law who is on her side.

When I think about Ryle hitting you… I get absurdly angry. Because I love him. I do. He’s been my best friend since we were kids. But I also hate him for not being better. Nothing you have done and nothing you could do would excuse any man’s hands on you out of anger. Remember that, Lily. You made the right choice by leaving that situation. You should never feel guilty for that. Pride is the only thing you should feel

Anyone who has ever left a manipulative, abusive spouse and somehow stayed that course deserves a medal. A statue. A freaking superhero movie.

On the other end of the story we have the sexy rags-to-riches story who is battling his own demons. Or more likely having to deal with his dead-beat-mother who comes out of the woodwork after years of no-contact to say he had a brother and he ran away.

Funny how love for a partner can make or break how some people treat their own children.

It’s sad to read about people putting their partners over their children, enabling abuse and neglect and then failing to admit any wrongdoing. The sexy dude (I’m going to call him Adonis even though his name is Atlas) as I think he got mislabelled a bit. Yeah, he carries a lot on his shoulders but he’s very handsome.

Him and Lily tentatively start dating again, at first in secret to see whether there’s still an attraction there or not, and then more openly – causing issues with the ex.

Lily. Life is a funny thing. We only get so many years to live it, so we have to do everything we can to make sure those years are as full as they can be. We shouldn’t waste time on things that might happen someday, or maybe even never.

I think one of the reasons I liked this book is because it felt like reading a slice of life, a reddit story on relationship_advice. Like “How should I tell my ex I found a new guy?” or “How soon can my new love and my daughter meet?” or “What’s the best way to keep my brother safe from my mother?” or “Emergency grant for custody”.

The book is filled with kind notes that Lily and Adonis send each other and it filled me with joy to see love notes in a book that could have been such a sad read.

Thank you for being the most comforting part of my life right now. Thank you for always being the beacon I need every time I feel lost. Whether you mean to shine on me or not. I am grateful for you. I’ve missed you. I absolutely should have kissed you.

It’s a love story 🙂 and yes, I caught myself smiling for no reason while reading it.

This is the only negative aspect to finally being with the person you’re meant to be with. You go years aching to be with them, and when they finally become a significant part of your life, it somehow hurts even more.

I realize in this moment that the hardest part about ending an abusive relationship is that you aren’t necessarily putting an end to the bad moments. The bad moments still rear their ugly heads every now and then. When you end an abusive relationship, it’s the good moments you put an end to.

If Lily had stayed with him, he would have spent the rest of their lives inventing issues in order to justify his excessive anger. Because I was never an issue in their marriage, and I never would have been.

I think I will read the first book as well. As even though there are hints of how the two of them would have been like as teenagers, they grew up into wonderful people. And there is a chance of starting over at any age in life. Even as a single mother.

My loyalty is to the people who bring positivity into my life. My loyalty is to the people who want to build me up and see me happy. Those are the people I’m going to make decisions about my life for.
I’m going to continue doing the best I can, and that’s all I can do. I may not have made all the right decisions in the right time frames, but the fact that I found the courage to make those decisions at all is what I’m going to keep focusing on.

As a kid, I had the highest hopes for family, too, but after years of being disappointed, I realized that just because you’re born into a group of people, that doesn’t make them your family.

So true, so true. There’s nothing better than breaking free of the past and becoming your own best self. You know what the biggest regrets of dying people were? Besides working too much there was – not being your true, authentic, self.

It’s good to be yourself and even better when you manage to find that special someone to be yourself with.

For the first time, I had felt a flicker of what I knew life could be. Before that moment, I never gave much thought to falling in love, or having a family someday, or even the idea of cultivating a successful career. Life to me had always felt like a burden I had to bear. Something heavy and murky that made waking up difficult and falling asleep a little bit scary. But that’s because I had gone eighteen years not knowing what it felt like to care about someone so much, you want them to be the first thing you see when you open your eyes. I even felt a desire to make something of myself because you were the first person I ever wanted to become something better for.

Ok, so the book is near perfect. Why did I take one star off?

It’ was the ending! The sappy, cheesy, mushy ending that I knew it was coming but omg it failed epically with the reading of the vows. I was throwing up in my mouth and laughing to my mate with the description of how statistically they might not last as a couple but hey, even if they do get divorced, which is a real possibility based on real data, it would have been worth it because it was her that he married. Duuuude. Go talk to some divorced men and see if they agree with the vows 😀

That realization led me down another path in my thought process while writing these vows. I began to wonder, if humans are so often disappointing and so rarely successful at love, what can we do to ensure ours is a love that will stand the test of time? If half of all marriages end in divorce, that would mean half of every set of vows ever made have ended up broken. How do we ensure we’re not one of the couples who becomes a statistic?
Unfortunately, Lily, we can’t. We can only hope.

All things considered, the fact that I made it here, that we made it here, to our wedding day, is quite frankly more than I ever dreamed I would get out of life. One breath, one kiss, one day, one year, one lifetime. I’ll take whatever you’ll give me, and I vow that I will cherish every second I’m lucky enough to spend with you from this moment on, just as I’ve cherished every second I’ve ever spent with you before this moment.

But you once told me I was a realist, so I want to end my vows realistically. In my heart, I believe we’re going to leave here today and face a journey together that’s full of hills, valleys, peaks, and canyons. Sometimes you’re going to need me to hold your hand down the hills, and sometimes I’ll need you to lead me up the mountain, but everything, from this point forward, we’re going to face together. It’s you and me, Lily. In good times and bad, for richer or poorer, in sickness and in health, in the past and for forever, you are my favorite person. Always have been. Always will be. I love you. Everything that you are.

Other books by Colleen Hover: Verity by Coleen Hoover