Fiction Fantastic

The only reason I read this book was because I am participating in a challenge to read Goodreads Choice Award winners. I decided to read the Romance category winner in February in honor of Valentines day, but I was dreading actually reading it. See, this is the second book by Colleen Hoover that I'm reading. The first one was Confess, and I really, REALLY, disliked it. See my review here for reference.

I really should know better than to form prejudices based on only one interaction.

I went into this book blind, not even bothering to read the description, already sure that whatever it was about, I was sure to dislike it anyway. Promising myself that I could abandon it if it was too bad. I read the first 10% the first sitting, and was surprised. Cautiously optimistic, were the words I used. By the time I was 20% through, I knew I would finish the book, although I didn't want to get too optimistic and say that I would actually love it, even though it had been a while since a book had made me giddy!

At this point I still hadn't read the description, and didn't know what the tone of the book would be. I assumed it would be a love-triangle, and although most people don't like love-triangles, I'm a sucker for a good one. Turns out, it wasn't quite about a love-triangle. It was about something way more substantial.

I really liked the characters in It Ends With Us. They felt like real people. They talked and acted like real people would. Lily was a very likable and relatable MC, and Ryle was dreamy, but not in an "OMG get over it" kind of way. Their interactions were fun to read and like I said, it's been a long time since reading a romance has made me giddy. I just really loved their relationship.

I've had all the same thoughts about abusive households as anyone else... the same disdain. Why don't these woman (and men, in some cases) leave? Turns out, it's not always that black and white.

When everything started happening, I reasoned along with Lily. Made excuses, because no, life isn't always cut and dried, black and white. Life is actually more of a big gray space. Just because two people might do the same thing, in the exact same way, doesn't necessarily mean it's the same thing.

I'm glad that Lily made the decisions she did, and although I felt that the epilogue was rushed and maybe a bit clumsy, it wasn't about that. Everything was about the choice that Lily made, and maybe, hopefully, her story will help some other hopeless, helpless woman who might be in the same boat. And hopefully it'll teach the rest of us not to judge.

Lily's story, and in a way Colleen's, sucked me in and held me a prisoner, a willing victim with a heavy dose of Stocholm Syndrome. I laughed, I cried, and I loved it.