It Ends With Us

 

It Ends with Us by Colleen Hoover is a book about domestic abuse. In my opinion, the author’s writing style doesn’t meld well with the intensity of the dark subject matter.

For instance, throughout most of the book, I was put off by the cringe-y sex scenes and cotton-candy dialogue like, “You warned me. You said one time with you wouldn’t be enough. You said you were like a drug. But you failed to tell me you were the most addictive kind.” 🤮 How could that kind of cheesy writing coexist with such a weighty topic as domestic violence?

I was hoping for something a bit grittier than “…she graduated from college, moved to Boston, and started her own business. So when she feels a spark with a gorgeous neurosurgeon …everything in Lily’s life seems almost too good to be true.”

I’m always leery of anything “too good to be true” in literature because it doesn’t reflect reality. Also, I think it’s lazy for a writer to cop out on developing compelling characters. Why does Lily have to be perfect, sexy, beautiful, and a successful business woman who, naturally, meets a gorgeous neurosurgeon? Would her pain be any less profound if she was a slightly chubby office clerk just trying to get by who starts a relationship with an average-looking electrical engineer? 

Incredibly, another key character is a gourmet chef who owns his own prosperous restaurant. And then there’s the filthy rich couple with no jobs who live in a penthouse apartment suite in the city.

I prefer reading about REAL characters who are relatable and three-dimensional. That said, here are some quotes from the book that actually struck a chord with me:

“All humans make mistakes. What determines a person’s character aren’t the mistakes we make. It’s how we take those mistakes and turn them into lessons rather than excuses.”

“I wanted to be more prepared for this conversation because I absolutely hate confrontation.”

“Sometimes parents have to work through their differences and bring a level of maturity into a situation in order to do what’s best for their child.”

“There is no such thing as bad people. We’re all just people who sometimes do bad things.”

Regarding my critique of the author’s writing style, I was also distracted by her repetitive use of the same cliched descriptions. There must be another way to say that a character “blows out a quick breath” when preparing to speak or that he was comforting me by “brushing his thumb back and forth” on my stomach/arm/cheek. These phrases were used so often that I found myself sighing, ‘Not again with the quick breaths and brushing thumbs!?’ 

Luckily the insightful ending redeemed this book for me and bumped my rating from 3 to 4 stars. These are some of my take-aways from the last chapter that brought substance to the theme for me:

“And as hard as this choice is, we break the pattern before the pattern breaks us.”

“Cycles exist because they are excruciating to break. It takes an astronomical amount of pain and courage to disrupt a familiar pattern. Sometimes it seems easier to just keep running in the same familiar circles, rather than facing the fear of jumping and possibly not landing on your feet.”

Finally, the coup de grace, “It stops here. With me and you. It ends with us.”

God help me, I’m about to watch the movie on Prime and then read the next installment, It Starts With Us. (Thank you to my Mexican wedding party cohort for catching me up on the hype surrounding this author and to Kt for providing me with copies of the two books in this series.)

EDIT — And the results are in: It Ends With Us is so much better in film form. It rarely happens that I like the movie more than the book, but there you have it; just like The Help, I felt the film version elevated everything about the story to a deeper level, whereas the book seemed to downplay the significance of the topic and simplified the characters.

Excellent screenwriting turned banal writing on its head. Sparkly cinematography lit the setting on fire.  A provocative soundtrack of contemporary, independent music amplified the plot’s underlying tension. But most of all, the actors brought the tired characters to life. Blake Lively is so good, she turned an uninspiring main character into a tough and quirky but likeable heroine.

Here’s one example of the upgraded script. When Lily and Ryle first meet up on the roof, one of his shocking “naked truths” is I want to have sex with you. After assuring him she’s not that kind of girl, Lily ponders his next question. “Exactly how far would you go?” Lily, when pressed for an answer, stammers, “I’m not sure. I’m an unreliable narrator.” They then proceed to find out, until interrupted by his cellphone. 

Her character in the book comes across as prissy and syrupy. In the movie, Lively portrays Lily with street smarts and an edge that makes her more engaging and relatable.