It Ends With Us was the US's highest-selling book of 2023, and has just been adapted into a movie starring Blake Lively. We explain the controversy surrounding the book, which was originally released in 2016.
It Ends With Us looks like your average pulpy love-triangle romance novel, if you go by its pastel-pink, flower-filled cover and the genre it purports to belong to.Even the blurb of Colleen Hoover 's 2016 New York Times bestseller promises a "captivating romance with a cast of all-too-human characters".
"It Ends With Us," it continues, "is an unforgettable tale of love that comes at the ultimate price."While romance does feature in It Ends With Us, it's actually an incredibly graphic story about the intergenerational effects of intimate partner violence. Its myriad difficult storylines also touch on issues including alcohol abuse, mental illness, rape, suicide, self-harm and graphic violence.First off: Who is Colleen Hoover? Dubbed "CoHo" by the internet, the 44-year-old writer from Texas started off as a self-published author, which is why she's often accused of being aBut in the 12 years since she self-published her first novel as an ebook, CoHo has enjoyed unprecedented mainstream success. As of October 2022,Her novels are plot-heavy, lightly smutty and easily digestible. Her female leads often undergo some sort of defining trauma and their love interests are always named something like Tate, Layken or Ridge .Colleen Hoover's 2016 novel It Ends With Us has become a sleeper hit, topping bestseller lists to this day."I don't have a lot of recollections of what they went through, but I knew that he was abusive, and I never understood how it happened because she was such a strong and independent person," The novel begins after the unfortunately named protagonist Lily Blossom Bloom, a steampunk florist, has delivered a disastrous eulogy at her abusive father's funeral. In the aftermath, the 23-year-old takes a breather on a Boston rooftop. It's there that she runs into the fancifully named neurosurgeon Ryle Kincaid, who is angrily attempting to destroy a chair after a bad day. Despite this, Lily is instantly attracted to the 29-year-old. A few months later, they become intensely involved with each other. At the same time, Lily re-reads teen diary entries bizarrely styled as letters to Ellen DeGeneres, when her father's abuse of her mother was at its worst and 15-year-old Lily met her first love, 18-year-old Atlas Corrigan. It's after an incident with a burnt casserole that Ryle attacks Lily for the first time by aggressively pushing her. He frantically apologises, promising to never hurt her again. When Ryle's sister Allysa asks about Lily's injuries the next day , Ryle lies about the attack. Hoover based It Ends With Us on her mother and father's relationship.Atlas, a fellow victim-survivor, doesn't believe her excuses and leaves his phone number for her in case she ever needs help. When Ryle finds out, the physical abuse continues and he attempts to justify his actions by revealing a traumatic tragedy from his childhood. One night, Lily returns home to find Ryle enraged over her teen relationship with Atlas and he attempts to rape her before physically assaulting her. Lily leaves Ryle with Atlas's assistance, only to discover she is pregnant with Ryle's baby. The story ends with Lily co-parenting with her abuser, who she has now divorced. Ryle experiences no legal ramifications for his abuse.Despite its heavy subject matter and the fact It Ends With Us was marketed as a romance, the book doesn't carry any content warnings.It certainly didn't help things when, in January 2023, the author announced her plan to release a colouring book based on It Ends With Us. The internet …: "The colouring book was developed with Lily's strength in mind, but I can absolutely see how this was tone-deaf."Respect Victoria's director of communications and community change, Jacquie O'Brien, says: "Whilst you can market a book or movie like this as a romance, you absolutely, by virtue of the fact that you are making money off this, have a responsibility to do this safely." "Content warnings are really important because there are people who are on a whole range of journeys," she says. "Intimate partner violence … are really serious situations with a lot of trauma attached to them, and you don't want to do harm by not at least allowing people to make a choice on whether they want to engage with this content or not.that she intended to educate readers with this novel: "I always say I write to entertain, I don't write to inform or to educate. But this book was a different beast." And whether CoHo intended to romanticise abuse or not, It Ends With Us's readers are romanticising it anyway. Across social media, many CoHorts express their frustration Lily doesn't end up with Ryle. They describe him not as an abuser, but as a One reader admits: "no cuz y'all don't understand how badly i had been rooting for them EVEN AFTER he hurt her the first few times."Ms O'Brien does praise how CoHo's book shows that "men who choose to use violence are not monsters easily recognisable people, who are probably in our lives." But she says depicting a character like Ryle as "strong or masculine" and interlinking that masculinity with violence is dangerous. In It Ends With Us, Ryle is depicted as incredibly strong, violent and a love interest from the moment we meet him."It becomes very dangerous when any form of popular culture depicts someone using violence … as either romanticised or inevitable or a demonstration of love. It's not a demonstration of love, it's a demonstration of terror and violence." She says stories like It Ends With Us are part of the reason why, as a society, "it's really important we are taught the signs of what's healthy and what's safe and what to do if you or a loved one is in a relationship like this as early as possible".The movie adaptation of It Ends With Us has been controversial since its announcement, and not just among the book's critics. Fans have big feelings about the project too, from While the film follows a similarly pink-tinged, romance-heavy marketing strategy to the book, there's a lot that's different about this telling.there is no such thing as a 29-year-old neurosurgeon) and, sadly, the infamous steampunk flowers do not feature. There's also a lot less Ellen DeGeneres.This is a story that's absolutely benefited from screenwriter Christy Hall's deft hand and from having a slate of talented actors breathe life into it. It Ends With Us: Adaptation of Colleen Hoover's bestseller is a window into the insidiousness of abuseOne of the strengths of the book were Lily's internal musings, where she grapples with the way our culture of internalised misogyny, victim-blaming and toxic masculinity has shaped her and her mother. Those thought processes were part of what helped It Ends With Us answer the question it set out to: Why it can be so hard to leave an abusive relationship. But there's been no attempt to externalise those thoughts — whether via dialogue or, as hit-or-miss as it can be, voiceover. And, unlike in the book, there's no discussion of the fact Lily is privileged enough to be able to leave Ryle immediately, having the money and social supports to be able to do so as soon as she decides to.The movie overall is less graphic, with only brief glimpses of the physical abuse and rape Lily's mother experienced at the hands of her father. Ryle's physical abuse of Lily is dispensed with quickly, and is glossed over much faster. In a departure from the seemingly pro-life stance in the book, where Lily appears resigned to having her abuser's baby, the film frames it like she has a choice, even if she makes the same decision. The fact Ryle experiences no repercussions for his abuse beyond Lily's decision to divorce him was another major criticism of the book — but the movie doesn't depart from this plot point. Lily's ex Atlas is a fellow victim-survivor and provides vital support for Lily.And — also problematically — here, too, Ryle is depicted as broken as a result of his childhood trauma, and therefore deserving of redemption in the form of a relationship with his daughter. The only real difference to the ending is that Lily tells Ryle she knows none of the abuse he perpetrated against her was an accident, which is a chilling moment — though not necessarily a win for the movie.A portrait of 'one of our greatest ever thinkers' wins the Archibald People's Choice award'Akin to modern-day slavery': With Olympic funding in a dire situation, athletes are turning to OnlyFans to fund their dreamsA Sydney house sold for $600k above the price guide. It's just one example of a big problem In an Olympic sport that may be one and done, Australia's first breaker bows out in 'different' performance'Catty' fashion slurs reveal the Higgins Reynolds defamation battle is taking a highly personal turnTwo US astronauts could remain stuck on the International Space Station until next year, NASA admits'It was really a tinderbox': How disinformation is fuelling Britain's far-right riots'Akin to modern-day slavery': With Olympic funding in a dire situation, athletes are turning to OnlyFans to fund their dreams In an Olympic sport that may be one and done, Australia's first breaker bows out in 'different' performance'Catty' fashion slurs reveal the Higgins Reynolds defamation battle is taking a highly personal turn 'Akin to modern-day slavery': With Olympic funding in a dire situation, athletes are turning to OnlyFans to fund their dreamsA Sydney house sold for $600k above the price guide. It's just one example of a big problem In an Olympic sport that may be one and done, Australia's first breaker bows out in 'different' performanceThe It Ends With Us movie adaptation is here. Here's why people hate the Colleen Hoover novel so much
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