It Ends with Us (2016, 427 pages) by Colleen Hoover. “He wouldn’t allow you to take him back. He would make the decision to leave himself so that he knows for a fact he can never hurt you again. That’s the kind of love a woman deserves” (392)

Oh, how I want to share more than that quote, but I do not want to spoil this read for anyone. It is worth reading, as it is raw, honest, inspiring, and a profoundly beautiful story. The plot of this book is extremely character driven. To say much of anything about any of the characters would give away the whole book. The story flips between the protagonist Lily Bloom’s past written as journal entries to Ellen (yes, that Ellen) and her present. Hoover did an amazing job with this type of flashback as it can be distracting or confusing, but this was quite the opposite. It was enjoyable and revealed more of the character’s story, which is a story of unshakable love and finding the strength to make the right choice in the hardest situation. There’s an incredibly powerful message in this book that is very subtly woven in from the start. It begins in the first chapter, but you don’t realize yet how significant each of these moments truly are until you meet all the characters. Then these pieces of the story come together, forming a scenario that gives such a raw, honest portrayal of an incredibly relevant issue. I’m a firm believer there are books out there that help you understand something about yourself you never knew, or things that you thought you knew about yourself but were so wrong about. This is one of those books. The naked truth is this book strips away a lot of preconceived notions. I highly recommend it. I will say there is a film adaptation of this book, but the film changes two major plots of the book, one so much that you will not understand the title of the book unless you read the book. I won’t out right tell you what the plots are, but I share this sentence from the book, “cycles exist because they are excruciating to break” (420)