My view on It Ends with Us by Colleen Hoover

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. Colleen Hoover in It Ends with Us

Hello again! Since my last published post, I’ve been reading quite a number of things, six more books to be precise 🙂 Unfortunately, I haven’t written any literary critic on them yet, but I’m working on some for the near future—keep your eyes peeled 😉

There is another young-adult book I read about a week ago from an author I had heard so much about. I’m talking about Colleen Hoover. From her, I had only read Ugly Love and I must admit that young girl I still have in me approved of it by feeling all giddy and satisfied. I really hope they make a movie out of it. It’s basically the story of a girl called Tate who one day encounters a young and highly successful pilot called Miles. He doesn’t seem to want a committed relationship, but they still feel the hots for each other, so they start being neighbours with benefits.

I had such fond memories of Ugly Love that I decided to pick up another of Colleen’s books. I wanted to make a semi-thorough research before that, as I wanted to avoid those poorly written stories every author usually has, and go straight to her chef-d’oeuvre, her magnum opus. Of course, I instinctively have reservations regarding contemporary, young-adult books. There’s a reason why they are, by far, not considered Literature and only those who have extensively read and analysed the classics can spot the wide and hollow crevisse there is between the two. Needless to say, that doesn’t mean we shouldn’t indulge in both. Classics may elevate the mind, but we’re all still children inside, so, why shouldn’t we return to that whimsical part of ourselves every once in a while?

With that in mind, I set myself to read Colleen’s It Ends with Us, the story of Lily, a young florist with a grim past. From the very beginning we’re confronted with her younger days, her adolescence, which make a reappearance in her life after her father’s death. We are not kept wondering why her childhood was so stern, as we are told that she grew up in an abusive household—a dad that would hit his wife and a mother who would not dare leave him. But for those of you, lovers of love and romance, we are introduced to one of the most assertive guys I’ve ever encountered in books (and IRL). I mean, who doesn’t feel attracted to a guy who knows exactly what he wants from life, who’s got a passion for his job, who’s successful at it and is always on the lookout for challenges. Obviously, just as she did with Miles, Colleen knows exactly what us women want from a man and she happily delivers.

Isn’t that such a good premise for a(n) young-adult book? She makes us wait and yearn with the characters for their first sexual encounter and we almost beg for them to get in a relationship. But, wait! Do we? I know I was for like half a chapter, maybe? But that yearning was quenched rather fast. It almost felt like one day she asks him to wait for sex, but the next day she tells him they’ve waited enough. Uhm… I mean, that’s what I would surely have done, but I was expecting better from my literary mentour. It doesn’t end there, though. For the first few chapters—not sure if one, or two—we are assured that Ryle (did I say his name was Ryle?) would never ever even consider getting a girlfriend, he only does one-night stands. But on the next chapter he’s already on his knees begging… and it doesn’t feel, at least to me, that Lily has even earned it just yet. All she has done is be pretty and tell some naked truths. Was that really all he expected from a woman? Thanks, Lily, I’ll take it into account next time I meet someone.

Do their rushed decisions end there? Well, no. Next thing you know, they’re rushing to Vegas to—yes, you guessed it—get married. If I was halfway through the book, it may be too much, perhaps it was only one quarter. Indeed, the guy who has never ever wanted to date decides to marry a 23 year-old girl and she accepts—just why? Lily, didn’t you pause to think, for even just a second, that he may be a bit delusional? And, besides, you’re only 23 and have just met him like a year ago.

It doesn’t end there, though. All of a sudden they decide they’d one day like to have a baby and she gets pregnant without even being off the pill… okay. Certainly, not at the best of times, since, by then, they had already broken up. Yes, yes, I know! I didn’t mention that before, but it’s just that things happen so freaking fast in this 200 pages book that you’re left with a constant feeling of what the hell happened here? And why?!

Colleen, don’t get me wrong, I did enjoy your book. In fact, a week on, I feel like it was much better than I thought at first. Perhaps not as good as Ugly Love and it certainly does not meet the hype people bestowed upon it, but I did like it and I could barely put it down. There were a number of times when I was so dumbstruck that I wished I hadn’t started it to begin with. But I’m not a quitter and I want to reach my Goodreads challenge, so I went on. I liked it. I liked the premise and I get why the main characters, though young, had to live a lifetime on just two years. What I feel I should complain about is the length of the book. Hmph. There are stories that can be fit in 200 or 300 pages. I’m not sure how many pages your book has, but it didn’t feel like much. It’s not even a matter of pages, but of length. I believe that this plot in particular required to be further developed. I wish you would have told us what happened during those months you recklessly skipped. I also feel like the feelings of both Lily, Ryle and Atlas were barely and quite superficially shown. I couldn’t entirely sympathise and empathise with their feelings since there was no depth to it. All I could do is imagine how they would probably feel given each situation, but that’s not what I’m here for, that’s the writer’s job. You are the one who needs to show us how we should feel and I know you tried, but there needs to be more insight into it. The characters need to be bigger than their story, they need to come out of it feeling like fully fleshed real people. These ones didn’t and it’s a total shame.

I honestly wanted to love it just as much as I did with the previous one. This is probably what saddens and enrages me the most about it: the poor writing, the lack of literary devices and poetry in prose. The absurdity of its length.

I don’t expect people to agree with me at all. In fact, I’m sure they’ll be disillusioned to know that I’m criticising it more than anyone else. But, hey, each individual has their own opinion on the books they read and those who write them expose themselves to this. It’s part of being an author and it shouldn’t shame them one bit. Who hasn’t had a total flop of a writing in their lives? Even Shakespeare with his early plays was a poor imitation of what he’d later on become. But he learnt from his previous mistakes and could finally create the epitome of the modern character—Hamlet.

Tell me, what are your thoughts on Colleen’s books? I bet you love them and that’s perfectly alright! You’re entitled to your own opinion as I am to mine and we surely respect each other, right? Thanks Colleen for the interesting read, I enjoyed it more than you may think 😉

#youngadult #UglyLove #literarycriticism #romancebook #ColleenHoover #ItEndsWithUs