It Ends With Us is a standalone novel written by New York Times bestselling author Colleen Hoover. The novel has gained a substantial amount of attention and appreciation thanks to ‘BookTok’, a community on the social media platform TikTok that is dedicated to discussing, recommending, and reviewing different books. Thanks to BookTok, this book has gained a reputation as a romance novel more than anything. While romance definitely is a big aspect of this book, I feel like it is so much more than just a romance novel. This book covers so many heavy topics and represents so many important social issues that reducing it to just its romance feels severely reductive.

The novel follows Lily Bloom, a young woman with a devastating backstory who now lives in  Boston, where she meets the brooding and mysterious Ryle Kincaid, with whom she gets swept up into a whirlwind romance. On top of that, a large piece of Lily’s history by the name of Atlas Corrigan ends up rolling back into her life, throwing a wrench in the stability of Lily’s new life. 

Thankfully, though this novel covers heavy topics such as abuse and trauma, nothing is glamorized or romanticized. The only fault is that there is no trigger warning before the book starts, so prospective readers will have to search for their own before beginning this book.

This is a great choice if you are searching for a more emotional read that is still fairly fast-paced to get you out of a reading slump. Despite its quick pacing and numerous flashbacks, every event in the novel ties together smoothly, leading to an ending that everyone may not love, but makes sense at the very least.