It Ends with Us is a 2016 romance/drama novel by Colleen Hoover.
The book, based on the relationship between Hoover's mother and father, is about a young woman named Lily Blossom Bloom, who moves to Boston to start her own floral shop. She resents her late father for abusing her mother, and her mother for staying with her father until his death. While in Boston, Lily meets and falls in love with Ryle Kincaid, a neurosurgeon, only for the relationship to turn abusive due to Ryle's volatile nature. Will Lily be trapped in the same cycle of abuse that her mother was trapped in, or will she break free?
A sequel, It Starts with Us, was released in 2022. It Ends with Us was adapted into a 2024 Columbia Pictures film, starring Blake Lively as Lily and Justin Baldoni as Ryle.
Tropes end with us:
- Accidental Murder: Ryle accidentally shot and killed his older brother with a gun that he didn't know was loaded.
- Blaming the Victim: After Ryle pushes Lily down the stairs, he claims that she "fell," then accuses her of being a "fucking liar" for having another man's phone number in her phone.
- Dead Guy Junior: Lily and Ryle's daughter is named Emerson, after Ryle's deceased older brother who died long before the younger Emerson was born.
- Death of a Child: Ryle's Freudian Excuse is accidentally shooting and killing his older brother with a gun; his brother was only a child at the time and Ryle himself was just six.
- Die, Chair, Die!: Ryle's Establishing Character Moment is kicking a "marine-grade polymer" chair on a rooftop, setting up his anger issues.
- Disproportionate Retribution: Ryle hits Lily for drunkenly laughing after he burns his hand, and pushes her down the stairs after finding Atlas' number in her phone.
- Domestic Abuse:
- Lily's father abused Lily's mother for years, but surprisingly, never harmed Lily herself (although exposing his daughter to the violence he inflicted on her mother would still count as abuse).
- Ryle is prone to hitting Lily when consumed by rage, and even rapes her on one occasion.
- Ending the Abuse: After enduring brutal abuse from her husband Ryle, Lily finally divorces him for their daughter Emerson's sake.
- Establishing Character Moment: Ryle kicking the chair on the rooftop establishes his anger issues.
- Gender-Blender Name: Emerson is a name typically given to boys, though Lily names her daughter Emerson in honour of Emerson's late uncle.
- Hates Their Parent: Lily despises her father for abusing her mother, so much so that she can't say five good things about him at his funeral. To a lesser extent, she doesn't think highly of her mother for putting up with the abuse for so long.
- Improbable Age: Ryle is stated to be a 30-year-old neurosurgeon; it generally takes at least 15 years to become a neurosurgeon upon graduating high school, so it's highly unlikely Ryle would be a qualified neurosurgeon at his age. Author Colleen Hoover admitted this was something she overlooked; she'd set his love interest Lily's age at 23 and didn't want Ryle to be too much older than her, so she made him 30 without considering the effect this would have on his chosen career.
- It's All About Me: Ryle comes off this way in his first scene in hindsight, possibly unintentionally on Colleen Hoover's part. He talks about the incident in which a boy shot his brother, saying that the parents were responsible for not properly securing the firearm and claiming that the shooter was the one who suffered most. When you consider it with the knowledge that Ryle is the shooter, his claim that he suffered the most comes off as rather self-centered, and while he's right that his parents should have done more to keep their guns out of their children's reach, he's still denying responsibility for his actions.
- Non-Idle Rich: Allysa is wealthy enough to live comfortably, but works at Lily's flower shop to stay occupied.
- That Makes Me Feel Angry: Lily's narration falls into this trope at times when discussing her own emotions."Reading about the things my dad used to do to my mom kind of puts me in a bad mood.
Reading about Atlas kind of puts me in a sad mood.
I try to fall asleep and think about Ryle, but the whole situation with him kind of makes me mad and sad." - Title Drop: The last scene before the epilogue ends with Lily expressing her hope to her daughter that she has ended the cycle of abuse by divorcing Ryle but keeping him as part of their daughter's life, saying, "It ends with us."