It Ends With Us Story – Summary

Lily is a 14-year-old cute girl who saves her school friend from dying in an abandoned house. She finds him living in that building because his parents threw him out of the house. She decides to secretly help Atlas.  She allows him to visit her house when parents are away, gives him food and clothing.

Lily helps Atlas survive cold, hunger, and helplessness. After some time, Atlas had to depart from Maine to Boston, and later on, plans to join the military. He promises Lily to return to her once he is stable in his life. On the night of Atlas’s departure, both get caught by Lily’s father in her room. Atlas get beaten so badly.

Lily’s father is very abusive to her mother. She beats and abuses her regularly, which is hard for Lily to witness. She hated her mother for staying with such a guy. But her mother doesn’t dare to part ways with her husband because she is concerned about Lily’s future.

Finally, after years of abuse and beatings, Lily’s mother divorces her husband. Having seen her mother’s miserable life, Lily promises herself never to have anyone in her life who would treat her like her mother had been treated.

Unfortunate for Lily, a guy named Ryle comes into her life. Ryle seems to be a sober and successful neurosurgeon. Having a couple of dates with him, she decides to marry him. When the day of her marriage is near, her childhood love Atlas returns to her life, after over 8 years.

However, realizing that Lily was happy with her to-be-husband, he does not tell her the truth. He hides from her that he had been waiting for the past 8 years.

Atlas has become a very successful chef and restaurant owner in Bostson. Though Atlas was single up to that point with the expectation of getting Lily back into his life sometimes. But, he doesn’t tell the same to Lily as he does not want to spoil her marriage plans.

Lily marries Ryle, and she does not take much time to know that he is just as abusive as her father was. Ryle leaves no chance of beating Lily, and she even had to have stitches in her head from the beatings of her husband.

Lily gets pregnant with a baby girl. There comes a critical time in her life where she had to decide either to continue forgiving her husband and face the abusiveness like her mother had to – or part ways for her daughter’s future sake.  

Lily, thinking of her newborn baby, remembers all the horrors she had to go through seeing her mother handling an abusive husband. She does not want her daughter to go through all that she had to go through.

Atlas tells Lily that his doors would always remain open to welcome her. Lily gathers the courage to divorce her husband so that her daughter does not have to suffer the way she had to. She says to her daughter at that moment ‘IT ENDS WITH US’.

About The Book

According to Colleen Hoover, unlike the rest of the novels, this novel resonates with her actual life more than any other. She reveals that ‘Lily’ character was inspired by her mother. The author’s mother had an abusive husband, and the family had to suffer a lot together. Until her mother gathered the courage to leave her husband for a better person.

‘It Ends With Us’ answers all of our questions as to why women are unable to get out of abusive relationships. Being the eye-witness of the thoughts and excuses of women, the author has portrayed the characters in a very beautiful way.

It Ends With Us Movie

A movie is too short to cover an entire novel, and it sometimes feels bad to have missed our your favorite part of the novel in the movie. However, it is treat to eyes to have read novel ‘it ends with us’ and watching the movie after that.

What Is It Ends With Us About?

It Ends with us is an emotional/romantic story of a woman who falls in love with an abusive man. Although Ryle abuses Lily, but out of love and affection, she is not in a position to end the relationship. She marries him.

Abuse continues. Lily keeps reminding herself to gather the courage to end it all. But she does not become able to do so until she gives birth to her first daughter. She does not want to give the same atmosphere to her daughter that she had to face – having grown up under an abusive father. She divorces her abusive husband saying to her daughter – it ends with us

Why Women Spend Life With People Who Abuse Them?

Because they love them. A woman falls in love with a guy judging him by how he carries himself initially. His real self gets revealed much later. When a woman finds out that the guy she is married to is abusive, it is already too late for her to end it all.

She tries to save the relationship for the sake of her children. She considers the pain of leaving, greater than that of living in an abusive relationship.

‘It ends with us’ is a beautiful story for getting into the heart and feelings of a woman who undergoes situations like this.

Shortcomings In The Story – It Ends With Us

The author has been successful in conveying the lessons she wanted to convey. But there are some incidents in the story that are too unrealistic to be true. Like Lily accidentally meeting her school-age love after 8 years, on the exact date when she has been proposed by someone to marry.

I believe the world is too big to have such incidents happen.

Another incident is of a woman walking into Lily’s store and getting employed, happening to be the sister of Ryle, whom Lily had made some times back and had a crush on.

These and a few other twists in the story make us feel that the writer has tried to make up those incidents

Conclusion

The Story ‘It Ends With Us’ is a romantic story about women who are trapped in abusive relationships. The story helps us understand the circumstances and thoughts that prevent women from breaking out of those painful relationships. Highly recommended to be read. Grab your copy of ‘IT ENDS WITH US’