“It Starts with Us” Book review : Dealing with the Aftermath
Photo Courtesy of Amber Guttridge
The newest novel by Colleen Hoover. This is the paper back version of the novel “It Starts with Us”.
“It Starts With Us” – By Colleen Hoover – Fiction – 336 pages
Disclaimer: This review contains information about domestic violence, and abuse.
“It Starts with Us” by Colleen Hoover is the sequel to Hoover’s best selling book, “It Ends with Us”. This new novel, “It Starts with Us” shows the aftermath of ending a relationship that had domestic violence. The novel’s main character, Lily Bloom, feels that even though she’s free from the relationship, it’s still hard to be herself and feel free when raising a child.
“It Ends With Us” ended with Lily and Ryle Kincaid getting a divorce because of the physical abuse Ryle would do to Lily. Lily thinks that her decision was the best plan so she and Ryle can live civilly while co-parenting their daughter, Emerson.
Two years in the future is when this novel starts off. Emerson is now almost 1 year old. The co-parenting plan that the two of them have made has been working, but Lily still gets the most time with their daughter because of the long hours Ryle works, but also because Lily is frightened by the fact that if Ryle were to take out his rage in a inappropriate way Emerson won’t be old enough to speak for herself.
One day, Lily bumps into Atlas Corrigan (a boy she helped and fell in love with in high school) the two of them start to fall in love, but need to be sneaky about where and when they can meet so Ryle doesn’t find out. The reason for this is because Lily wants to tell Ryle about her and Atlas, but is scared of how he may react because Ryle thinks Atlas is the main reason for their divorce.
So Lily tries to come up with a plan on how to tell Ryle, because Lily feels that once Ryle is okay with this situation she will fully be free.
Hoover initially wrote the novel “It Ends with Us” with the intent to only have the one book, but because of the amount of fans who were asking for a sequel to the novel, so Atlas and Lily can have their happy ending, Hoover gave in and wrote the novel.
Just like in all of Hoover’s novels, there is romance between characters, whether it be Ryle and Lily in “It Ends with Us”, and now Atlas and Lily in “It Starts with Us”. Just like in the first novel, in this series there are many emotional plot twists that may just keep the reader turning the pages.
Overall this novel tells a great plot, with a powerful and emotional story. This novel could be one of Colleen Hoover’s best.
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Amber Guttridge is a sophomore at Silver Creek High School. This will be Ambers first time trying out the Journalism course. The reason Amber chose to...