Hoover, Colleen (1979- )

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    What ‘It Ends With Us’ Gets Wrong (and Right) About Domestic Abuse

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    Its depiction of love-bombing and psychological abuse rings true, experts say, but other oversimplified aspects could send a dangerous message.A person trying to escape an abusive relationship, on average, needs seven attempts to actually leave. Lily Bloom, the protagonist of the new drama “It Ends With Us,” needs only one.In the hit adaptation of the best-selling Colleen Hoover novel, Bloom (Blake Lively) is a young woman who grew up watching her father repeatedly hit her mother and who sees her own marriage to the seemingly perfect neurosurgeon Ryle Kincaid (Justin Baldoni, also the film’s director) deteriorate into physical and emotional abuse. When Bloom learns she’s pregnant with Kincaid’s child after a violent night, she decides to get out.Professionals who counsel domestic violence survivors or work on related issues say “It Ends With Us” is an oversimplified depiction of being in and leaving an abusive relationship. But whether it’s a potential tool for advocacy or an unattainable vision of escaping abuse depends on whom you ask.“I think it’s very likely that people are going to come to the movie and see themselves in Lily,” said Pamela Jacobs, the chief executive officer of the nonprofit organization the National Resource Center on Domestic Violence. She said that although “It Ends With Us” had problems, she was surprised by how well it showed abuse overall.The big inaccuracy to professionals is how easily Bloom leaves once she realizes she is being abused. In real life, she would probably have faced stalking, harassment and other escalating pressure tactics, including violence.In “It Ends With Us,” Bloom and her husband peacefully part ways after a single conversation. Jacobs said Bloom’s departure was unrealistically smooth thanks to her financial independence (she owns a flower shop) and unwavering community support, including from her best friend, who is also Kincaid’s sister.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      6 Books Like ‘It Ends With Us’ by Colleen Hoover to Read Next

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      Whether the Blake Lively movie brought you to the Colleen Hoover universe or you’re a longtime CoHo fan looking for more emotional, spicy stories, these novels are for you.In the past few years, no writer has dominated the best-seller list quite like Colleen Hoover. The prolific author was one of the breakout stars of the self-publishing boom over a decade ago, and her global following has only grown with BookTok’s embrace of her novels. Now Hoover — CoHo to her fans — is setting her sights on the silver screen, with the release of “It Ends With Us,” the first film adaptation of one of her books; the movie, starring Blake Lively and Justin Baldoni, opens in theaters Aug. 9.Hoover’s fans adore her books for their emotional intensity: The stories often revolve around themes of trauma, resilience and hope, and the characters’ tragic histories and passionate struggles provide a catharsis that readers describe as not merely heartbreaking, but heart-stomping-into-smithereens. While she is commonly billed as a romance writer, Hoover also mixes in Y.A., thriller and horror, always with plenty of spice and drama. You can see her influence in the ample selection of new books that aim to walk a similar line — or by glancing around your local bookstore, where you can spot many covers that have gotten the “CoHo treatment.”Whether you’re new to Hoover’s work and looking to see what all the fuss is about, or yearning for some more high drama and emotional intensity while you wait for her next book, all of these options will keep you reading way past your bedtime.Book vs. movie, let me be the judgeIt Ends With Us, by Colleen HooverIf you’ve heard of one of Hoover’s book, it’s probably this one, which has spent a whopping 165 weeks on the New York Times best-seller list. Lily, a florist, is initially dazzled by Ryle, an enigmatic neurosurgeon. But painful moments from Lily’s childhood begin to echo into her present as she slowly realizes that Ryle’s charm belies an explosive temper — and when Atlas, her first love and her last tie to a life she’d left behind, reappears.Take me deeper into the CoHo universeWe are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      ‘It Ends With Us’ Review: For Blake Lively, Love Hurts and Even Bruises

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      Blake Lively plays Lily Bloom, a flower lover with a thorny personal garden, in this gauzy adaptation of Colleen Hoover’s best-selling novel.Buried under the gauzy romanticism of “It Ends With Us” — under the softly diffused visuals, the endless montage sequences, the sensitive mewling on the soundtrack and the luxuriously coifed thickets of Blake Lively’s sunset-on-Malibu-Beach dyed-red hair — is a tough little movie about women, bad choices, worse men and decisions that doesn’t fit into a tidy box.Lively stars as the improbably named Lily Blossom Bloom, a beauty with a traumatic history, a soulful ex and a passion for gardening. Over the course of the movie, she falls in love with a neurosurgeon who looks like he stepped out of a Calvin Klein ad. She also befriends a wisecracking sidekick, opens a whimsical floral shop, endures heartache and, after much reflection and many plot complications, finds herself. It’s hard going, but Lily takes whatever life throws at her with her meticulously styled head up and a neo-bohemian influencer vibe. She’s a dream of a woman, an aspirational ideal, an Instagram-era Mildred Pierce.You may know Mildred from Turner Classic Movies as the pie-baking survivor played by Joan Crawford in the 1945 noir “Mildred Pierce.” Mildred walks into that classic wearing a mink coat with linebacker shoulder-pads and the kind of stricken look that clouds a woman’s face when she discovers that her no-good second husband is sleeping with her no-good teenage daughter, and the brat has just offed the creep. It’s no wonder that when Mildred stares into the nighttime waters of the Pacific, she seems to be mulling her equally dark past and future, much as Lily does one evening on a Boston rooftop early on in “It Ends With Us.”Lily doesn’t have long to consider her existential options because her rooftop reveries are soon interrupted by the neurosurgeon, Ryle Kincaid (Justin Baldoni, who directed the movie). A brooding hunk with soft eyes, hard muscles and miraculously unchanging three-day stubble, Ryle has a touch of menace and a gift for cornball lines, and before long he and Lily are flirtatiously circling each other. Love buds and, yes, blooms, and Lily settles down with Ryle. He seems like a ready-made catch (Baldoni gives himself plenty of close-ups), although anyone at all familiar with the conventions of romantic fiction will wonder about the intensity of his attentions. A picture-perfect guy doesn’t necessarily make a picture-perfect life, dig?Adapted from Colleen Hoover’s best seller by Christy Hall, “It Ends With Us” is fitfully diverting, at times touching, often ridiculous and, at 2 hours and 10 minutes, almost offensively long. It’s visually and narratively overbusy, stuffed with flashbacks of Lily as an adolescent (Isabela Ferrer) that create two parallel lines of action. As the adult Lily moves forward with Ryle and opens her store — she gets help from a nattering assistant, Allysa (Jenny Slate), who enters with her luxury bag swinging and motormouth running — images of the past fill in Lily’s history and her high-school romance with another student, Atlas. (Alex Neustaedter plays him as a teen, while Brandon Sklenar steps into the grown-up role.)We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More