23/12/2022
✅ Curated ✅ Read ✅ Reviewed ✅ Sold!
IT STARTS WITH US – COLLEEN HOOVER
Genre: Fiction
Indexed: Duology, Young Adult, Domestic Violence
Publisher: Simon & Schuster (2022)
Pages: 323
Condition: Like new, thrice read
Price: 350 + SF (lowest price guaranty)
Level: Casual
Notes: Sequel to It Ends With Us, TWs for violence and abuse
ISBN: 978-1-3985-1817-9
Comment “Mine” to reserve.
OVERVIEW:
Lily honestly thought she had a picture-perfect marriage with Ryle. To be sure, life could not have been any brighter until the specter of Ryle’s domestic abuse left their marriage in absolute darkness.
Now divorced, Ryle and Lily navigate the custody arrangements over their young daughter Emerson. Like the consummate abusive that he is, Ryle passes off the estrangement of feelings with Lily as a minor inconvenience that can be worked out over time. Lily does not fall for the wiles of Ryle and knows that his display of good behavior is just redundant evidence of his manipulative nature.
Not all is doom and gloom however. Lily and Atlas meet for the first time after the turmoil of the last two years had died down. Atlas remains in love with Lily and the feeling appears to be mutual.
At first, Lily conceals her romantic dalliances with Atlas. She is afraid that reconnecting with her first love might provoke Ryle into another fit of violent rage. Now is not the time to shatter the peace.
It would be only a matter time before Lily realizes that her deference to the threat of retaliation from Ryle is a form of self-inflicted abuse. Ultimately, Lily finds the courage to reveal her secret relationship to Ryle. Ryle promptly loses all control and hunts down Atlas for one final confrontation.
BOOK ALBULARYO:
Everyone knows by now that It Ends With Us, the first part of this duology, created bitter factions among its readers who either believe that Ryle is simply misunderstood and deserve a second chance, or that Ryle is beyond any hope of redemption and should be ditched if not put in prison.
It Starts With Us is Colleen Hoover’s attempt to quell further toxic behavior from her readers and settle the matter at all. In this sequel, the only side that should matter, according to Hoover, is the side that does not have a domestic abuser on it.
Hoover’s writing agenda has been apparent even from the first pages of IEWU. She manipulates readers into taking opposing beliefs and opinions on domestic abuse by purposefully creating an impossible caricature of an abuser in Ryle. This has led many to cling to Ryle in an unhealthy and misguided way. To her, IEWU was a slap in the face of the readers to simulate abuse on a literary scale—which I find problematic and stupid.
In this second installment, she foists a slew of obvious subterfuges to steer readers into thinking that the ending to IEWU deserved further elaboration. Yet, like IEWU, she reveals that she only wrote this book because Tiktok forced her to. What a shame. Why could she not leave well enough alone?
CoHo, indeed, is blessed with the gift of storytelling. She can probably write a love story between two pieces of rock and still captivate an audience. I just wish she focuses her talents on something meaningful other than act beholden to the whims of the Tiktok mob. Sad!
[If you are reading this part of the post and would like for us to continue selling curated books at dirt cheap prices (all for spreading the love of reading to one and all), kindly comment below 1 book title which you want us to read, review and sell here that we haven’t already. We don’t want to shutter a good thing but we have to face the harsh reality of working against the tide of lack of interest. So it ends with this but hopefully not.]
3.4 / 5
NURSES’S CHART:
Colleen Hoover has been accused of so many literary crimes, some deserved and some outlandish.
But if there is one thing that no one can accuse her of is nonengagement with her fans. She has given, will give, and continues to give in to what her readers want so long as there is sufficient clamor for it in social media.
CoHo is not shy about her pandering. She says so herself in the epilogue that this gratuitous sequel is an abomination that should not have seen the light of day. Yet thanks to the overwhelming demand by readers in Tiktok via , CoHo punches out this extended epilogue to It Ends With Us despite not needing any.
I like romance and fantasy books in this space. This pointless sequel is not it. Waste of money and time.
Verdict: Vapid, shallow, forced narrative, pandering, annoying
DOCTOR’S PAD:
It Starts With Us is one of my most favorite reads this year. It is written with the same charm and effervescence as the first book, It Ends With Us, but with one important difference. Unlike IEWU’s gossamer style, ISWU rips the bandage apart and confronts the readers with the plain and ugly truth about domestic violence.
Recall that in IWEU, Ryle’s ambivalent characterization as a sympathetic figure left millions of readers confused about him as an abusive person. Because of the intentionally vague portrayal of who Ryle really is, the physical and psychological violence that he casually inflicts on Lily did not deter a legion of supporters from thinking that his actions are somewhat justified given his own past traumas. Who would not feel sorry for a rich, hotshot neurosurgeon? What’s a little pushing Lily down the stairs anyway? Says the Ryle apologist.
Thank goodness for ISWU. This second part clarifies in the sharpest relief possible the outlines of Ryle as an abject monster as to leave no room for doubt that he is a felon and deserves to rot in jail.
Kudos to Colleen for realizing she has a very large platform where she can shape impressionable minds in Tiktok and Instagram about healthy and safe approaches against domestic abuse. Although she did make the fatal mistake of romanticizing Ryle as an abuser in IWEU, she now has fully redeemed herself by unmasking the fiend that was in Ryle all along.
Hopefully this book terminates the Team Ryle and Team Atlas debates as there should have been none in the first place.
My rating: 94%
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