Thoughts on 'It Ends With Us' by Colleen Hoover

[Autistic Book Club Admin]

I see Colleen Hoover's name everywhere and her books in all the stores I go to! I have never read anything by this author, so I thought we could read one of her books at the Book Club and see if her books are worth the hype?

Are they well written?
Does the content resonate with us (Autistic readers)?
Can we relate to the characters? (Are there any neurodivergent characters?)
And so on! Interested to see what you think?

[Karyn]

How coincidental. I just started reading this last week. I had bought for my sister after hearing students recommending her. So far no autistic representation. Childhood trauma and abuse so will see how she writes that into adult attachment patterns. I think romance is a predictable enough genre, that I find them fairly easy to comprehend.

[READ ALL THE THINGS]

I got this book yesterday from my local library. It’s my first Colleen Hoover book and I checked it out because I wanted to know if I was missing out. I didn’t read any blurbs, just picked the first one I saw. It’s It Ends With Us.

[CraftyChara]

Hearing Just Keep Swimming reminds me of "Just Keep Stimming"

[Storm The Tiny Hooman ~hiatus~]

I do not like CoHo. She is an ableist and so much more worst stuff

[☆ azure ☆ azrael ☆ (hiatus)]

Storm The Tiny Hooman wrote: "I do not like CoHo. She is an ableist and so much more worst stuff"

I'm definitely *not* a fan of her but didn't know this. What ableist stuff has she done?

[Storm The Tiny Hooman ~hiatus~]

She really got the deaf community mad. I can pm you everything I know

[Autistic Book Club Admin]

CW - Content Warning for 'It Ends With Us' - SPOILERS
I've now finished 'It Ends With Us' and it starts off like a romance, which is quite graphic in parts but quickly introduces domestic violence, rape, assault, manipulation, gaslighting, etc.

Please feel under no onus to read this book, we can still discuss it in the meeting even if you haven't read it.

Some say it romanticises DV, others that it helps us to understand why so many stay with a violent partner, what do you think?

[Ariana]

Ahh, I was considering reading this, but I’m glad you gave the content warning! I wish all books had a rating and CW at the beginning 🫠

[Autistic Book Club Admin]

I had no idea it would have such confronting content! Tbh I won't be reading another Colleen Hoover, although it was a page turner I can't say it left me with a good feeling...!

[Karyn]

I have read another of her books which was more like a typical girl meets boy, obstacle to romance, girl finally gets boy type format. This one was definitely a surprise with the DV content, but which she explained was because of her own lived experience as a child in a house with a DV parent. I thought it did help describe some of the complexity of loving someone who also does bad things.

[Autistic Book Club Admin]

I agree. It can be very hard to leave an abusive relationship and the book did a good job of explaining one of those thought processes.