Review: It Ends With Us

Recap: After Lily Bloom (no, she can’t believe that’s her name either) makes quite the statement — without saying anything much at all — at her father’s funeral, she decides to spend the evening on a Boston city rooftop. Just some alone time looking out over the city where she’s hoping to jumpstart her professional career. But that time is interrupted when a guy comes up to the rooftop, kicking chairs, angry, trying to work something out. When Lily and Ryle get to talking, sparks fly. While he insists on hooking up, Lily turns him down because she’s looking for more than just a hookup at this point.

But within months, the two start to run into each other and ultimately that spark between them can’t be ignored. Even Ryle, who was not looking for a relationship, is now hyper-invested in starting one with Lily. So the two go all in. All the while, Lily takes a professional leap from PR pro to business owner when she opens her own flower shop, the kind of meta passion project of hers that she knows sounds silly with a name like Lily Bloom, but which she also…could not ignore. She hires a woman who walks in off the street, and the two quickly become best friends. Allysa just so happens to be Ryle’s sister, so she and her husband, Marshall, Lily and Ryle quickly become an unstoppable foursome.

It all seems too good to be true. And it is. While all this is happening, Lily has been reading through some of her old journals from high school, reflecting on her first relationship with a boy named Atlas. He was homeless. Lily came from an abusive home. The two of them relied on each other for safety, love and support. So when Lily sees Atlas for the first time in years, working at a restaurant where she and Ryle are on a date, she is shocked to her core. At the same time, Ryle is starting to show some abusive patterns that are all too familiar to her childhood. All this forces Lily to rethink all the decision she’s made, leading her to this point.

Analysis: It Ends With Us is one of the more well-known and beloved Colleen Hoover books, and with good reason. It’s complicated and tackles the heavy issue of domestic abuse. While some praise Hoover for her handling of the topic, drawing from her own personal experience, others have crucified Hoover for “glorifying” abuse in relationships. Frankly, I don’t see her portrayal in the relationship between Lily and Ryle as glorified at all. (MAJOR SPOILER ALERT!!) She does ultimately make the right choice in leaving him, standing up for herself as hard as it is. It’s a bold move in a world where, unfortunately, many women statistically stay with their abusers.

What I found to be confusing is that Hoover takes a long time to get the reader to that point in the novel. I, like Lily, found myself initially on the fence about Ryle’s actions, wondering if he was truly a bad guy or not. That’s exactly Hoover’s point: to show how complicated it can to “read” an abuser and identify the best way to manage the situation. But I felt so much of the book was just a straight-up romance novel where everything is great! beautiful! perfect! sexy! that it didn’t feel realistic. Hoover takes a smidge too long getting to the crux of the the novel. But once she’s there, I couldn’t put the book down.

MVP: Allysa. She is fun, understanding and the perfect kind of a friend a girl could need with what Lily is dealing with in this heavy situation.

Get It Ends With Us in paperback now for $10.39.

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Review: Chakra Healing for Vibrant Energy

Twice a year, I give myself a literary-based reset. Around my birthday and New Year’s Day (both the starts of new years), I reflect on where I’ve been the last year and where I want to go in the next year, and I rely on a book to inspire me to make move toward those goals. For my birthday this year, I read Chakra Healing, hoping it would, in fact, help to heal me further in a spiritual way.

A lot of my spiritual healing and growth happened in the years immediately after my dad died after I moved away far from home, landing a job I didn’t love. I underwent 200 and then another 300 hours of yoga teacher training and spent two years learning much more about myself than I ever did previously in therapy. Learning about the chakras was one of my favorite parts of that teacher training. The chakras may sound a little “woo-woo” to those outside the yoga world, but there is a scientific component to them. The chakras are the energy centers of the body, the locations where many of our nerves and energy lines intersect. Combined, they work as a force. Even those who don’t know what chakras are inadvertently talk about them all the time. Anytime you find yourself saying something like “I had a gut feeling” or “my mind and my heart want two different things” or “I have butterflies in my stomach,” you are referencing different chakras. Gut feeling = third chakra. Mind = seventh chakra. Heart = fourth chakra. Butterflies in stomach = third chakra.

Michelle S. Fondin’s book Chakra Healing for Vibrant Energy was perfect offering for resetting where I want to be. It not only refreshed my memory of what I learned about the chakra in my yoga teacher training, but it went even deeper, not only explaining the meaning of each chakra but also offering tangible things one can do to revive the energy in each chakra. Each chapter focuses on a different chakra and explains where that chakra is located in the body, what it controls, how to know if that particular chakra is off-balance for you and what you can do to re-balance it. In reading her book, I learned my second chakra (the sacral chakra, which focuses on ease) and my fifth chakra (the throat chakra, which focuses on how you speak and use your voice honestly and appropriately) are the most out of wack. Those imbalances, according to Fondin, show themselves in the form of being reactive, getting bogged down in dark emotions and talking too much, replacing speaking by yelling or crying or speaking to convince rather than inspire. I love that the book points these out.

All too often, self-help books tell a person what to do. But the author it writing this advice blindly, without knowing the reader’s personal and particular problems. But this book, unlike many others, states: “hey, if this is what you’re struggling with, do this. But if this is what you’re dealing with, do this.” That the suggestions are so implementable — journaling! dietary changes! meditating! — the book feels like it truly does help. It suggests focusing on one chakra at a time — maybe one a day, or one a month, so you can do a fully body healing over seven months. I love that idea and think I’ll re-read the book in bits here and there so I can do a deep dive on each chakra, giving myself more time to grow and focus on the healing I feel I really need.

Get Chakra Healing in paperback for $9.79.

Or on your Kindle for $9.30.

Review: Ugly Love

Recap: When Tate Collins moves in with her brother, Corbin, she anticipates she’ll have to share space with him and his friends, focus on school and work and make friends with classmates. All that is true. What she doesn’t anticipate is coming home to find a drunk friend of her brother’s outside their apartment, who she then has to drag to a couch. He’s a messy drunk and upset, sad about an ex. Tate is annoyed. This isn’t exactly what she signed up for. When she learns this drunk friend is a guy named Miles who not only works with her brother, but also lives down the hall, she realizes she’s going to be spending a lot of time with him.

And suddenly that’s not so bad. Every time they’re together, she feels an electric pull toward him and his eyes always starting deeply at her, almost through her. It’s not long before it becomes clear she must have Miles. So when he makes a move, another move, a smile, Tate starts to lose it. Before she knows it, the two of them can’t keep their hands off each other. All of this is kept secret from their mutual connection, Corbin, of course. And it’s not officials because Miles refuses to be in a relationship. In fact, he refuses to allow himself to fall in love. Tate thinks she can “handle” this, but of course she can’t.

As this “A” plotline is happening, a separate “B” plotline is underway too, as the book switches narrators. Tate narrates her relationship with Miles, while Miles narrates the story of his relationship with his ex from six years ago, eventually leading up to the reason he is the way he is; aka: completely blocked off from love and any kind of meaningful relationship.

Analysis: Ugly Love is one of the first books I read in a while that feels like a through and through “romance” novel. In fact, the only thing I can compare it to is Fifty Shades of Grey, which…would we really classify that as a romance novel anyway? Regardless, I stand by Colleen Hoover, despite all the flack she gets. Her writing: not the best. Her tropes: many are pretty obvious and have been done time and time again. But the sex scenes are sexy! And the woman can write a good twist. I thought I figured out why Miles was so closed off to love with Tate, and I was 95% of the way there, but I still didn’t figure out that last five percent. I still found myself destroyed when I learned what happened to him. And ultimately, I was so compelled by the story, I couldn’t put the book down. For me, plot trumps everything, even mediocre writing and weak female protagonists. Which is exactly what I found Tate to be. I wanted her to be stronger. I wanted her to speak up against Miles and his assholery even more. But if Hoover is going for realism in that respect, she pretty much hit the nail on the head because I think most women would want to hold onto a guy like Miles even if the situation was messed up. Particularly women in their early 20’s like this character is portrayed. Verity was the book that made me understand why people liked Colleen Hoover, but Ugly Love is the book that made me realize why people stick with her.

MVP: Miles. He’s mysterious. He’s an asshole. But in the world of mysterious assholes who women date and try to fix, he’s one that actually is fixed! And it stems from his own willingness to step outside his comfort zone and grow. Respect.

You can get Ugly Love in paperback for $10.34.

Or on your Kindle for $11.99.