:INFO
The Book That Is Not What the Discourse Says It Is
It Ends With Us is shelved in romance and recommended like a romance, but the novel is fundamentally about a woman coming to understand that she is in an abusive relationship and finding the strength to leave it. Colleen Hoover is honest about the way abuse presents itself: charming and then frightening and then apologetic. The discourse around this book, particularly around the love interest, says something important about how we read stories about harm.


:NOW
Still thinking about whether the ending is hopeful or just true

:QUOTE [quotetype:plain, subtitle:Colleen Hoover]
We are products of our upbringing and responsible for what we do with that knowledge.


:JOURNEY
Reading It Ends With Us
4 Necessary weight
5 Precise about harm
5 Why it matters
5 No easy route

:NOTE
Reading this as a romance where you are meant to choose between the love interests is a misreading. It is a book about the cost and the necessity of leaving.


:POLL
How do you classify It Ends With Us?
A book about domestic abuse that happens to include a love story
A romance novel that handles a serious subject
A contemporary novel that defies easy classification
I have not read it yet