Finished: It Ends With Us (Hoover) The first book in a long, long time that I've read in one day. I don't really want to give a detailed recap or really state any spoilers, because this is a book that just needs to be read and page-turned as the layers unfold. But...I guess I'm going to recap, so beware of spoilers, lol. Lily Bloom is a 23 year old college graduate, finally moved away from home, living and working in Boston. We meet her on the day of her father's death. We also learn that her father was a physically abusive, non-repentant man to her mother the entire time Lily was growing up. Lily's entire life is shaped by these experiences. One thing she is certain of....a weight has been lifted from her shoulders as her father's death has allowed her to finally move away from her mother's home in Maine and onto her own life. On the night of her father's death, she is up on the rooftop terrace of another building when she first meets Ryle Corrigan, a brilliant, handsome neurosurgery resident with childhood demons of his own. They have a very deep conversation that night, being completely truthful with each other. Ryle never wants a relationship....one night stands for him only. Lily wants to find Mr. Perfect. Obviously they aren't meant to be together, they say, but they are extremely attracted to each other. Before they can act on their attraction, Ryle is called into an emergency and the strangers say goodbye. It's six months before they run into each other again. Meanwhile, we get glimpses of Lily's teenage years as she re-reads her old letters to Ellen that she had written and never sent when she was fifteen. Yes, Ellen DeGeneres. We see how Lily is emotionally abused by her father's physical abuse of her mother. The most important thing we learn is that Lily literally saves the life of an eighteen year old high school classmate who she realizes is living in the abandoned house behind their property...a house with no electricity or running water. Lily leaves food on the porch one night, and when she sees the boy, Atlas, on the bus the next day he thanks her. They develop an incredibly close bond and come to trust each other explicitly. Lily lets Atlas shower and eat in her house each afternoon before her parents get home. He tells her that his stepfather, who his mother recently married, kicked him out of the house after a fight. Since he was eighteen, he had no options but to make his own way. (It's very sad. :-( ) Lily and Atlas fall in love and after she turns sixteen, they consummate their relationship....only once. The next day Atlas must leave to live with an uncle in Boston who has been made privy to his plight. And besides, Atlas is going to enlist in the military so he tells Lily to go to college, live her life, and if he ever is able to stand on his own two feet and feel like he's worthy of a life with her, he will come for her. So, heartbroken Lily goes on with her life. She does go to college, dates other guys, gets a job, etc. When she meets Ryle the night of her father's death, she hasn't heard from Atlas in eight years. Six months after meeting Ryle, Lily has finally been brave enough to open her own florist shop in Boston. She luckily meets, Alyssa, an enthusiastic, rich young woman who is bored at home and wants to help her make the shop a success through hard work. Of course, Alyssa ends up being Ryle's sister. Ryle and Lily meet back up and fall deeply in love. He breaks his phobia about having a relationship and they even get married. Sadly, shortly after they're married, Ryle burns his prominent surgical hand while taking a casserole out of the oven, which then shatters on the floor. Lily laughs at the mess and Ryle goes into a rage!! :-( He lashes out and pushes Lily causing her to hit her head. She's in shock that her husband has just been violent with her. All she can think about is her own father. Ryle begs her to forgive him and swears he just lashed out in pain and anger. She loves him so much, and blames herself for laughing, so she stays. It's a complicated story, which involves her running back into Atlas who has actually opened his own restaurant in Boston! He sees her happy with Ryle, though, and doesn't do anything to encourage her to be with him. It also turns out that Atlas did come to find Lily in college, but again, saw her across the campus with her then boyfriend, so he left her to be happy. Ryle finds out that Atlas has given Lily his number and that she didn't tell him and he goes into another rage. They are fighting near the stairs and he pushes her and she falls down the stairs. This time he begs her forgiveness again and tells her that he has been seeing a therapist since he was six years old because when he was six, he accidentally shot and killed his older seven year old brother. It was a traumatic experience and to this day he has blackouts sometimes and lashes out in anger. Lily says she will stay with him if they can make a plan to realize when something is upsetting him that he walks away and cools off for awhile and then comes back and they talk about things. This plan works out for their next fight, but not the next one. :-( Lily and Ryle love each other so very much, but after the third time, Lily says no more. Of course, right at that moment, she finds out she's pregnant. Ryle goes to do a neurosurgery fellow in England for three months, and when he gets back, he finds out Lily is pregnant. During his absence, we hear Lily's thoughts, hopes, dreams, regrets. She realizes that she always judged her mother for never leaving her father, but now she sees that you may know logically that you should leave someone who is hurting you, but how do you fall out of love with that person? And, what if that person truly loves you and is truly remorseful, but strikes out in anger because of a deeper problem? Lily realizes that Ryle is nothing like her father, who was never remorseful and always mean. Ryle doesn't pressure her to come back, but lets her know that he'd like them to have a life as a family. After they have their new baby daughter, Lily realizes she can't put her daughter in the same position that she was in as a child. She wants her daughter to love her father and not hate him, like she did hers. For this reason, and because she knows that she truly can't go back to this man she loves, but who she is afraid of, she tells Ryle they must divorce. Thus the title of the book, It Ends With Us. In the epilogue, 11 months later, they are sharing custody of little Emmy and getting along fine. And...Lily runs into Atlas again and it looks like maybe they will have a future after all. It's long and complicated, and I guess I did give a detailed recap, but nothing like the story was. It was a really good book, but heartbreaking. The characters were all so well done that it was really hard to hate Ryle. I mean, it was much easier to sympathize with what he went through as a child and hope that he could still get help to overcome his anger issues. A book that really makes you think about things, that's for sure!