Living a life that you tried your best to avoid is one of the greatest failures a person can experience. 

  Whether it’s not being able to make ends meet, or addition if you’ve seen your loved ones struggle with in the past. Most people want to be their parents when they are older, they are their heroes and greatest role models. 

  For Lily, that is partly true. In Colleen Hoovers It Ends With Us, she portrayed the hardships of love, and how you will be willing to give up every rule that you have lived by for second chances. 

  Growing up, Lily had a typical suburban life that a lot of people live everyday: public school, her own bedroom, friends. She even had loving parents, or she thought. 

  When Lily first saw her dad hit her mom, it was heartbreaking. She thought they had a loving relationship, and she couldn’t believe that her father would ever put his hands on the women he was supposed to protect for the rest of his life.

  But she was even more disgusted that her mom wouldn’t stick up for herself. She envied her mom for being a weak woman and for letting her husband push her around. 

  From then on, Lily promised that if anyone ever hurt her that she would leave. It didn’t matter how intoxicated they were or how sorry they were, she would be gone. 

  One day when Lily was getting on the bus, she noticed a boy. She had seen this boy around a few times, but she never talked or even looked twice at him. This changed when he saw this boy walk into the abandoned house next to hers.

  Lily was confused to say the least because nobody had lived in that house in years. Over the next few days, she continuously saw this teenager stay overnight in the house next to hers. 

  Lily grew concerned because it was starting to get cold outside, and this house had no heat or running water. She knew that he probably hadn’t showered in a few weeks, so she decided when her parents weren’t home to bring him some hot chocolate and offer him a shower. 

  As she knocked on the back door, it slowly opened to reveal the most beautiful boy Lily has ever seen. Next thing she knew, the boy she now knew as Atlas was in her shower. 

     Fast forward a couple of months, and Atlas and Lily were best friends. They hung out everyday after school while her parents were at work, and every night after they went to bed, Atlas snuck through Lily’s window and slept in a makeshift bed on her floor. 

  Lily was falling for this guy, fast. She knew it, too. She wanted to make a move, but she didn’t want to mess up the relationship with her best friend. 

  She found the courage to tell Atlas how she felt, and Atlas felt the same. Now, Lily and Atlas had to sneak in their makeout sessions before her parents came home. Atlas also loved to make Lily cookies, so whenever Lily asked, he made them right away. 

  Sadly, all good things come to an end, and Atlas broke the news to Lily that his uncle in Boston was willing to take him in. That meant that they would be spit up. Before he left, he gave Lily a magnet that had the words, “Everything’s Better In Boston.”

  After Lily graduated highschool, she moved out to Boston. She just felt like she had this connection to Boston. 

  Her father has died, and she was working on her relationship with her mother. In order to do this, Lilly felt she needed to be independent and by herself, away from the woman who caused her an abundant amount of trauma.

  Lily was new to the city, living in a tiny apartment. trying to figure out what she wanted to do with her life. sShe wandered to the rooftop of a random building, and while she was sitting on the edge, she heard commotion from the other side of the roof. 

  There she saw a man in the midst of a temper tantrum. He was throwing chairs, punching walls, and clearly feeling distraught. Lily decided to make herself known, and when the man saw her, he realized what he was doing and calmed down. 

  Lily and this man started to talk. She wanted to know why he was about to break the chairs, and he wanted to know why it looked like she was about to jump off a sky high building. 

  They got to talking and before they knew it they were talking for hours. By the end of the night the two ended up parting ways because Ryle, whose name Lily learned sometime in their long talk, was only looking for a casual fling, while Lily was looking for a relationship. 

  Six months later, Lily was thriving in her business. She opened up her own flower show — a dream of hers ever since she was a little kid. 

  While she was moving into the store, a woman around her age walked in, and asked if she could help. When Lily said she didn’t know if she needed an employee yet, the woman, Allysa, told Lily that she didn’t need to be paid. Her and her husband were very well off; she just wanted something to do. 

  Weeks later Allysa intouced Lily to her brother, and there he was. The man that she had met six months ago on top of a random rooftop in the middle of Boston. 

  After they reconnected, Ryle gave up his “I don’t do relationships’’ mindset for Lily, and they got engaged. They almost had the perfect relationship. That was until one drunken night when Ryle hit Lily. 

   Lily didn’t know what to do. She had promised herself that if anyone ever hurt her she would leave, no second chances. 

  But after Lily kicked Ryle out that night, he was still on the front step of their apartment waiting for Lily. Apology after apology, Lily didn’t know what to do. 

  Was he just drunk? Was it an accident? 

  In the end, Lily loses the battle to her better self and forgives Ryle. 

  With a cut on her lip, and Ryle’s hand taped, the pair was at a fancy restaurant named BIB eating dinner with Ryle’s sister, Alyssa and her husband. Nobody comments on her lip, but when the chef comes to serve the couples the food, Lily had never been so shocked. 

  Atlas was standing right infront of her. The man she had loved, heck still loved, was three feet away. 

  But Atlas wasn’t paying attention to her reaction. He was paying attention to the cut on her lip, and the bandage on Ryle’s hand. He knew what happened; he wasn’t stupid — anyone could see it. Without another word, he walked away. 

  Lily has to decide what she is going to do. She has a husband who loves her and treats her well, most of the time. But the love of her life had literally just walked through the doors. 

  Lily needs to figure out what she wants, because Atlas was ready for Lily now, financially and emotionally. With more secrets, Lily needs to make a decision. 

  Personally, the ending of this book to me is the best. I feel like everyone would be shocked, just as I was when reading. 

  I was so hooked that I finished it in one day. The overall book has a good life lesson and important topics that aren’t discussed enough. Colleen Hoover did an excellent job hooking the readers and keeping them interested.