A film adaptation of a book by a bestselling writer
In 2023, three of Colleen Hoover’s books made it into the top ten best-selling books in the US (a list compiled by Publishers Weekly). It Ends with Us came in first, It Starts with Us came in second, and Verity came in ninth. The year before, Hoover’s top ten was even better, with six of her books making it to the top ten, and It Ends with Us came in at the top again.
First published in 2016, the book has enjoyed, as you can see, a steady stream of interest from readers. In the year of the novel’s publication, Hoover founded the Colleen Hoover’s CoHorts Facebook group (because the writer herself is sometimes called CoHo), which follows the rules of “being nice to each other” and “showing mutual respect”. Today, the group has over 213,000 members, but the author is also active in other social media. After all, she is called the “queen of TikTok”, where she has amassed over 1.3 million followers and where over 360,000 videos have been dedicated to her so far. In turn, the writer is followed by 2 million people on Instagram. The author of “It Ends with Us” likes to share on her social media not only information about new books and events related to them, but also snippets from her everyday, non-professional life.
Delight or criticism
Hoover also uses her popularity in various ways: she is one of the founders (the other two are her sisters) of the Book Bonanza festival in Texas, and thanks to the money she earned from selling books, she was able to financially support her mother, including by buying a car. A mother who experienced domestic violence, like the main character of the novel, Lily Bloom. Because although Colleen Hoover is a popular writer, she is also criticized. In 2022, the author was named one of the 100 most influential people in the world by Time magazine, but – as journalist Jenna Bush Hager, who wrote a text about Hoover in the aforementioned magazine on this occasion, noted – “not everyone may like Hoover’s work.”
“It Ends with Us” presents the story of the aforementioned Lily, a twenty-something who opened a flower shop for those who don’t like flowers (pop-up stores based on the one in the book were opened in the US and the UK to promote the film) and fell in love with neurosurgeon Ryle Kincaid. And everything would be perfect, if not for the fact that over time Ryle shows another face – an abusive person. And these behaviors are well known to Lily from her childhood – her mother experienced violence from her father and as a daughter she couldn’t understand why the woman stayed in this relationship, hoping that the attacks wouldn’t happen again. Now that she is experiencing the same thing herself, it’s not so easy for her to leave either. But will she decide to do it, especially when Atlas, her safe haven from childhood, appears on the horizon?
It is precisely because of the thread about violence that some criticize Hoover, while others appreciate her for raising this topic. Some see in the book, after all, a romanticization of violence and attempts to explain with “love” the acceptance of what should not be accepted. Others emphasize that there is no such romanticization, that Hoover herself dedicated the book to her mother, she comes from such a family herself and knows that there is nothing to romanticize here. And what about the film?
Blake Lively and Justin Baldoni in the lead roles
And what can we expect from the film, which premieres on August 9? The main roles will be played by Blake Lively and Justin Baldoni. On the one hand, the actors were criticized for being much older than their book counterparts, on the other hand, Baldoni himself is not only the main male actor, but also the director of the film. And this allows us to assume that we do not have to fear the apotheosis of understanding violence in the film. Baldoni is the author of the book “How to Become a Happy Man. Discover the Strongest, Best, and Bravest Version of Yourself”, in which he addresses primarily adolescent boys, writing that they do not have to fit into the stereotypical vision of masculinity. Baldoni also hosts the podcast “The Men Enough” with Liz Plank, in which they both interview famous (and not only) men about what it means to be a man in a world that is moving away from this traditional perception of gender roles.
Baldoni said this about his role in the film, the role – let us recall – of a character who uses violence against his partner:
During some of the scenes I had to go out and just cry, try to shake off the negative energy. It was too real. Unfortunately, there are a lot of Lily Blooms in the real world and they have to deal with violence every day, and it was hard for me to even shoot scenes that conveyed that violence.
Interestingly, right now, on the occasion of the film, the internet is buzzing with the potential conflict that was supposed to arise between Lively and Baldoni. Lively, as a more famous person in Hollywood, the wife of another actor, Ryan Reynolds, was not supposed to appear at the premiere of the film with Baldoni. Neither she nor Colleen Hoover follow the actor playing Ryan on Instagram, although they did so before. In the background, there are also suspicions that Reynolds tried too hard to influence the shape of Baldoni’s film. However, the rumors about the potential conflict have not been confirmed by either side – neither Baldoni nor Lively have commented on it in any way.
Are you going to see “It Ends with Us” in the cinema?