Hello friends! Welcome to another book review! 🌙 I hope everyone is doing great and thank you for taking your time to be here. Today’s review is the second book of It Ends With Us, which is named “It Starts With Us”. After finishing the first book, I needed some form of closure and immediately finished the second one although I saw a lot of negative reviews about this book (some of them were correct if you look objectively), this was a 5 damn ⭐s read for me and I am not even ashamed for being this weak haha. I loved every single part of it (that’s a complete lie, I hated how Ryle was portrayed) and Atlas Corrigan healed my dark romance-stained soul in a way that I cannot even explain. Without mentioning everything too much in the intro and forgetting about my format, let’s get into the review. Since this is the second book, please expect spoilers because… it just would be impossible? Anyways, let’s go!🙋🏻♀️
The book starts exactly where we leave in the first book. Lily and Atlas finally give each other the green lights we and they have been waiting for all their lives and it basically goes from there. Lily and Ryle are now divorced and trying to do their best in co-parenting however Lily doesn’t like the idea of her daughter being alone with Ryle, which has a lot of reasoning behind and while I completely understand, I also do believe that Hoover did what a lot of authors did, made his character (the break-up trauma I call them) a lot more… I do not know. Disappointing? Like in a way that their divorce needed to be justified by him being a complete *asshole* although the divorce already had more than enough reasons to happen? Throughout the book, it felt like Lily made his actions worse and worse for herself, while she needed to move on, she kept going back and forth with his thoughts and opinions and possible reactions. I am saying possible because when the first book ended, Lily was very mature, aware of her worth, and knew what she wanted to do. After all that, the entirety of this book, Hoover made her less sure of herself. I am no psychologist so I do not know whether this is a form of trauma response or something, but it just felt 1 step forward 5 steps back over and over again while trying to solidify her relationship and the second chance with Atlas. Until the second half of the book, she kinda irritated me, but of course, this book has a man named Atlas, so as long as I kept reading about him and his POV, I was just fine and grinning ear to ear like a complete ✨ i d i o t ✨.
During the book, while Lily tries to overcome her fear of Ryle and get used to her new life with one and only Atlas Corrigan, Atlas has a lot on his plate too. Our successful chef eventually opened a second restaurant, and while his life is chaotic as hell, he keeps being the kindest and sweetest of all to those around him. All of a sudden, his restaurants are vandalized by a young-looking boy, who seems to be personally angry with him. Then everything changes. He now has a little brother, who grew up with that horrific mother of theirs. It was a great addition to the book, I loved reading about Atlas, I loved reading his point of view and this man is a walking talking green flag in every possible way. 💕
Both of them work hard, both work what they desire, and they do everything to be as happy as they deserve. I know a lot of people found this book as an addition which wasn’t required, and while I understand where they come from, I am weak for happy books. Yes, there was drama, and yes there were things I didn’t read very happily but overall, I liked reading about their second chance and two main characters who are positive for life, who don’t do anything wrong to each other and love, respect, build the ideal relationship together. Maybe I am just too weak for these kinds of books, who knows?
Did you read It Starts With Us? If so, let me know what you think about it! Until my new post, stay safe friends! ✨
Luster of Books 