It Starts With Us

Yesterday while the lights went out, I took that opportunity to finish reading It Starts With Us, the sequel to It Ends With Us, both novels by Colleen Hoover. In It Starts With Us, Ryle and Lily keep a civil relationship for the sake of their daughter Emerson. It’s been almost 2 years being divorced from Ryle, time is on Lily’s side as she agrees to go on a date with her first love Atlas, the one man who will never harm her. The only roadblock is Ryle is still jealous and has a temper holding on to hope that he and Lily will get back together.

Pros

Like the first book It Ends With Us, I really enjoyed It Starts With Us a lot. To be honest I actually thought the sequel was better than the first book and I rarely say that. I rooted for Lily and Atlas to have their happy ending. My favorite part of the novel was the fact that one chapter was from Atlas’s point of view, and the other would be from Lily’s point of view. If I thought Atlas was already a hero in the first book, he became an even better man in this one. Atlas finds out he has a younger brother named Josh and he does everything in his power to give him the childhood he never had just as Lily doesn’t want Emerson going through the same physical abuse she and her mother went through.

Cons

The only thing I didn’t like was the fact that toward the end it seemed to do somewhat of a time skip without warning us because now apparently Josh is 15 instead of 12 like in the majority of the book. I don’t want to spoil anymore for anyone interested in reading.

 Overall

Overall It Starts With Us is a worthy sequel to It Ends With Us. Even if It Ends With Us would have been fine without a sequel, the sequel is a good one. I’m now hoping to read a third sequel because there’s a lot I would love to see happen. Colleen Hoover has become a new favorite author and I can’t wait to read more from her.