With over one billion tags on TikTok, Colleen Hoover is an force to be reckoned with. Starting her career as a self-published author in 2011, she was soon topping bestseller lists and taking the publishing world by storm.
It Starts With Us follows on from It Ends With Us, the story of Lily as she navigates between her two loves; Ryle and Atlas. It Starts With Us continues with Lily’s story as she navigates these relationships in new and different ways. It is a thoughtful, realistic and bittersweet book on abuse, recovery and finding love again.
Lily is finally free from her ex-husband Ryle, and they are even managing to co-parent their daughter civilly. When she bumps into her first love Atlas again, they can finally explore what could have been. But Ryle is still in her life and he hates Atlas. Lily is caught once again between the two men in her life, between her past and present.
Split between the dual perspectives of Atlas and Lily, this book explores their growing relationship, their struggles to find each other and a way to find a way for their love to suceed.
Although at times, this books reads as a sort of epilogue to It Ends With Us, it is a heartwarming story of two people’s recovery from trauma, abuse and heartbreak. It is at its heart a love story; Lily and Atlas has to fight to keep their relationship alive and it is a joy to follow it on the page.
