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Themes pain or fear of growing up12/26/2023 ![]() ![]() In It Ends With Us, she points out, there’s intense drama and jealousy between Lily and Ryle. “The themes in her books, while obviously dramatized and created for our entertainment, draw on a lot of what’s actually happening in this world,” says Willow Goldfarb, a Fort Lauderdale, Fla.,-based licensed mental health counselor with Thriveworks, a counseling practice with locations across the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Forty-one percent of women have experienced sexual violence, physical violence, and/or stalking by a partner, according to the U.S. that it’s natural for readers to seek it out in fiction, some experts say. There’s so much violence against women in the U.S. “As human beings, we’re inherently fascinated with each other.” In this case, that eagerness could stem from a desire to relate to people we know who have experienced trauma, or from good old-fashioned voyeurism. “It gives you a lens into different experiences,” Torres-Mackie says. But reading about trauma is appealing for a variety of reasons, one of which is that it helps us learn about the full spectrum of events that make up a life. It might seem counterintuitive that readers would be so eager to inhale uncomfortable books that leave them sobbing and heartbroken. In the past year alone, copies of her books have outsold the Bible. 9 New York Times best sellers list: Verity (43 weeks on the list) and It Ends With Us (68 weeks), both of which were published more than three years ago. Much of her work has experienced a boom in popularity thanks to BookTok, the corner of the video-sharing platform TikTok dedicated to book recommendations. Hoover self-published her first novel, Slammed, in 2012, and has since reliably churned out a couple new books a year. It’s key that such depictions exist “in a way that’s holistic and humanizing and balanced.” Darkness is an inevitable part of life, she stresses: “Reading content like this can feel like a relief within a culture where we’re all supposed to be happy-go-lucky.” Making sense of Colleen Hoover’s appeal However, Torres-Mackie adds, when executed well, trauma has an important place in literature and media. “That just sharing stories could really help change another person’s life-the weight of that is immense, but if I’ve helped one person in any way, that’s something really special.” “I’ve heard from readers who left terrible situations that my books inspired them to do so-that’s the most amazing thing I could ever hope to happen,” she told TIME via email. Hoover recalls even more personal stories from fans. Some readers have noted online that books like It Ends With Us have shifted their perspective on domestic violence, helping them understand why a battered partner might struggle to leave an abuser they still love. It promises to deliver more of Hoover’s signature heartache and ugly tears. It Starts With Us picks up where the novel’s epilogue ends and centers on the relationship between Lily and Atlas. When Lily learns she’s expecting Ryle’s baby, she has to decide whether she’ll continue to tolerate the cycle of abuse she’s been trapped in her entire life. He grows especially jealous and vengeful after Lily reconnects with her first love, Atlas. The novel introduces readers to Lily-a florist who grew up with an abusive father-and her neurosurgeon husband, Ryle, who turns a childhood incident into an excuse for assaulting her. She’s been open about her personal connection to some of the things she writes about: Hoover has said that her father physically abused her mother, and that It Ends With Us was inspired by her mother. ![]() Hoover’s novels probe dark themes: abusive relationships, toxic masculinity, sexual assault, miscarriage, infidelity. ![]()
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