I can understand why this book got so famous. I am in no place to judge or critically analyse a book on DV. I can only share what it made me feel. It was so painful and heartbreaking to see Lily go through that during her childhood and then in her own marriage. Lily and her mother’s conversation towards the end tore my heart apart. The whole discussion of what your limit is! It was powerful. I truly believe something - “It doesn’t matter whether you leave the 1st time or the 576884th time. What matters that you left!” 

But having said that I have some issues with this book and some of the narrative. 

The quote - “There is no such thing as bad people. We’re all just people who sometimes do bad things.” In any other story, I would have let it go. But not when the theme is DV. While it is true that you cannot categorise people in boxes all the time but to say this in a book where the man Lily loved and the said man loved her too, had physically abused her and where Lily’s mother had been physically abused throughout her married life, is just absurd and trying to be all philosophical unnecessarily! We humans become good and bad because of our choices! We could have a traumatic past or we could have a healthy past, you can factor all those and still I will say it our choices which makes us what we are. Because not everyone with an abusive or traumatic experience ends up doing bad shit. If we can categorise and label actions as good, bad, kind, violent etc. then why can’t we label the people doing those actions by the same adjectives?! Throughout the book and till the acknowledgment, Colleen Hoover had uphold this saying and that made me mad. So my version of the quote would be - Bad people choose to do bad things. 

Another aspect which bothered me was how many times Lily kept telling that her choosing not to forgive Ryle was hurting him beyond anything and how regretful he was and that he was repenting every day. It can be seen as that no matter how much Ryle repents, that his actions had long lasting effect and he shouldn’t have done all this in the first place. I was so proud of Lily when her rage broke upon him. But honestly driving the same point home so many times only gave Ryle redeemable points and somewhere a girl reading this definitely will think or would have thought that she could have changed Ryle. 

Third aspect that bothered me was how Ryle didn’t understand what CONSENT means. Lily said him NO so many times but dude continuously violated her personal space and did pathetic begging just so Lily would sleep with him! And nowhere in the story was it shown even once about how WRONG it was! 

But mostly what bothered me was the fact that the reason Lily chose to leave Ryle was because she didn’t want her daughter seeing how Ryle abused her. She didn’t want her daughter knowing how her father beat her mother around and lose respect for him. I am sad that Lily didn’t leave Ryle for herself. That she deemed Ryle’s image as a father more important than her dignity and the fact that she deserves to be loved the right away. The last few lines completely negates every powerful thing Lily’s mother said to her. And as usual Ryle had to be made understood that leaving him is the right choice by using his daughter as an example because men simply do not comprehend a women’s POV unless his sister/mother/daughter/wife is brought into it! 

I won’t go into the writing of this book. It was better than the other stuffs she wrote except some really tacky dialogues. 

Lastly one part of the author note - “Because of this, I have utmost respect for parents who don’t involve children in the dissolution of their marriage.” I want to say that if someone chooses to involve their kids in their dissolution of marriage then they are completely okay to do that. I am in no position to judge her that despite seeing how her father behaved with her mother, she chose to keep a good relationship with her father. And I want to say if someone chooses not to do that then that’s okay too.