Hello everybody. Hello @HiveBookClub and welcome back to my mini series of Reading a Book Everyday for 7 Days. I wasn't able to post this entry on time yesterday because there was an emergency in the house and I just decided to read a book for the rest of the day. Anyway, if you are curious to my fifth book for this challenge without a further ado dive in and I'll show you.

The last book, Verity is a mind-bending and clever psychological thriller story. So, for today I decided to go back to contemporary romantic genre of CoHo's collection. "It Ends With Us" is a novel about a young woman named Lily who has recently moved and is getting ready to begin her life after college. Lily then meets Ryle and falls in love with him. Atlas, Lily's first love, reappears and tests Lily and Ryle's relationship because she develops feelings for him.

If ever I would picked my favorite points in the story it would be the following:

The story talks about a sensitive and difficult subject of domestic violence which is also happening in our society. According to WHO, one in every three (30%) women has experienced physical and/or sexual intimate relationship abuse or non-partner sexual violence at some point during their lives. It is sad that we are living in a kind of world where other people are so entitled to think that they have the right to hurt us and what's worse is that when the pain comes from the least person we expected to cause it. This is the exact thing that happened in the book. Ryle who happens to have an unresolve childhood trauma sometimes blackout and ended up physically hurting Lily. Lily being someone who have witnessed her mom being a victim of domestic abuse, swore that she will never be like her who endured everything and choose to stay for a long time. She gave a couple of times to forgive Ryle and then she decided that she doesn't want her child to suffer and experience her childhood so she decided to cut her romantic ties with him.

Growing up, I watch numerous of anectodes, documentaries and movies of domestic violence whether towards a man or woman. Plus, I have seen and heard someone who had been emotionally and physically abused and it kinda scares me because what if it will happen to me. At first they never thought that someone they love is capable of inflicting that kind of pain and the moment it happen they wanted to understand what's the reason behind it or even wanted to work things out. But whatever the reason is I don't think abuse will be ever justified. There would be no valid excuse as to why someone hits, punch and kick you even if they said they are in pain or broken because if that's the case we are all in pain (varying degrees) but some folks never hurt others.

My sentiments today greatly differs than before. I still remember when I was teenager, I was reading a book and the male lead is an example of a walking red flag. As I go through the story, I was hoping that he would change for the female lead and he did but prior to that the (massive) damage has already been done emotionally and physically. I was genuinely happy that they ended up but if I am going to meet my teenage self then, I would probably smack the sh*t out her. Which is why, I love that Lily and Ryle did not end up and Lily gave another chance for the love she felt towards Atlas. She is willing to enter a relationship even after what happen because if I am going to be on her shoes, I don't think I find myself in a relationship again. Yes, Atlas may be a great guy and had already a connection with Lily before but still my trust issues can't relate. But I guess, that's what CoHo wants to convey that we as a human made mistakes and these will not be the basis of our character but it would be on how we learn from them.

So far this is my fifth CoHo book and right off the bat I must say that this is my most favorite. I love how she draws the line between romance and abuse because sometimes authors tend to overlook this element. Sometimes, they put so much conflict, harship and difficulties to the main characters until they lose the basic morals and logic at the end. There are times that I hope Ryle would change for the better but neither for their relationship nor for Lily. I want it for himself, for his own character development. I admit that I am a sucker of romance. As I wanted things to work for them but the moment he started physically hurting Lily, I know for sure that I no longer wanted him for her. He needs to fix himself or else he is going to ruin the both of them. And my guy Atlas, he is so patient. He is a rare breed to be honest. If you wanted to know the details and to make this a sense then, I would highly recommend this book to teenagers, young adults and adults. There are so much words being unwritten in this post so start reading "It Ends With Us". Ciao, book lovers!