A veces, quien más te quiere es quién más daño te hace.

Lily no siempre lo ha tenido fácil. Por eso, su idílica relación con un magnífico neurocirujano llamado Ryle Kincaid, parece demasiado buena para ser verdad. Cuando Atlas, su primer amor, reaparece repentinamente y Ryle comienza a mostrar su verdadera cara, todo lo que Lily ha construido con él se ve amenazado.

Do not misunderstand my rating, I did not love this book.

I picked it up thinking it’s gonna be another romance novel. I wanted something light after reading a 700 page classic retelling. I picked this up.

There are things that I liked about this book. As someone who can understand the impact domestic violence and abuse can have on someone, I was able to understand why some women (or men or non binary person) find it hard to walk away from their abuser.
I liked that it tried to make us understand that we tend to shift the blame towards the victim of the abuse for staying than towards the perpetrator of the abuse. I loved the character Atlas and the protagonist’s relationship with her mom.

My issue however was that, walking away from the relationship, as hard as it could be, is not the only thing that someone on the receiving end has to do. I believe that a victim of abuse doesn’t just magically turn out okay the moment the perpetrator vanishes. Throughout the book, the main character Lily, who clearly has been through a lot in her life as well as her mother, who was a victim of abuse, have not been seeking help from a doctor. Towards the end they just magically get happy by dating “good” guys?

Are emotionally available and kind people equivalent to required mental health?

I believed that Lily, her mom and the male character Ryle, all of them needed help.

I also did not see any sort of depth in Ryle and Lily’s relationship which makes me wonder if Lily is just attracted to his toxic and arrogant personality.

As the author herself is someone who (as she shared in her notes) has been a victim of abuse. I failed to understand how she could be marketing the very trope that mentally breaks children and family members around the world through other books of hers.

Why are toxic protagonists being romanticised to this date?

I do not get it and I do not think I ever will. It makes my blood boil that authors who have the power to shed light on surviving and mental health issues and have a huge amount of impressionable audience fail to nip it in the bud and stop giving out these “toxic baddies” painted in pretty colours one after the other like a vending machine.

It needs to stop. Years ago, if I read this novel or any other work by Colleen Hoover, I would find it okay considering how I had no clue what a healthy male is like, unfortunately. This is exactly why I’m worried about books like this. ( )

A real emotional roller coaster of a book. Some parts make you smile, some are deeply uncomfortable, and some heartbreaking. ( )

This is a book where I think context matters, and knowing why Colleen Hoover decided to write a story featuring abuse as a major plot point. A worthwhile read, and also one where content warnings at the start of the book would be helpful. ( )

I wanted to see what all the fuss was about. The story was compulsively readable, but I can't say I liked it. It was a heartbreaking picture of an abusive relationship, but the letters to Ellen and the behavior of Ryle in his early meetings with Lily just felt off to me. At least I know what everyone is raving about now, though it's not for me. ( )