Colleen Hoover’s novel, It Ends With Us, was the best-selling print book in the United States in 2023, with 1.29 million copies flying off the shelves. Number two on the list? Colleen Hoover’s It Starts With Us, the sequel.

It hasn’t been long since Colleen Hoover emerged as the #BookTok queen and queen of beach reads extraordinaire. Now, the book most responsible for her name and fame is getting a film adaptation. Blake Lively is all set to play the part of the eccentric protagonist, Lily Bloom.

The casting announcement for the movie adaptation of It Ends With Us came on January 26. Justin Baldoni also joined the now star-studded cast of the film.

What’s It About

It Ends With Us is the fictional story of Lily Bloom — a recent college graduate struggling to deal with the trauma of her past and the death of her abusive father. She is unwittingly attracted to Ryle — a young neurosurgeon with anger issues that he represses until the two begin seriously dating. Unfortunately, Lily later finds herself recreating the violent patterns of her youth.

When they first meet, Ryle isn’t looking to commit, while Lily wants to find love. They form an almost immediate bond, and as they spend time together, Ryle agrees to a relationship. What follows is a torrid affair. But Ryle’s arrogance hides darker secrets.

Soon, he grows suspicious about Lily’s actions. When her old flame, Atlas, reappears, Ryle accuses her of having an affair. After she reassures him, the pair runs off to Las Vegas to get married.

But Ryle’s jealousy and anger issues get worse. Finally, he confesses that he accidentally shot and killed his sibling as a child. He thinks that was the origin of his repressed aggression problems. Lily forgives him, but for the rest of the story, she struggles to come to terms with Ryle’s actions and her tendency to get tangled in patterns of violence.

What We Know So Far

The Cast

Last year on April 20, the team announced that Brandon Sklenar — of 1923 fame — is ready to play Lily’s old flame, Atlas. Soon, Jenny Slate also joined the cast. She will play another vital character from the book, Allysa, the sister of the male protagonist, Ryle.

Isabela Ferrer joined the cast as young Lily, while Alex Neustaedter plays young Atlas. As of January 2023, Justin Baldoni — of Jane the Virgin fame — has also signed on and is all set to play Ryle.

Casting Lively and Baldoni to play the two protagonists puts Hoover on the spot. After all, Lively is 36, making her casting a significant deviation from the 20-something florist readers meet in the novel. She faced similar issues when Baldoni, 39, signed on to play Ryle, a neurosurgeon. Hoover defended her stance, saying that it was a mistake to make the characters in the book so young.

“I didn’t know that neurosurgeons went to school for 50 years. There’s not a 20-something neurosurgeon,” she explained. “As I started making this movie, I’m like, ‘We need to age them out because I messed up.’ So that’s my fault.”

Release Dates

Last July, Sony Pictures announced the movie would come out on Feb. 9 this year.

This is despite most productions coming to a halt since the Writers Guild went on strike in May. The last time they were seen filming was on June 9, and they were only halfway through production then.

Work resumed in January after the Writers Guild of America strike ended, and Lively had welcomed her fourth child with actor Ryan Reynolds.

As production resumes, Lively made several appearances in the streets of Jersey City, sporting patchwork attire and a bright red wig — the color of Lily’s hair. The studio soon released multiple pictures of Lively and Baldoni as Lily and Ryle shared intimate moments on screen.

The Books That Started It All

Colleen Hoover’s novel originally came out in 2016. It is the first part of a duology that follows the tale of Lily Bloom, a florist from Boston. The second book, written from Atlas’s perspective, tells readers what happens next and expands upon what readers learned from the first installment.

The second book came out in 2022, and that’s when both books shot up in popularity. That year, Hoover’s novel managed to outsell The Bible.

She has her near-obsessive fan following on #BookTok to thank.

All in all, while often people refer to this duology as a romance, that tag itself gets tricky. It is indeed a story of love but also abuse. It explores the dynamics of abusive relationships and sometimes, perhaps unwittingly, romanticizes domestic violence.

This article was produced by Media Decision and syndicated by Wealth of Geeks.

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Ananyaa Bhowmik | Wealth of Geeks