67 pages • 2 hours read
Colleen HooverIt Ends with Us
Fiction | Novel | Adult | Published in 2016A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more. For select classroom titles, we also provide Teaching Guides with discussion and quiz questions to prompt student engagement.
Chapters 1-4Chapter Summaries & Analyses
Chapter 1 Summary
Lily Bloom, a 23-year-old college graduate currently in Boston, has given an eulogy at her father’s funeral hours ago, in her hometown of Plethora, Maine. Currently, she has decided to stand at the ledge of a twelve-story building to be alone with her thoughts. A young man’s entrance to the rooftop patio interrupts her musings. She witnesses as he vents his anger violently on a chair and recalls her own father’s rages. When the young man finishes he finally sees Lily, asking her to come down. As they talk, we learn his name is Ryle Kincaid, and that he is studying to become a neurosurgeon. He is there because his sister owns a floor in the building. Lily confesses that she doesn’t live in the building herself, that she is there because she appreciates the rooftop patio. It’s the closest she can come in Boston to her hobby of gardening, a hobby she wants to pursue by opening her own floral shop.
Their conversation continues, Ryle telling Lily he just saw a boy die, shot accidentally by his 6-year-old brother, who had found their parents’ gun. Lily mentions that her father was abusive and that in her eulogy she suggested there was nothing good she could say about him, to which Ryle replies, “There is no such thing as bad people. We’re all just people who sometimes do bad things” (17). She also tells Ryle the story of the first boy she slept with; this boy was homeless. Throughout the conversation, Lily makes clear her attraction to Ryle. For his part, Ryle admits he wants to sleep with Lily, but is uninterested in a relationship. This puts them at odds, since Lily doesn’t want a fling. As Ryle attempts to seduce her, he is called in to work. He takes a picture of her and departs.
Chapter 2 Summary
One day later, Lily is back in her apartment alone, looking through mementos, when her mother calls. Her mother tells her that she shouldn’t be embarrassed about the eulogy she gave, thinking that Lily’s inability to speak after telling the audience that she was about talk about great aspects of her father was the result of nerves. Lily decides to let her mother continue thinking this. After she hangs up she continues looking through mementos until she finds some boxes with eight or nine notebooks. These are her “Ellen diaries,” diaries that she wrote as letters to the comedian Ellen DeGeneres, whose talk show Lily had watched since it began airing. Since her father’s death, Lily has found herself thinking about her past. She hopes that in rereading her diaries, she might “find a little strength for forgiveness” (30).
She begins her diary from when she was 15 years old, around the time that she met a boy named Atlas Corrigan. In her first entry, she writes of her awareness that a nearby house visible from her window, which was long thought to be empty, seems to have someone in it. She discovers a boy sneaking out from there with a backpack and sees him at her bus. In the next entry, she mentions that the mysterious boy is a senior at her school named Atlas. Lily is worried about the boy, who has no access to running water or food, and leaves him food at the abandoned house. He thanks her the next day and asks if she told anyone about him. Lily indicates she didn’t and asks him why he is living at the abandoned house. She learns that his parents don’t want him living with them. Lily feels sympathy for him, along with a budding attraction she doesn’t seem aware of, when she states, “It wasn’t because I was scared to touch him. I mean I was scared to touch him. But not because I was better than him. He just made me so nervous” (38). She invites him to use the shower at her house and gives him a change of clothing and more food. When he leaves, Lily mentions feeling curious about his situation and wanting to know more. In the present day, when Lily is done reading her entries, she receives another call from her mother, telling her that she will be moving to Boston, a decision that makes Lily feel “like [her] wings were just clipped” (39).
Chapter 3 Summary
Six months later, Lily shows her mother the building she has bought for her flower shop. She has quit her job at a marketing firm to pursue her dream, a choice her mother appears ambivalent about. As Lily speaks with her mother, a young woman walks in and introduces herself as Allysa. Allysa had noticed a help wanted sign and has come to see what the business is about. Lily’s mother leaves, and Lily tells Allysa she didn’t put the sign up, and that she only bought the building, but Allysa is enthusiastic when Lily mentions that she plans to open a flower shop. She offers to work for Lily for free. Lily decides to hire her on the spot and they begin cleaning out the space. Lily decides to differentiate herself by making unconventional flower arrangements, emphasizing darker colors to “take risks” and be “bold and brave” (45). As Lily is arranging crates, she falls and twists her foot. Allysa calls her husband, who is at a nearby bar, and has her brother—who is with her husband—come to Lily’s store.
Allysa’s brother turns out to be Ryle, who remembers Lily from the rooftop patio six months before. He tends to her foot, and Lily confesses that she thinks about him. For his part, Ryle still wants to sleep with her, but they continue at odds since Lily remains uninterested in a casual affair. Allysa witnesses Ryle telling Lily he wants to sleep with her and is outraged by her brother. Since there is no future between them, Lily tells Ryle not to flirt with her. Allysa suggests Ryle take Lily home, but he declines. Lily takes herself home, reflecting that because of his connection to Allysa, this probably won’t be the last time she sees Ryle.
Chapter 4 Summary
Lily gets home after her encounter with Ryle and since she can’t work due to her sprained ankle, she turns back to her diaries. The first entry she reads narrates how Atlas brings her gardening tools as thanks for the clothes and food she provided for him before. Atlas mentions wanting to help her with gardening, and they continue talking. Lily invites him to watch Ellen’s show with her before her parents return from work. The next diary entry describes them continuing watching the show together for weeks. Lily ends by mentioning how her father assaults her mother and how she resents her mother for allowing it. Her next entry describes her anger at how her father continues to abuse her mother and how her mother tries to hide it from her. She goes to see Atlas and he comforts her. Lily realizes he has had a clear view of her room. In the present day, Lily reflects that reading about Atlas saddens her while thinking about Ryle makes her both “mad and sad” (66). She prefers to think about Allysa, her new friend.
Chapters 1-4 Analysis
It Ends with Us begins by grappling with the past through the back and forth between present and future that shapes the novel. We see this with the introduction of Lily Bloom as she thinks of her father, Andrew Bloom, whose funeral Lily has just attended. Her resentment towards her father prompts her to stay purposely silent when she is called upon to give an eulogy. She thinks of her father, too, as she sees Ryle Kincaid vent his anger on a chair, and eventually will broach her feelings towards her father to him. Ryle brings up one of the novel’s themes when he mentions that there are no good or bad people, only “people who sometimes do bad things” (17). During this conversation, Lily will mention having slept with a homeless boy and how her father beat him when he found out. To try to reach some peace with her father, Lily will turn to her old diaries, but finds herself drawn into the story of her encounter with Atlas Corrigan, the homeless boy she’d told Ryle she had slept with. She will reflect on how she felt free once her father was diagnosed with cancer and couldn’t hurt her mother. Her move to Boston and her opening of her flower shop with her inheritance represents a fresh start for Lily. Not only does the shop provide Lily with the opportunity to be creative and do something new through unique flower arrangements, but the shop is also where Lily meets Allysa and Marshall, as well as how she encounters Ryle again.
The entries that we are shown contrast the relationship between Lily and Atlas and the relationship unfolding in present day between Lily and Ryle. In her entries, Lily doesn’t recognize her budding attraction to Atlas, whereas as an adult, this is one of the aspects that Lily emphasizes in her interactions with Ryle. Another contrast appears in the reciprocity present in how Lily and Atlas engage with each other. While Ryle and Lily’s initial encounter stresses the different orientations they have with respect to relationships, the fact remains that when they meet again, Lily and Atlas’s relationship begins with Lily helping Atlas with food, clothing, and letting him shower, and in return he gifts her gardening tools. As they continue spending time with each other and Lily continues helping Atlas, Atlas becomes a source of comfort for Lily, especially after she witnesses her father hit her mother.
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By Colleen Hoover
