“It Ends With Us” by Colleen Hoover is a popular young adult novel that was published in 2016. The novel revolves around the life of Lily Bloom, a young woman and entrepreneur who meets a man and falls in love. Due to Lily’s past, however, her story isn’t a generic “love at first sight” with a simple “happy ever after.” Issues of abuse arise within their relationship, and it is difficult for the character to identify and act on these issues, especially because she was exposed to domestic abuse during her childhood. Similar to Lily, her love interest, Ryle Kincaid, had also experienced abuse as a child. The domestic issues in the lives of these two individuals causes trauma and affects how they act and react, influencing their relationship dynamics.
However, the chain of trauma is broken by Lily Bloom when she decides that her love for another person is not worth passing down this trauma to her future child. The novel depicts the idea that unhealthy relationships and abuse can cause emotional scars that impact the lives of individuals who experience or are exposed to it. Despite the damage that this type of trauma can have on an individual and their life, the novel highlights the feasibility of breaking the chain of intergenerational trauma.