What happens in It Ends With Us? Plot summary and ending explained

5 August 2024, 08:30

By Alice Dear

What happens in It Ends With Us? What is the plot of It Ends With Us? What happens at the end of It Ends With Us mean? All your questions about the best-selling book and new film answered.

It Ends With Us is a bestselling book by Colleen Hoover from 2016 which has now been developed into a film starring Blake Lively as Lily, Justin Baldoni as Ryle and Brandon Sklenar as Atlas.

With the film set to be released on 9th August, the first trailer for the highly-anticipated movie has been released, showing the actors step into the roles for the first time.

For those people who have read the book, the trailer appears to follow the storyline of the book pretty accurately, but for others (who have not read the novel) the plot is not so clear and they are desperate to know what to expect from the film.

So, to help explain, here's a synopsis of It Ends With Us as well as a more in-depth look at the plot of the book.

It Ends With Us Synopsis

It Ends With Us tells the story of Lily Bloom, a woman who grew up in a household where her father abused her mother. When her dreams come true and she finally opens her own florist in Boston, she meets charming neurosurgeon Ryle. The pair fall in love and get married, but their relationship behind closed doors is one of abuse.

When Lily runs into her first love Atlas in a restaurant, Ryle becomes more possessive and violent and Lily is left questioning what to do as she falls into the same abusive relationship as her mother.

It Ends With Us Detailed Plot Summary

Warning: Spoilers for the book and film below

Following her father's funeral, a man she despised due to his violence towards her mother, Lily meets Ryle on a roof where she has come to reflect. Ryle, thinking he is alone, arrives on the roof and throws as chair in anger, also appearing to have had a hard day.

The pair begin to talk and open up to one another, with Ryle, a neurosurgeon, explaining that his anger was due to losing a young patient at work from a gunshot wound after his brother accidentally shot him.

Six months later, Lily uses her inheritance money to open a flower shop which she runs with new-friend Allysa. One day, Ryle enters the flower shop and is revealed to be Allysa's brother. While there is still a spark between them, Lily and Ryle decide to stay away from one another as they want different things.

We then learn about a boy called Atlas as Lily revisits her old journals. Atlas was Lily's first love who she met when she discovered him living in an abandoned house behind her family home. After helping him with clothes and food, the pair become friends and later fall in love.

Atlas reveals that he is moving to Boston, and promises Lily that when he has turned his life around her will come and find her. When her father walks in on Lily with Atlas, however, he beats him with a baseball bat and he is taken away in an ambulance. This was the last time she saw him.

Back to the present day and Ryle pursues Lily, confessing that he has feelings for her. They begin dating, but one night Lily is distracted when she sees Atlas working in a restaurant. When the pair meet for the first time in years, Atlas reveals that he has a girlfriend but admits he wishes he had run into Lily years earlier. Lily keeps her reunion with Atlas from Ryle.

One night while hanging out with Ryle, he burns his hand on a hot dish in the kitchen and Lily laughs. To her horror, Ryle pushes her in anger and she hits her head. He apologises to Lily and she decides to forgive him, however, she tells him that if he is ever violent to her again she will leave him, fearing that she will fall into the same situation her mother did.

While out for dinner one night to celebrate Allysa and her husband Marshall's news that they are having a baby, they run into Atlas who is a chef at the restaurant. When Atlas notices the couple's injuries, he confronts Lily and tells her that she must leave Ryle. After Ryle makes the connection of who Atlas is, he becomes aggressive and ends up being thrown out of the restaurant.

Lily assures Ryle that there is nothing going on between her and Atlas, and for sometime the pair fall into a happy and peaceful relationship. They later decide to get married in Las Vegas. Ryle becomes violent again, however, when he discovers that Atlas gave Lily his phone number, pushing her down the stairs.

When Allysa find about about the violence, she demands that Ryle tell Lily about his childhood trauma. He admits to his wife that when he was a child his brother died from a gunshot wound after he accidentally shot him (the story he had told her the first night they met).

Lily forgives Ryle and they decide to move on. However, Ryle's anger reaches new heights when he discovers a newspaper article written by Atlas where he mentions a special woman in his life, revealing that the name of his restaurant 'Bib's' stands for Better In Boston. Ryle also learns more about Lily's past with Atlas when he reads her journals.

When he confronts Lily about the journals and the newspaper article, he become violent and attempts to rape Lily, head-butting her so hard that she blacks out. Lily calls Atlas who takes her to the hospital, where she finds out she is pregnant with Ryle's baby.

Lily tells Ryle about the baby, but keeps their relationship non-romantic as she struggles to decide what she should do with her life. When their daughter Emerson is born, Lily tells Ryle she wants a divorce, explaining that she would never let her daughter grow up in the same circumstances she did. While heartbroken, Ryle agrees to the divorce and the pair share custody of baby Emerson.

One day, Lily and Atlas reunite and he tells her that he is ready for her when she is ready to fall in love again, the pair kiss after the long struggle back to one another.

What does the title It Ends With Us mean?

It Ends With Us is a reference to the decision Lily makes following the birth of her daughter. Instead of allowing the cycle of abuse to continue from her mother to her and then her daughter, she decides that it will end with them.

By getting a divorce from Ryle and not allowing her daughter to witness the hurt he causes her, she is breaking the cycle and allowing Emerson to have a safe and healthy upbringing.