I dismissed this book and thought I’d never read it after the reviews of it being very domestic-violence-apologetical started circulating.

However, it being a viral hit and now a movie—curiosity got the best of me.

Like with most online reviews these days, there’s a lot of shock value and over-saturation. But at the essence of it, they’re not wrong, it is blurring the shades of domestic violence and romance together too much. As much as it did at few points highlight the true inner monologue of the victim and what makes it so hard to leave, it felt like it wasn’t enough. Yes, abusers are often charming and the violence cycle involves a lot of remorse and “love” (love-bombing is more accurate though), but it doesn’t excuse the often vague treatment of Ryle’s actions.

I feel like somewhere between wanting to write a story about domestic violence survivors, their experiences, and also the abuser’s charming qualities, Hoover turned up the romance novel notch too high. I can’t tell if this was by accident or not. But either way I hated that.

On a lighter note—a lot of the other bits were simply cringey writing. Which is not immoral. But come on.

I still don’t get why Ellen Degeneres and the name Lily Blossom Bloom were necessary. Those just felt like an eyesore.