It Ends with Us by Colleen Hoover
Week 5: Chapters 19–23 — Cycles and Choices
Read Chapters 19–23 of It Ends with Us by Colleen Hoover
Previewing Week 5 of It Ends with Us
Read 3 of 7 discussion questions below. Unlock the complete 8-week guide when you’re ready.
Lily and Ryle marry, and the story enters its most difficult and morally complex territory — the cycle of harm, repair, and hope that keeps Lily inside the relationship.
Discussion Questions
7 questions1.Lily and Ryle's wedding happens in these chapters, even after what has occurred between them. What does Hoover show us about why Lily makes that choice? What details in the narration suggest it is both genuine and also a kind of bargaining?
2.The cycle of tension, incident, and reconciliation that domestic violence advocates describe is rendered in these chapters with real precision. Without reducing the novel to a case study, how does Hoover show the seductive logic of the 'honeymoon phase' that follows each incident?
3.Lily's relationship with her own history — specifically her memory of how her mother stayed with her father — becomes increasingly central here. How has Lily talked about her mother's choices in the past, and how does that conversation shift as Lily begins to face her own situation?