“You’re only human. And as humans, we can’t expect to shoulder all of our pain.”

Many people have read or at least heard of the book titled “It Ends With Us” written by famous author, Colleen Hoover. The novel was related to Hoover’s relationship with her mother and father. The synopsis follows “small-town girl Lily, who moves to Boston to start her own business. Sparks immediately fly between her and neurosurgeon Ryle, but his ‘complete aversion to relationships is disturbing” Ever since its publication in 2016, it has slowly gained popularity throughout many different social media platforms. TikTok played a large role in the novel gaining recognition throughout the year 2021 which resulted in the book being on the bestseller list for the past 90 weeks. With social media’s help, it didn’t take long for the novel to be declared a New York bestseller. 

In July 2019, director Justin Baldoni posted a photo with Hoover on Instagram declaring that a movie adaptation of “It Ends With Us” was in the works through his production company, Wayfarer Entertainment. Not much was said about who would be cast as Lily, Ryle, and Atlas or when the movie would be released. In July 2022, Hoover announced that she read the first draft of the script. It wasn’t until January 26, 2023, when Colleen Hoover posted a TikTok declaring that the main characters in her novel have been cast. In the video, she showed her viewers the home where she grew up with her mother. She did this to show the relation it has to her book, since the story is about her relationship with her mother and father. After she finished telling the story of how she grew up in this house and the sacrifices her mother made to give them all a better life, she moved on to the casting announcement. She revealed that Lily would be played by famous actress Blake Lively. Hoover stated that Lively was always her dream Lily. She then announced that Ryle would be played by the director of the movie, Justin Baldoni. She explained that the day she met Baldoni, she immediately knew that she wanted him to be Ryle. Hoover continued by explaining that she thought he had what it takes to play the character. Based on what she said, it is assumed that filming is expected to start soon. There are still questions that fans are asking after this announcement though, like who is going to play Atlas, the movie rating, the release date, and so much more. No casting decisions for the remainder of the characters have been revealed to the public, and the rating has yet to be confirmed, although Hoover mentioned that the book rating was Mature 17+, and no official release date has been confirmed. It is estimated that it would be released in early 2024. 

After Colleen Hoover’s video, it received some negative feedback from her fans throughout all social media platforms. The public’s biggest issue was that they didn’t see Blake Lively as Lily or Justin Baldoni as Ryle. On booktok, people fan casted Abigail Cowen and Theo James instead as the lead roles because of their looks. In the novel, the way Hoover described the main characters is very similar to Cowen and James. Hoover hasn’t commented on these complaints so far despite the large response the video faced.