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With more than eight million books sold and over 140 weeks on The New York Times bestseller list, it’s no secret that It Ends With Us is, by far, Colleen Hoover’s most popular book. So when news broke in 2019 that the BookTok-favorite romance novel was being adapted into a feature film, fans, understandably, were worried about what would make the cut from the page to the big screen.
It Ends With Us, which was first published in 2016, follows Lily Bloom, a woman who moves to Boston to open up her own flower shop after the death of her abusive father, who physically abused her mother all throughout her childhood. In Boston, Lily meets a neurosurgeon named Ryle Kincaid, who she falls in love with and eventually marries.
However, after Ryle starts to exhibit the same abusive behaviors as her father, Lily starts to question her relationship and whether she’s following the same path as her mother. This all happens as Lilly also reconnects with her childhood love, Atlas Corrigan, a homeless classmate Lily fell for as a teenager, who is now an adult and a successful restaurant owner in Boston.
The It Ends With Us movie—which stars Blake Lively as Lily, Brandon Sklenar as Atlas, and Justin Baldoni (who is also the director) as Ryle—premiered in August 2024, with a massive opening weekend. While the film followed Hoover’s original story for the most part, there were some key changes to the script that moviegoers may not be aware of if they didn’t read the novel. Read on for the biggest differences between the It Ends With Us book and movie ahead.
In the It Ends With Us book, Lily is 23 years old and straight out of college, while Ryle is 30 years old. While the It Ends With Us movie doesn’t specify Lily and Ryle’s ages, the actors who play them, Blake Lively and Justin Baldoni, are a lot older. Lively was around 36 years old at the time the movie filmed, while was around 40
Ellen DeGeneres has a major part in the It Ends With Us book. Lily loves her and watches The Ellen DeGeneres Show each day after school. She also looks at DeGeneres’ Finding Nemo character, Dory, as somewhat of a guide in her life. Because of this, Lily writes letters to Ellen, which she keeps in her journal. The letters serve as flashbacks in the It Ends With Us book and tell younger Lily’s story about her father’s abuse toward her mother and Lily’s relationship with Atlas as teenagers.
Though DeGeneres didn’t have as large of a part in the It Ends With Us movies, the filmmakers did nod to her in a scene where Atlas visits Lily’s house for the first time and viewer sees Lily watching The Ellen DeGeneres Show on TV. The scene where adult Lily returns to her bedroom after her father’s funeral also shows her going through her journal with letters addressed to DeGeneres.
Atlas’ restaurant name in the It Ends With Us book is Bib, an acronym for “Better in Boston” because his dream as a kid was to move back to Boston where he believed things were better. In the movie, however, Atlas’ restaurant is named Root, which is a reference to a conversation he and Lily had as kids about how roots are the most important parts of a plant and need to be taken care of. The restaurant name also relates to a wooden heart Atlas gave Lily carved out of an oak tree that she honors with a heart tattoo on her collarbone.
In the It Ends With Us movie, Ryle learns about the meaning behind Lily’s tattoo by reading a magazine article about the origin story of Atlas’ restaurant name. In the book, however, Ryle learns more about Lily’s past by reading her journal of Ellen DeGeneres letters about her relationship with Atlas.
One book character omitted in the It Ends With Us movie is Lily’s roommate, Lucy. Lily and Lucy move in together when Lily first moves to Boston. However, after Lucy gets engaged to her boyfriend, Alex, she moves out and Lily is left by herself with six months remaining on their lease, which she’s excited by because she can have Ryle over whenever she wants. In the movie, however, viewers don’t see much of where Lily lives as she quickly moves into Ryle’s luxury apartment once they start dating.
The first time Ryle hits Lily in both the movie and books is when he has a mishap in the kitchen and strikes her in response. In the movie, Ryle seemingly hits Lily out of frustration from her trying to prevent him from taking out the casserole with his bare hands without oven mitts. The book, however, sees Ryle cut his hand and hit Lily as she tries to look at it while laughing.
“I’m still laughing when I lean over to get a look at Ryle’s hand. I hope he didn’t cut it too bad… In a matter of one second, Ryle’s arm came out of nowhere and slammed against me, knocking me backward. There was enough force behind it to knock me off balance. When I lost my footing, I hit my face on one of the cabinet door handles as I came down,” Lily says in the book.
Two other characters omitted from the book to the movie are Ryle and Alyssa’s parents, who Lily meets briefly in the book in passing. In the book, Lily has a scene where Ryle’s parents visit her and Ryle but they head straight to bed because they’re jet-lagged.
After Ryle hits Lily for the last time, Lily calls Atlas to pick her up. In the movie, however, Lily escapes from Ryle’s apartment by herself and drives to Atlas’ restaurant where she surprises him. From there, Atlas takes Lily to the hospital.
In the It Ends With Us Movie, Lily’s first conversation with her mom about Ryle’s abuse happens off camera, with her mom already knowing about the abuse and Lily’s pregnancy in their first scene after Lily leaves Ryle.
In the book, however, Lily has an in-depth conversation with her mom about Ryle’s abuse, where she reveals the truth about their relationship and her pregnancy. Lily also fears, because of how her mom stayed with her dad, that she’ll recommend that she stays with Ryle. In a surprise to her, Lily’s mom tells her, “Don’t be like me, Lily.” The conversation serves as the catalyst for Lily to officially end her romantic relationship with Ryle and ask for a divorce.
The It Ends With Us movie only shows two scenes between Lily and Ryle after she leaves him. The first is when Ryle shows up at Lily’s apartment to help her build a crib for Emerson. And the second is at the hospital after Lily gives birth to Emerson and tells Ryle that she wants a divorce because her family’s history of abuse “ends” with her and Emerson.
In the book, however, Ryle stays in Lily’s life after learning that she’s pregnant with her kid and even drives her to the hospital to give birth. “Aside from the fact that there’s absolutely no physical relationship between us, things feel like they’ve kind of gone back to how they used to be,” Lily says in the book. The close relationship between Lily and Ryle also set up It Ends With Us’ sequel, It Starts With Us, in which Lily and Ryle struggle with co-parenting due to his past abuse and present feelings for her.
In the It Ends with Us movie, Lily and Atlas run into each other at a farmer’s market soon after Lily gave birth to Emmerson, who’s still a baby. In the book, however, years pass between when Atlas and Lily last saw each other and their reunion on the street. In the book, Lily is walking with Emmerson, who is now a toddler, to see Ryle when she runs into Atlas. The book ends with Atlas asking Lily, “Is that… is this your baby?” The It Ends With Us book is also left open-ended as to whether Lily and Atlas get back together (unlike the movie where they kiss), which gave fans more of a reason to read It Starts With Us and the continuation of their relationship.
