It Starts with Us
Colleen Hoover, 2022
Romance Young adultContemporary fiction
Lily and Atlas finally get their second chance: two alternating voices, a new apartment, a small daughter, and a past that keeps knocking. Warm and hopeful, with a plain, tender voice and a pace that lingers on family and second chances.
Feels like hope, tenderness and dread. About love, family and society.
Who it’s for
You may like it if you enjoy romance in alternating voices, with domestic detail and a gentle, hopeful tone. It is a sequel, so some of Lily and Atlas's history arrives assumed rather than explained.
Why read it
It offers a quiet, hopeful look at what happens after old love returns, and why family can be rebuilt in ordinary rooms.
A page from the book
How to hold a love that ended without filing it under failure.
Maybe the idea of love ending being a negative thing is simply a matter of perspective. Because to me, the idea that a love came to an end means that, at some point, there was love that existed. And there was a time in my life, before you, when I was completely untouched by it. Colleen Hoover.Hoover was working as a social worker and then a high-school teacher when she self-published her first novel, Slammed, in 2012; word of mouth made it a bestseller.
Books that feel like this
More by Colleen Hoover
Ugly Love
Colleen Hoover, 2014
A nurse restarting her life falls for a man who offers only sex and no past—and discovers how much pain can hide behind a closed door.
November 9
Colleen Hoover, 2015
A scarred former teen actress and a stranger who poses as her boyfriend make a pact to meet every year on the same date.
Maybe Someday
Colleen Hoover, 2014
A music student who hides her own songwriting listens every night to the guitarist across the courtyard — until he catches her watching.
Where to get it
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Questions readers ask
- Is It Starts with Us for me?
- You may like it if you enjoy romance in alternating voices, with domestic detail and a gentle, hopeful tone. It is a sequel, so some of Lily and Atlas's history arrives assumed rather than explained.
- What is It Starts with Us like?
- Warm and hopeful, with a plain, tender voice and a pace that lingers on family and second chances. Feels like hope, tenderness and dread. About love, family and society.
- What should I read after It Starts with Us?
- If you liked It Starts with Us, try Redeeming Love (Francine Rivers), Just for the Summer (Abby Jimenez) and Archer's Voice (Mia Sheridan).
A taste of the feed
The difference between being someone’s partner and someone’s god.
No, you won’t. And I won’t be enough for you, Amanda. I don’t want to be the center of your life. I want to be part of it. I want to be your husband, not your god. People can’t always be there for you, no matter how much they want to be. And that includes me.
Redeeming Love · Francine Rivers
Some people spend years being told their needs are too many.
You’re not asking too much,“ he said. ”You were just asking the wrong person. Ask me instead.
Just for the Summer · Abby Jimenez
The parts of yourself you'd rather hide are not disqualified from love.
I knew I loved her – fiercely and with every part of my heart, even the broken parts, even the parts that felt unworthy and without value. And maybe those parts most of all.
Archer's Voice · Mia Sheridan
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