Several months ago I read Verity. Didn't like it. I thought it bordered on soft porn. I had forgotten that Colleen Hoover was its author, but had inadvertently bought It Ends with Us. I found the first third of this book to be the same...kind of smutty. Only then did I realize that it, too, was written by Hoover. I was so tempted to toss it aside, but something about the consistent 5-star reviews compelled me to keep reading. I am so glad I did! It was gut-wrenching and so real. My mother, too, was thrown down a flight of stairs in 1951. She went immediately into labor - with me. She left my father when I was 9 months old, thank God! My mother is long gone, but I felt her presence while I was reading this book. She taught me to value myself back a a time when no one dared to whisper a word about the atrocities of domestic violence. Colleen Hoover wrote about MY mother, too.