Story for the Week
Let’s face it…everyone is a statistic to a degree, primarily because you can calculate the percentage of anything. Any sort of demographic can be categorized—adult or child, high school or college graduate, homeowner or renter, ethnicity, married or single, age range, income range.
In addition to those types of demographic statistics, you can categorize and analyze preferences. I live just outside of Chicago, where it is claimed you never put ketchup on a hot dog, but more than 60% of Americans put ketchup on a hot dog. Almost 70% use mustard (gross). Another hot controversy…pineapple on pizza. I fall into the camp of yes to pineapple on pizza along with nearly 60% of other Americans.
Of course, no preference statistics are complete without a comparison of Coke and Pepsi, which have been rivals in the top two soda spots for decades. But I read something a little over a week ago that blew my mind a little bit. According to an article on CNN.com, Coke still retains almost 20% of the market, but Dr. Pepper just surpassed Pepsi and moved (just barely) into the #2 spot. Despite the fact that my daughter Corinne and I both prefer Dr. Pepper to either of the other two, it took me by surprise. If Dr. Pepper is not an option, she would choose Coke, and I would choose Pepsi. Of course, if Mr. Pibb (now known as Pibb Xtra) is an option (thank you, Coca-Cola and AMC Theatres), we both will choose that over the other three.
Statistics in and of themselves don’t carry a positive or negative connotation, but telling someone not to “become a statistic” holds a much heavier meaning. When my husband Dennis was alive, he was super protective and was always worried if Corinne was going to be somewhere we weren’t. He talked about not wanting to hear some sad story about something tragic happening, which is basically that he didn’t want Corinne to become a statistic.
When Dennis and I got married, I told him that he was stuck with me because I took our wedding vows seriously, but I had two conditions. If he ever cheated on me or hit me, we were done. For me, there would be no coming back from either of those. My feeling was that if he was unhappy enough to cheat or angry enough to hit me, then he should just leave. I didn’t want to be a divorce statistic, but I outright refused to be a statistic of domestic violence or serial cheating. I have instilled those same beliefs in Corinne for when she starts dating, and I hope they stick with her.
After Dennis passed away in 2020, I remember feeling like a statistic the first time I had to mark a form indicating that I was widowed. When I thought about it, though, I realized the number of women in my extended family who were young widows. Of the five houses around mine, three of the women were widows. When you look up the statistics about widows, the average age for a woman to become a widow is 59. I was younger, but not by much.
Domestic violence is a huge theme in the book reviewed below. I hadn’t ever intended to read it, but I have to thank the colleague who recommended that I pick it up before the movie comes out later this summer. Pick this one up…hopefully before the movie. I’ll be going to see it when it comes out…and getting my cherry vanilla Pibb Xtra fix at the show. 😉
Book Review
⭐⭐⭐⭐
4 Stars for It Ends With Us by Colleen Hoover
381 pages
Publisher: Atria Books
Publication Date: August 2, 2016
Purchased on Amazon.
Publisher’s Description
Lily hasn’t always had it easy, but that’s never stopped her from working hard for the life she wants. She’s come a long way from the small town where she grew up—she graduated from college, moved to Boston, and started her own business. And when she feels a spark with a gorgeous neurosurgeon named Ryle Kincaid, everything in Lily’s life seems too good to be true.
Ryle is assertive, stubborn, maybe even a little arrogant. He’s also sensitive, brilliant, and has a total soft spot for Lily. And the way he looks in scrubs certainly doesn’t hurt. Lily can’t get him out of her head. But Ryle’s complete aversion to relationships is disturbing. Even as Lily finds herself becoming the exception to his “no dating” rule, she can’t help but wonder what made him that way in the first place.
As questions about her new relationship overwhelm her, so do thoughts of Atlas Corrigan—her first love and a link to the past she left behind. He was her kindred spirit, her protector. When Atlas suddenly reappears, everything Lily has built with Ryle is threatened.
************
Main Characters:
- Lily Bloom – mid-20s, meets Ryle on the roof of his building the day of her estranged father’s funeral, works for the biggest marketing firm in Boston but has a passion for flowers and would love to own a flower shop
- Ryle Kinkaid – neurosurgeon, meets Lily on a day when he loses a young patient
- Atlas Corrigan – went to high school with Lily, moved after graduation and went into the military
- Allysa – married to Marshall, doesn’t work, meets Lily and asks for a job
- Marshall – married to Allysa, sold several apps and became extremely wealthy allowing Allysa not to work
Trigger warning: domestic violence
This is my first Colleen Hoover novel, recommended by someone I work with. I had avoided Hoover until now because I really disliked a book that was compared to her style, but I’m really glad I took the advice to pick this up before the movie comes out.
I don’t want to give away too much of the story here because there are a number of surprises. We meet Lily the day of her father’s funeral. She finds herself on Ryle’s roof because she wanted somewhere to just think, so she found a nearby building with a nice rooftop patio. Ryle goes up to the roof to blow off steam after losing a patient. They spend several hours talking, and they just seem to click. Because they’re strangers and expect never to see one another again, they begin telling each other what they call “naked truths,” which become a theme for their relationship.
Starting in Chapter 3, Lily purchases a building with her inheritance and plans to open a flower shop. Allysa happens to be walking by and sees a “help wanted” sign, thinks Lily is hiring, and asks for a job. She doesn’t want or need to get paid. She just wants something to do with her days.
The story takes us back and forth in time between the present day, where Lily runs into Ryle again and starts a pseudo-friendship and then a relationship, and when Lily was 15 and knew Atlas. At 15, Lily was obsessed with watching The Ellen DeGeneres Show because it made her laugh and took her mind off what was going on in her family life. She thought keeping a diary was cliche, so she justified it by addressing her diary entries as letters to Ellen.
I immediately felt pulled into Lily’s life. Did I think it was weird for her character to be named Lily Blossom Bloom and for her to be passionate about flowers? Yes, I did. But it creates a sweet moment with Ryle when they first meet and she explains the origin. We all know people with names that we find unusual (maybe even questionable), so I didn’t find this to be as big a deal as some other reviewers. I liked their “naked truths,” which also bothered some readers, but couples develop their own idiosyncrasies, things unique to them. Again, I feel it added to their realness.
I also love the friendship that develops between Lily and Allysa (although I dislike the “Issa” nickname). They are so supportive and real with one another, and I looked forward to their interactions. Lily and Allysa turn into ride-or-die for each other, and I enjoy seeing those types of female relationships develop.
Lily grows a lot over the course of the book. All of the characters do, I think, but since the story is from Lily’s point of view, we see her growth the most. I am looking forward to seeing the movie in August based on this book, and I’m so glad I read it before the movie since we all know the book is always better. 😉
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