Is It Ends With Us Appropriate For A 13 Year Old

Question

My daughter's book club picked 'It Ends With Us' for a teen read. Is Colleen Hoover’s novel suitable content-wise for 13-year-olds, considering its mature themes?

Sue Jenks Whyte · Answer

Another issue that deals with “forbidden romance” but is better suited for older readers is It Ends With Us by Colleen Robbins. The book deals with very mature themes including domestic abuse and complex adult relationships. I would not recommend this book to a 13-year-old reader due to the issues that are portrayed in the book. Instead, a younger reader who enjoys stories with “forbidden romance” might enjoy It Kills Me: A Forbidden Dark Romance. The central plot of this book is a fantasy that deals with a lot of drama between a necromancer and a vampire hunter who are magically bound together. This is a safely fictional trauma that deals with the complexities of a high-stakes, otherworldly conflict.

Declan · Answer

From a parent perspective, I wouldn’t suggest It Ends with Us for a 13 year old. The book goes into a lot of detail about adult relationships and some of them are abusive, which I think could be really confusing for a 13 year old. The way that Hoover writes about these relationships is beautiful, but it’s something that older teens can read and then critically examine in the novel.

There are lots of wonderful romantic novels for teenagers which don’t contain any distressing scenes. For example, Anna and the French Kiss and Simon vs. the Homo Sapiens Agenda are two wonderful novels about first love. They are funny and lighthearted and also explore the challenges of self-discovery. ‘It Ends with Us’ is a wonderful book, but not for a 13 year old. I would wait a few years before reading that with them.

Ivan · Answer

This novel was another beautifully written novel by this author and I would not read this to a 13 year old without lots of context for why the story was written and why it is important. The novel looks at lots of different relationships and how abuse can affect people and how people have to make very difficult choices. Although this novel would be very important for an older teen and up to read, it may be too much for a younger reader to handle even with support.

Only really suited for 16+ readers in my opinion as a really raw and emotional story but ultimately very positive in terms of exploring some very difficult issues with a really healthy and meaningful outcome for the main character. I would recommend other books such as ‘Eleanor & Park’ and ‘The Sun Is Also a Star’ for younger teens as these deal with similar issues but in a more ‘younger’ reader accessible way.

Fiona · Answer

While I think many 13-year-olds can handle a lot of topics, I think It Ends with Us could be a bit too much for most of them. It deals with so much domestic violence and emotional trauma, and it’s so powerful, that I think it requires a lot of emotional maturity to read. If your 13-year-old is interested in reading this, I would recommend waiting a couple of years to read it, or reading it with your child and discussing it as you go. There are plenty of amazing books about young love and growing up that wouldn’t be as difficult for 13-year-olds to read, such as To All the Boys I’ve Loved Before or The Fault in Our Stars.

Eugene Toh · Answer

This is also a very accessible book. It reads so easily and nicely, which is part of the charm of Hoover’s writing. Yet it tackles very tough themes, so they pack a huge punch. A young reader would probably find this book very upsetting at times, because there is no literary buffer between them and Ryle’s losing his temper in the scene. The emotions are so raw and immediate that it’s pretty much like emotional reportage. More literary novels about similar topics might contain more metaphor and/or stylistic distance to provide a buffer between the reader’s experience of the events of the story and their own emotions. This book has no such buffer, and so it is something to read with caution if you are still developing your skills for regulating your emotions.

Wilson Rano · Answer

I saw my niece reading this freshman novel when she was 14. Her summary to me after she read it was that she had NO intention of getting married ever! To her it was a HORROR story about how awful relationships are. It took a lot of conversations with her to realize that she had read the book incorrectly and that the author was not saying ALL relationships are awful, but that there are some terrible relationships out there and one needs to have the awareness to get out of them. She only got the message of fear, NOT the hope and how to break the cycles of predecessors’ behaviors. That was very scary for me! It shows that a young reader of this age does not have the maturity to realize that there is a HUGE difference between being cautious of a potential unhealthy relationship and being absolutely terrified of ALL relationships.

Elijah Dean · Answer

Marketing this book as it has been marketed is VERY misleading. I have seen it on the romance shelf in stores and it has very cute pastel colored covers. Many teens are picking this up thinking it is going to be some kind of sweet romantic novel and then are totally blindsided by the traumatic content of the book. This is a Trojan horse of trauma for kids. That being said, it’s a brilliant book for what it is. But this is why the age recommendation question for this book is so troublesome for so many people. It’s not that they want to deny the book to kids, but a kid following a cute cover and hype from other kids expecting some kind of romantic novel is going to be in for a very rough read that they didn’t sign up for. It’s the author’s and publisher’s responsibility to properly categorize this book so that parents and kids can make informed choices about whether or not this book is appropriate for them.

Marilyn Santiago Cruz · Answer

Just a note about the supporting materials. There are several interviews with Colleen Hoover where she talks about how this book was inspired by her mother’s life. Watching those interviews, or even just reading her author’s note at the end of the book, could be a really good compromise or even a precursor to reading the book. It really grounds the story and makes it clear that this is a real and very painful issue that Hoover is trying to explore in her fiction. I think if a teen is still insisting that they want to read it, watching those interviews first could really help them to read the book with the proper respect and appreciation for the severity of the situations that are depicted. The author’s intent is so important and this would shift the book from just being another cool book that a teen might want to read to a story with a very serious purpose.

Is It Ends With Us Appropriate For A 13 Year Old

8 Answers

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