What to Read After It Ends with Us
April 6, 2026
Colleen Hoover’s It Ends with Us is a novel about a complicated relationship that doesn’t resolve the way romance readers expect. It’s the book most responsible for CoHo’s BookTok explosion — and for many readers, the first romance novel that genuinely surprised them. Here’s where to go next.
More Colleen Hoover First
Books with the Same Emotional Gut-Punch
The Light We Lost — Jojo Moyes
Lucy falls in love with Gabe on a pivotal day in New York. Their relationship spans a decade and multiple continents. For readers who want emotionally devastating without the domestic abuse angle.
The Seven Husbands of Evelyn Hugo — Taylor Jenkins Reid
A fictional Hollywood star’s seven marriages, told as an interview. Reid’s most widely read novel; emotionally complex, deals with love, ambition, and what we sacrifice for the relationships we’re allowed to have.
After I Do — Taylor Jenkins Reid
A married couple takes a year apart to figure out if they want to be together. Reid writes about relationships with similar emotional directness to Hoover.
Literary Fiction About Difficult Relationships
Normal People — Sally Rooney
Connell and Marianne navigate a complicated on-again, off-again relationship from secondary school through university. The literary fiction version of It Ends with Us — less plot, more interiority, equally devastating.
Big Little Lies — Liane Moriarty
The same interest in what happens inside marriages that look fine from outside; the same willingness to take domestic abuse seriously without melodrama.
Contemporary Romance
People We Meet on Vacation — Emily Henry
Two best friends, one week of summer holidays each year, and feelings that both keep refusing to acknowledge. Henry writes about the slow build of romantic feelings with real craft.
The Recommended Sequence
- It Starts with Us — direct sequel; read immediately
- Verity — CoHo’s best book, very different register
- November 9 — similar gut-punch structure
- The Seven Husbands of Evelyn Hugo — Taylor Jenkins Reid at her best
- Normal People — for readers ready to go literary