If you've ever encountered the literary corner of TikTok known as '#BookTok', or seen a bestsellers list in the past year or so, you'll have heard of Colleen Hoover's It Ends With Us.
The award-winning romance novel became such a huge success - selling 8.6 million copies in 2022 alone - that it's now being adapted for the screen. But people are less than thrilled with the casting choices:
The New York Times Bestseller tells the story of Lily, a woman in her early 20s who has just moved to Boston to start her own business. It isn't long before she falls for standoff-ish neurosurgeon named Ryle.
After charming the doctor, Lily becomes an exception to Ryle's self-imposed 'no dating' rule, but wonders why he had the rule in the first place.
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Things get complicated when Lily's first love Atlas reappears on the scene, threatening everything Lily has built with Ryle.
Colleen announced on Thursday (26 January) that she had cast the lead characters Ryle and Lily for the film.
Taking to TikTok, she told fans: "Our Lily is going to be played by Blake Lively. Blake Lively, y'all! She's my dream Lily.
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"And then, when I first met Justin Baldoni, who is directing the film for It Ends With Us, I immediately wanted him to be Ryle, I just thought he had what it takes to play that character.
And the good news is; he's going to be Ryle!"
She continued: "So we have our Ryle and our Lily. I think that Justin Baldoni and Blake Lively have what it takes to bring these characters to life and I cannot wait for you guys to see that happen."
"I can't even wrap my mind around this, that I'm going to get to go on set, that I got to read the amazing script, and I know y'all are going to be happy. Y'all are going to be happy."
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Except, by the sounds of things, absolutely no one is happy.
Whether readers loved or hated It Ends With Us, everyone seems to agree that Blake is not the right choice for Lily.
Some people, who had a hard time warming to the novel, are begging Blake to reconsider appearing in the film.
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"Blake lively as Lily??!? Are you guys kidding me?" one person tweeted. "Please stop this nonsense, who's even gonna watch this movie?!? This isn't real ffs."
"Blake Lively pls don't do it," pleaded a second.
"Blake Lively is gonna turn It Ends With Us into an Oscar winning movie I hate this," complained a third.
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On the other end of the spectrum, readers who adored Hoover's hit novel are just as furious over Blake's casting.
"I've never been more disappointed in casting until its come to It Ends With Us," admitted one fan. "What on earth has just happened?"
"Disappointed with the It Ends With Us cast, not how I pictured the characters in my mind," wrote another.
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As book-lovers tend to do, people had already done their own dream casting for Lily and Ryle.
Judging by the backlash, the top two contenders in fans' eyes were Stranger Things' Sadie Sink and Fate: The Winx Club Saga's Abigail Cowen - mainly because, in the book, Lily Bloom is described as a 23-year-old woman with red hair and blue eyes.
It Ends With Us is in development at Sony Pictures with Baldoni to direct and Christy Hall adapting the book to a screenplay and producing.
Topics: Books, Film and TV
Ali Condon