Blake Lively To Star in Colleen Hoover 'It Ends With Us' Book Adaptation

Colleen Hoover's 2016 novel, It Ends With Us, has more than 200,000 ratings on Amazon, averaging 4.5 out of 5 stars. And the story is now on its way to the big screen. In an Instagram video posted Thursday, Hoover revealed that Blake Lively will play Lily Bloom, a small-town florist, and Justin Baldoni will play Ryle, the neurosurgeon with whom she falls in love. Baldoni is also directing the film. No release date was given.

"Blake Lively, y'all," Hoover says in the video. "She's my dream Lily."

Not everyone was as enthused as Hoover.

"Blake Lively being cast as Lily Bloom in It Ends With Us is confusing because the character is 23 in the book and blake is 12 years older ??? like could they not have got someone age appropriate," one person wrote on Twitter.

Others seemed to think Lively, who's perhaps best known for her performances on the TV show Gossip Girl and in the 2010 crime drama The Town, was lowering herself to act in the film.

"Blake, baby, please don't associate with that trash, you're too good for it," one person wrote.

Said another, "Blake Lively really agreed to play a florist named Lily Blossom Bloom, be so serious."

The book is about domestic violence, and in the video, Hoover showed fans the house to which her mother moved their family when Hoover was four. She praised her mother for "getting us out of a scary situation" and bringing the family to the house. Hoover has been open about the fact that her father's abuse of her mother inspired It Ends With Us.

Hoover has sold over 20 million books, and It Ends With Us was the top-selling print book of 2022, Variety reports, sitting on the New York Times Best Seller List for over 90 weeks.

There were plans for an It Ends With Us-themed adult coloring book, but publisher Atria Books canceled that project earlier this month after a backlash because of the serious themes of the book.

"The coloring book was developed with Lily's strength in mind, but I can absolutely see how this was tone-deaf," Hoover wrote on Instagram on Jan. 11.