IIt is no secret that Colleen Hoover’s novel It ends with us is beloved by the author’s global fanbase. The emotionally charged book, which Hoover says was inspired by her mother leaving her abusive father when she was a young girl, was first published in 2016 but went viral during the 2021 pandemic thanks to BookTok, selling a total of 6.9 million copies (print and e-books combined) since its debut. Hoover’s novel centers on the story of the whimsically named Lily Bloom, a florist who tries to escape her traumatic past and embarks on a romance that takes a dark and dangerous turn. As her new relationship begins to repeat the cycle of abuse in her life in disturbing ways, Lily encounters an old friend from her past whose presence helps her realize what she wants for her future.

Now, Lily’s dramatic story will be seen on the big screen, in a film adaptation of the same name starring Blake Lively and directed by Justin Baldoni. Baldoni also plays the villain Ryle, Lily’s attractive but unpredictable partner whose excessive anger issues lead to abusive behavior as their whirlwind romance evolves into marriage and parenthood. In an interview with TodayBaldoni said his top priority was to stay true to Hoover’s story when making the film.

Read more: Why we can’t stop reading Colleen Hoover’s traumatic novels

“I was very protective of the book and Lily’s story and her emotional development and didn’t want to change much about it,” Baldoni said. “That’s what I promised Colleen: I will protect this book.”

In the film, Lily has moved to Boston for a fresh start to fulfill her dream of owning her own flower shop while escaping the dark memories of her turbulent childhood. She has a chance encounter with Ryle (Baldoni), a handsome neurosurgeon, which develops into a passionate relationship when his sister Allysa (Jenny Slate) happens to start working in Lily’s shop and the two reunite. Although Lily is overjoyed in her new relationship, Ryle’s erratic outbursts of anger trigger memories of her father’s brutal abuse of her mother, as well as deeply hidden memories of Lily’s first love, a boy named Atlas, whose own troubled home life bonded the two throughout their lives. The film explores their young love with flashbacks of young Lily (Isabela Ferrer) and Atlas (Alex Neustaedter). The relationship becomes dangerous when Ryle’s outbursts of anger toward Lily turn violent, especially when Atlas (Brandon Sklenar), now grown up, re-enters her life after nearly a decade of no contact. After Lily learns she is pregnant, she is determined to free herself from the trauma of her past to create a better future for herself and her baby.

Read more: Breakdown of all It ends with us drama

The film mostly sticks closely to the book, but there are some specific differences that screenwriter Christy Hall made when adapting the story for the screen. In an interview with E! NewsHoover recognized the need for these changes.

“With any adaptation, things have to change,” Hoover said. “You’re trying to fit the whole story into one movie, so there were some changes to improve the flow.”

Here we have summarized all the important changes that were made in the film adaptation of It ends with us and how they differ from the book.

There is much less Ellen DeGeneres in the film

In the novel, Ellen DeGeneres is a major character in Lily’s life. As a young girl, she enjoys watching DeGeneres’ show so much that she tunes in every day after school and writes her diary entries in letter form to the talk show host. When she begins spending time with Atlas, the two grow closer while watching DeGeneres’ show together and develop an affinity for the film. Finding Nemo because DeGeneres lends her voice to the character Dory. Their connection through DeGeneres remains with them into adulthood; Lily continues to keep a diary as if she were writing letters to DeGeneres and later gives her daughter the middle name Dory.

DeGeneres is largely absent from the film. Although Lily is seen keeping a diary throughout the film, it is not revealed what format these entries are in. The only reference to DeGeneres in the film comes in a flashback where young Lily and Atlas briefly watch her show together.

Ryle and Lily are older in the film

One of the changes that fans loudly complained about when the film adaptation was announced was the ages of Ryle and Lily. In the book, Lily is 23 and Ryle is 30; when it was announced that Lively, who is in her 30s, would play Lily, fans were quick to point out the age difference. (Baldoni is 40.)

Hoover defended the aging of the characters in the film adaptation and even went so far as to say that the ages of Ryle and Lily in the film were more realistic for their characters’ current stage of life.

“As authors, we make mistakes,” she said in an interview with Today. “There are no 28-year-old neurosurgeons, you know? You go to school for 15 years. And to correct what I messed up in the book, we made the characters a little bit older.”

Hoover also argued that it was better to make the characters older in order to better deal with the difficult problems they were struggling with.

“When I wrote the book eight years ago, New Adult was a big hit and everyone wanted to read characters in their early twenties,” she told E! News. “And that’s such a difficult subject that it just didn’t feel right for us to bring very young characters to the screen. So I think it was a great move to make them older and that worked so well in the movie.”

The Atlas restaurant gets a new name

In the book, Atlas tells Lily that his dream is to move to Boston because “everything is better in Boston.” When they later meet again by chance, it is at his restaurant, BiB, an acronym that recalls their conversation about “better in Boston.” In the film adaptation, however, the restaurant is called Root, in reference to a conversation the two had about the strength of an oak tree and its roots.

Hoover said the decision to change the restaurant’s name for the film was due to not having enough time to ensure the “Better in Boston” moment was properly received.

“It stood for something in the book that became important to Lily, to show how much she meant to him,” Hoover said in an interview with E! News. “So in the movie it became Root because we didn’t have as much time to fit all the things that happened in the book into the movie to make that significant moment happen… the change to Root came from a conversation they had in the movie as kids (which) gives you the same feelings as in the book.”

Some characters do not make the jump from book to screen

The impossibility of fitting every aspect of a novel into a film means that some details are inevitably left out. It ends with us, this meant the exclusion of some minor characters. In the book, Lily’s boyfriend Devin helps organize their first night together, and her roommate and eventual employee Lucy is part of her life, but they didn’t make it into the movie. Also, while Lily meets Ryle’s mother and father in the book, they don’t appear at all in the movie.

And even though these changes have been made, fans are still excited about the film (which, in case they’re worried, stays pretty faithful to Hoover’s story). For some, seeing the story in a new medium – and then being able to debate the merits of each medium – only increases their anticipation. On X (formerly Twitter), user @estelleokunlola wrote: “I want to go and see the movie It ends with us with someone who is as interested in the film as I am. Bonus points if they have read the book so we can agree to disagree on how good or bad the adaptation is.”