Me before you

Jojo Moyes

Rating

4(?) stars

Date Read

10/6/16 - 11/6/16

Age Group

17+

General Thoughts

I didn't cry. At least, not until the epilogue. I could no longer hold back the silent tears then.

I read this in two days.

I am currently in shock and incapable of forming any more coherent sentences, let alone turning my thoughts to words.

*Some chocolate later:*

This is the kind of book that puts things into perspective. What is trivial and what is important. How life should be lived in its fullest.

But there are some arguable messages, which is how it lost the 5-star-rating.

“Hey Clark', he said.'Tell me something good'. I stared out of the window at the bright-blue Swiss sky and I told him a story of two people. Two people who shouldn't have met, and who didn't like each other much when they did, but who found they were the only two people in the world who could possibly have understood each other."

Lou

Self conscious, talkative, questionable taste in clothing dresses imaginatively. Thanks to Will she starts to gain confidence, opens herself to new things and possibilities, learns to think longterm and dream of the future she deserves. "Live boldly" he tells her. "Live well".

Will

Intelligent, witty, young and handsome, with a job he loves and a gorgeous girlfriend, Will seems to have it all. He enjoys challenges, reckless is his middle name, he has lived and traveled and climbed mountains and swimmed in oceans. He is, in other words, a man of adventure.

And then a motorcycle accident changes everything.

He may be brave, but he's also sarcastic and (justifiably) bitter. Not the easiest person to be with as he is suddenly confined in a chair and a useless body.

Meeting Louisa gives him a new purpose, and teaching the young woman to dream and live gifts him some semblanse of peace. Her lively banter and her interesting ideas somehow manage to lift his spirits.

But are they enough to change his mind?

Katrina

Louisa's sister. A know-it-all, self-centered, intelligent, gives good advice.

Romance

This is not some cheesy, cliche story about love at first sight. Will and Louisa's relationship is complicated and off to a rocky start. When she first meets him, he wants nothing to do with anyone and he's closed himself off to the world.

Who he was before her was broken.

When she first starts working for him, she's out of options, twenty-six and jobless with no credentials and no dreams.

Who she was before him was purposeless.

Me Before You is a heartbreaking story about the impact some people may have on our lives, about the importance of options and the right to choose.

Writing/ Plot

The words tumbling to form a story. But not your typical boy meets girl. Electric skies and iridescent seas. The before and the after. A life-changing injury. And medicine has not evolved enough to help with this problem.

A spinal cord injury changes his view and way of life. And she has to convince him there is still something left to live for.

What do you do when making the person you love happy also means breaking your own heart?

All in All

I know I'm not saying much, and what I am saying is so telegraphic it hardly makes any sense. There is a lot more to this book and I'm too depressed to go into everything promptly. I might come back to this later. The facts remain that:

a) this is not a book that goes well with the pink, carefree backdrop of my blog,

b) the movie trailer was what prompted me to read it,

c) it was sad and inspirational and emotional and thought-provoking and and I don't know how anything I read next can live up to all that 

d) I really need some more chocolate.

 Soon to be a major motion picture.

PS. Unexpectedly enough, there is a sequel. Which, in hindsight, is facetious. There is nothing more to add after such a story, and the author probably hs realised that a bit too late.
PSS Watch the movie trailer here. Doesn't Sam Caflin look perfect for the role? Although maybe he does appear a lot less bitter and broken than the Will in the book...

XOXO

Aggie Pearson