Jojo Moyes's Me Before You

Me Before You - Jojo Moyes

They had nothing in common until love gave them everything to lose . . .

Louisa Clark is an ordinary girl living an exceedingly ordinary life—steady boyfriend, close family—who has barely been farther afield than their tiny village. She takes a badly needed job working for ex–Master of the Universe Will Traynor, who is wheelchair bound after an accident. Will has always lived a huge life—big deals, extreme sports, worldwide travel—and now he’s pretty sure he cannot live the way he is.

Will is acerbic, moody, bossy—but Lou refuses to treat him with kid gloves, and soon his happiness means more to her than she expected. When she learns that Will has shocking plans of his own, she sets out to show him that life is still worth living.

A Love Story for this generation, Me Before You brings to life two people who couldn’t have less in common—a heartbreakingly romantic novel that asks, What do you do when making the person you love happy also means breaking your own heart?
[ synopsis from goodreads ]

 

 

 

I absolutely LOVED this book. It was so beautiful and wonderful and completely and totally broke my heart. But in the best possible way. It's a story I really and truly connected with and I'm so, so glad to have read it.

Disabilities are so often shied away from in literature and in films but I think they're something that needs to be talked about. We don't know what other people are going through and we don't truly know what it means to be disabled because we haven't been there. But from the perspective of someone who is there, we can learn and maybe begin to understand.

I really and truly loved Will Traynor. He is exactly the kind of character I always fall for. He's exactly the type of person I would be friends with in real life. He is moody and hurt and broken but he uses it as a defense mechanism and underneath he's hiding someone else entirely. I'm almost glad we never got to know Will before the accident because I can guarantee he is a not a person I would've connected with. I can honestly tell you exactly the kind of man he once was. And I'm glad that he was that easily readable because we are given the unique opportunity to see how much his accident changed him and how much he was able to grow. (Though, admittedly, I think most of the growth happened after Lou.)

And as for Lou herself, I ended up quite loving her as well. That's unusual for me since I don't usually connect with female main characters. But I really connected with Lou. I loved her bright and vibrant personality and how deeply she connected with Will. And I love how passionately she wanted to save Will. I think that was really the driving force behind my love for this book. She didn't just want to keep him alive. She really and truly wanted to save him. She wanted to save him from this terrible thing that had happened to him and this life he no longer thought he could function in. But, mostly, she wanted to save him from himself. And I think that's the most beautiful aspect of this book.

So while the ending wasn't what I had wanted (though I definitely understand it and knew it was coming), I'm still very much okay with how everything turned out. Because sometimes we do lose the people we care about. And sometimes we can't help that, especially if they've already lost themselves. I think this book isn't so much about relationships and how people change people but also our relationships with ourselves and how we are able to grow and change. And, for that, I think this is a wonderful and very, very powerful book.

I would completely and totally recommend this book. I do consider it a love story. But that almost seems to take the back burner to more important issues. I think this is just an important novel in general and one that everyone should read. Because it is eye opening and it does contain a lot of things we need to think about. So this is definitely one that everyone should read. I know I will definitely be reading it again sometime in the future.

I'm also considering reading the second book. Though it sounds to be a whole barrel full of pain and I don't know if I'm quite ready for that yet. But hopefully somewhere down the line I'll be able to revisit these wonderful characters who I've come to love so much. But, well, I'm not quite done sobbing about this adventure. It was too beautiful and it took too much of me and I'm not quite ready to let it go yet.

Although I only spent a short time with these characters, I really connected with them and I'll hate to see them go. I really feel that I have grown with them. Maybe something of me has even changed on this journey. You know that's the sign of a powerful book. When you experience the lesson with the characters and it changes you, the reader, for the better too. This is a powerful book. And it's that should definitely not be missed.

 

review originally posted on goodreads