Review: Me Before You – Jojo Moyes

Me Before You #1

SYNOPSIS: Lou Clark knows lots of things. She knows how many footsteps there are between the bus stop and home. She knows she likes working in The Buttered Bun tea shop and she knows she might not love her boyfriend Patrick.

What Lou doesn’t know is she’s about to lose her job or that knowing what’s coming is what keeps her sane.

Will Traynor knows his motorcycle accident took away his desire to live. He knows everything feels very small and rather joyless now and he knows exactly how he’s going to put a stop to that.

What Will doesn’t know is that Lou is about to burst into his world in a riot of colour. And neither of them knows they’re going to change the other for all time. – via IMDB

Alrighty, so I read this at the behest of Bestie Natasha, while in my reading slump. I must say, when I started this I was relatively annoyed because “I” never got any real descriptions, it was just telling what “I” did for work, etc. and took forever to get to the fact that “I” was actually a girl, so then I could actually start building a character. Me Before You also has a very slow start, and takes a while to get into anything, but when it starts catching, starts moving on, it is worth having stuck around for. Louisa was such an insipid creature in the beginning – lacked confidence, was flat and uninspiring, lived in a closed off, small world. Yet throughout the novel, that girl becomes something else completely. The initial relationship between her and Will is painful to read through. I get where Will is coming from, brusque as he is and all, and I was pleased as punch when Louisa found it within herself and pushed back at Will when he was being a twit. I liked how that was the game changer between them, and loved the friendship that grew from there. There were a few moments in the book that were truly so beautiful to me (specifically referring to the tights here, as well as the silly thank you letter Lou read on the bus). I was not a fan of the relationship between Patrick and Louisa, the guy was such a totally self-centred jackass, and yet she stuck with him because it is all she knew, and she had no confidence. Sad, when that is your life. I also felt for Louisa due to her home situation – definitely not an easy one, and definitely one that will crush the light out of a person and their dreams if they are not willing to fight it. I am not big on romance novels (this you all know), but this one wasn’t just about the romance. This highlighted life. It highlighted experiences. It spoke of the past, the present, the future, and what you choose to let define you. I thought it was a solid read, and something I may very well look into again. SPOILER: I really loved the way this ended. It was shattering, but it was the ending I was hoping (and totally not hoping) for – it was realistic. I was not going to buy into a character like Will deciding at the last moment not to kill himself, to change his mind simply because he loved Lou. I know that sounds so cold, but it is true. It would have been totally against character. The whole concept of assisted suicide is sticky, and I am glad the author went with this, because she looked at it from both sides, which was worth it. I think this book also really looked at how choices are to be made by people, and that, as difficult as they may be, other people need to accept that certain choices are up to certain people. If you haven’t read this, well worth looking into it. There was humour and drama and everything you could possibly think of. I liked this one way more than I was expecting to.