Me Before You is a New York Times bestseller and now a major motion picture. It is the first book in the Me Before You series and considered Jojo Moyes’s best work.
Summary
Louisa Clark is 26 years old and living in a rural town in the United Kingdom. She recently has been let go from her job at a cafe and is searching for a new one, but because she doesn’t have much work experience or a degree finding a job is hard. She gets offered a job as a caregiver for a C5-C6 quadriplegic named Will Traynor. He is paralyzed from the chest down. Louisa and Will don’t hit it off right away because Will is a pessimist. She finds out while eavesdropping that Will has given his parents six months before he wants to kill himself. Louisa vows to change his mind right away. She decides to change Will’s mind by planning trips and outings. Will, reluctant at first, but eventually he agrees to go places with Louisa. Louisa struggles with her family, her steady boyfriend, and her job. Louisa and Will end up falling in love and their relationship ends in a heartbreak.
Review
This novel was by far one of the most beautiful novels I’ve read. This story is not your typical romance story. That’s what I loved about it, it was completely different than others. It’s not your run-of-the-mill “girl meets a stranger and they fall in love” story.
I loved the way that Moyes created Louisa. She’s not your typical romance novel heroine. She has some strange fashion choices, one being her bumble bee tights, and doesn’t have a job and still lives with her parents. She also has a boyfriend, she’s not single throughout the majority of the novel, which is different. She’s been with her boyfriend, Patrick, for about 10 years.
Fair warning to anyone who cries at romance novels, or anyone who doesn’t: This book WILL make you cry. I read it and once and as I neared the ending I didn’t want to continue. You see the attraction between Louisa and Will grow very slowly. I didn’t want to see anything break them.
It wasn’t love at first sight. They didn’t like each other at first, and it seemed like Will had no feelings for her at all. So you could imagine the emotion I felt when Louisa finally confessed her love to Will and he seemed to reciprocate it. But then what he said after made me lose all hope. Moyes makes it seem like everything for Will is going to be ok because of Louisa and it seems like she will keep him going and alive. He even says something along the lines of: “You’re the only reason I get up in the morning”. So when I thought that the story was going to end on a good note, it didn’t, I was very sad.
It also made me frustrated because I invested myself in this story only to be very emotional in the ending. It was like reading The Fault in Our Stars by John Green again. You could see Louisa’s love for Will grow and how she wanted everything in her power to change his mind.
Final Thoughts
This book is one of the best romance novels I’ve ever read. It’s funny, moving, sad, and frustrating all into one. There are no complaints, the story was told very well and the love story pulled on my heartstrings.
