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Review: "Me Before You" by Jojo Moyes


Me Before You

by Jojo Moyes

Synopsis:

Louisa Clark is an ordinary girl living an exceedingly ordinary life- steady boyfriend, close family- who has barely been farther afield than her 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 he is not interested in exploring a new one.

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, Lou sets out to show him life is still worth living.

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 means breaking your own heart?

Purchase Links:

My Review:

The first time I saw anything about this book was a review that was posted by my favorite book blogger Miss Faulk. In February, she posted:

Just finished "Me Before You" and was able to hold off the tears until the very last page. This book...wow...just wow.

I was instantly intrigued because I feel like I enjoy the same types of books at her, especially since I discovered her when she did her Fifty Shades of Grey review video on youtube years ago. Anyways I went to the bookstore and hunted this book down (at this time I did not know they were making the book into a movie and they didn't have the book editions with the movie covers either at my bookstore) and read the synopsis on the back of the book. I didn't want to read the book, I guess I didn't understand the synopsis correctly because in my mind I was thinking, I can not read a book about a young girl falling in love with an elderly man. It just isn't my thing and then the best thing ever happened, I saw the movie trailer.

Rushing back to the bookstore I purchased my copy of Me Before You knowing I will be extremely sad knowing that the second book is called After You. But I couldn't watch the movie until I read the book, because books are almost always 100% better than the movie adaptions, and I have to see the movie the day it comes out. I just have to.

But anyways to the actual review of Me Before You...

"I had a hundred and seventeen days in which to convince Will Traynor that he had a reason to live."

I read this book in two sessions. I did not want to put it down. It was the first work that I have read by Jojo Moyes and she got a hold of my heart and didn't let go. There were times where I was laughing out loud and times where I wanted to strangled Will for being such an arse, and I cried. Oh how I cried. I don't understand how Miss Faulk could hold onto her tears till the very last page. I was balling my eyes for the last couple of chapters. It's the first book that has made me legit cry in such a long time, probably because I love me my happily ever after endings. This book wasn't the usual romance that I would have normally picked up for myself but I am so glad that I did.

I loved Louisa's character and now that I have read the book I feel that the cast for the motion picture will be perfect. Louisa is such a fun spunky person who doesn't seem to have a care in the world about who she is or who she wants to be. I'm younger than the character and I'm constantly thinking about what I want to do in this world and it's a hard decision.

Will Traynor is a total arse, as Jojo Moyes puts it, but he has every reason in the world with the fate he was handed. You can feel the sadness that he has going through pain day after day. It would be very miserable to not use your body but to feel all the pain it causes not to be able to use your body. It really saddens me that so many people are living their lives this way.

Now another thing that I don't normally do, read reviews before I actually write my own review. I was astonished by the reasoning behind the one star reviews, people were passionately pissed off at Jojo Moyes for writing about a life when you are in a wheelchair and your life isn't worth living anymore. I think those people are narrow minded. I can see their point of view, I truly can but I can also see the point of the book. The choice to live doesn't depend on loved ones, it is that individuals own decision to make and loved ones should not be trying to convince them to live a life they are not one iota happy with. Jojo Moyes could have written a love story where Will Traynor decided to live a life with Louisa and people would still be complaining about something. I thought the books was beautifully written and heartbreaking, and I understand that not every reader will agree with me as I have not agreed with everyone as well.

I don't know what else to say besides I absolutely loved Me Before You. I didn't form a paper crush on Will Traynor as this is not the type of romance that would normally cause me a paper crush, but this was so much different than the romance I normally read. It had a slight romance factor but that was it, the story contained so many more emotions I can't describe it as a romance. Whatever category you want to put this book into- it has five stars in my book.

P.S. One thing that I haven't shared is I love me my paperback books. I only have a few hardcovers, mainly because at the time of release it was just hardcover (i.e. Twilight Saga, House of Night Series, and a few books I bought through my membership at Doubleday Book Club). It's not because the price is higher than the paperbacks but because I can't fold the cover over to the back and only see the one page (I have a big problem with forward reading). I ran to buy After You and it was only in hardcover and Me Before You was only in paperback. I can't have a series started on my shelf that has a mixture of both! I just can't do it! So I have to wait till September 6th to buy the paperback copy of After You....I'll be counting down the days till I can be rejoined with Louisa after the sneak peek at the back of Me Before You.

MEET THE AUTHOR

Jojo Moyes is a British novelist. Moyes studied at Royal Holloway, University of London. She won a bursary financed by The Independent newspaper to study journalism at City University and subsequently worked for The Independent for 10 years. In 2001 she became a full time novelist. Moyes' novel Foreign Fruit won the Romantic Novelists' Association (RNA) Romantic Novel of the Year in 2004. She is married to journalist Charles Arthur and has three children.

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