Title: Me Before You
Author: Jojo Moyes
Pages: 369 pages
Published: December 31st, 2012
Source: Paperback from The Bookstore Plus
Genre: Contemporary, #characterdisability
Rating:
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,
Get it now!
I'd like to start out this review by asking a question. I keep going over how I'm going to start this review, and I want to start out like this:
What would you do if you were a quadriplegic and there was no hope of ever getting your legs back and your hands barely worked with you?
It's rather a simple question. However, it doesn't require a simple answer. Many people would say that they would live through it and get the special medical treatment and therapy that is needed. I wasn't surprised that the quadriplegic in this book desperately tried to end his live and was almost successful had the people who found him been a few minutes late to the attempt. I wasn't surprised that he woke up everyone morning cranky about his livelihood and rude to the people who tried to help. I wasn't surprised at all because I would have felt the same way.
Automatically when we, as readers, immerse ourselves in a book with a disabled character the first thing we feel is pity. There is no better word to describe how I felt for Will Traynor than pity. We all feel it and show it without realizing. Sometimes we don't want the people who are disabled to know we feel any pity, but we just can't help it because we know that we're in a better situation than they are. It's true that Jojo Moyes purposely make you feel pity for her character but as the book slowly moves along, you begin to feel almost jealous of Will Traynor that he has something most people can't attest to. And that is love.
"You only get one life. It's actually your duty to live it as fully as possible."- Will Traynor
I'll never be able to properly review Me Before You but the best I can do is convince you to read it. Moyes' characters are flawed whether it's mentally, physically, or financially. Her characters have so much depth and it's wrong to think of them as characters any longer but instead as people. She captures the story so exquisitely and it becomes extremely provoking. You'll sit back and look at your life as it is and think about how so many people out there have it much worse than you do.
I went into this book expecting to cry. Countless reviewers and friends have ended up in ugly tears and that wasn't even the worst part. They were so torn up that they couldn't think straight for months after reading it. I was looking forward to crawling in a corner and rubbing my eyes until they were red. However, the knowledge of knowing this was an extremely sad book didn't make the crying and sadness any less dramatic. The moment is unexpected and even if you read through all the spoiler reviews, it won't feel the same when you read the book.
This book has already been optioned for film. Wow, it's amazing how I can already imagine it being played out on the big screen. The tension and intimacy between Lou and Will is something that you will wish was real and that you were able to feel! Any big fans of Sam Claflin (aka Finnick Odair from The Hunger Games) or Emilia Clarke (Daenerys Targaryen from Game of Thrones)? They've been casted to play in the film version, which I believe is planned to come out in 2016! Plan ahead and get reading!
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Me Before You is an emotional roller coaster with characters that are under pressure from their lives 24/7 and non-stop action in a contemporary novel! A contemporary novel that has the heart-pounding and ground-shaking feeling of a freaking thriller. This book has an exquisite writing style, somewhat like John Green's, as it's so often that you find yourself in love with the quotes and something one of the characters said. I know this is a book everyone will enjoy, regardless of what genre they find most solace in reading!
