Me Before You
By: Jojo Moyes
From Goodreads: 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.
My Review: I have to first give credit to my book club for contribution to these thoughts. I usually write my review before we discuss the book but since that didn't happen and we had a great discussion of Me Before You, I give them credit as well. And thanks!
I think we all agreed that the book was not what we expected. Whether it was expected or not, it was a great book. The characters heavily outweigh the rather dark subject matter. Clark, er Lou or Louise, was witty in her naive and innocent way. Her unknown independence and confidence really created the zest that made her character so likable and loved. Clark discovers so much about herself along the way and her determination to affect Will seemed a little encouraging to me. Perhaps not to everyone, but the do-gooder in me couldn't help wanting to run out and become a carer. Hopefully, not as hopeless a situation. And now that I write that I'm not even sure that I want to call Will or Clark's situation hopeless. Mainly, because this brings me to the topic of assisted suicide. I'll be the first to admit that I've never opposed the idea. As a middle schooler in the early 90's I was interested in the matter. I gave one of my first ever persuasive speeches in defense of assisted suicide actually. Clearly, at that age you can't imagine the entire context of the topic. Moyes does an excellent job of in my opinion of presenting the topics from many different perspectives.
We were all surprised by Clark's mother's reaction to her decision to go to Will's side in the end. Most surprising because of her tolerance of Treena's weaknesses and patience of the situation. Not surprising was Clark's father's clear insight into Will's decision. As for Treena, we discussed that without her character, Clark would not have had the groundwork and the strength to manage Will or his family in the manner that she succeeded in doing. Will's father and mother had a failed relationship that was only being glued together by the injury of their son, for whom had little to no regard for either of them. The father's mistress had a compelling attitude about her. We even discussed our imagery of who Nathan would have been in life. Basically, what I'm saying here is that there wasn't a character that was unliked in this story. To add to that, no matter how big or small the characters' involvement to the main story line, they were all relevant in making such a well written story.
Recommendation: I can't say anything negative about this book. If you may be sensitive to the subject matter perhaps I would not recommend it. Overall, however this was a book that despite the unhappiness and tragedy I completely enjoyed. I couldn't put it down and in the end I cried. That takes a lot to get me in tears over a book.
