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.
RATING: 5 STARS
“You only get one life. It's actually your duty to live it as fully as possible.”
Me Before You is a beautiful story of changing your life, living to the fullest and finding small patches of light and happiness when life otherwise seems too dark.
Before I began reading this book I had no expectations; I had never read a book by JoJo Moyes before, I didn’t really know what the book was about. All I knew, was that it was apparently a ‘weepy’. So I bought the book and decided to read it more or less because I love the cover (the one with the girl and the bird set against the pink background), and because I love weepies.
I quickly found out that this is not my ‘typical’ book. It isn’t fast paced, there isn’t a lot of action, and it’s very humane and down to earth. But I also quickly found out that I loved it anyway. Normally I’m not too happy with books that are slow paced and have a lot of descriptions of characters and environments, but in this book it worked. I am really glad I read it, and it has definitely become one of my all-time favorites.
“Some mistakes... Just have greater consequences than others. But you don't have to let the result of one mistake be the thing that defines you. You, Clark, have the choice not to let that happen.”
The book is about 26-year-old Louisa Clark who lives with her parents, her sister and her nephew. Louisa (or Lou) is fired from her job as the book begins, and therefore has to find a new job. She is then employed by Will Traynor’s mother, who wants Lou to be Will’s friend basically – that’s not what it says in the job description, but that is in fact what she is supposed to do.
Will suffers from quadriparesis and is very grumpy and rude in the beginning, because he knows that Louisa is practically his babysitter .. so needless to say they don’t come off to a good start, but soon things get better and they actually do become friends.
“I just . . . want to be a man who has been to a concert with a girl in a red dress. Just for a few minutes more.”
I felt so bad for Will. Before his accident, he had been a successful man who led a ‘big life’, as he puts it himself. He loved to visit foreign places, do extreme things (like climb Kilimanjaro), loved his job and loved the attention he got from the opposite sex. After his accident (2 years later), he is having a hard time adjusting to a life in a wheelchair where he has become dependent on other people taking care of him 24/7, and where his own body is betraying him, so if he gets sick it can be fatal.
In the beginning of the book, Will is bitter, grumpy, doesn’t like attention and just wants to be left alone. Louisa is the only one who can reach him behind the thick walls he has put up around himself, and I loved watching him let go and just be when he was with her.
I quickly fell in love with Will. I simply could not be angry with him, even though he was an idiot and made stupid decisions at times, because I could relate to him. If I had led the kind of life he had led and then ended up in wheelchair, I would have been angry at the world too. I felt so bad for him! And when he let the true Will out, I couldn’t help but smile. That Will was so sweet, loyal and charming.
“Push yourself. Don't Settle. Just live well. Just LIVE.”
Louisa Clark has led the opposite life of Will. She hasn’t been far away from her small town home in England, has a small group of friends and family and loved her job at a small café. Lou has led a small life all her life. She is a very likeable and relatable person. I loved reading this story from her point of view (even though I would have loved to see what was going on inside Will’s head at times), and I genuinely liked her. She was so loyal to her family and wanted to take care of the people she loved. She was content with her life, but then she met Will and he wanted her to live a bigger life, and be braver. I loved watching her blossom and change her life when she was with Will. They both had such a huge impact on each other’s lives, and in reality they shouldn’t even have met. If Will hadn’t had his accident, they never would have met.
“...I told him a story of two people. Two people who shouldn't have met, and who didn't like each other much when they did, but who found they were the only two people in the world who could possibly have understood each other.”
Will and Lou’s story isn’t really a love story. The romance is between the lines; in the stolen glances, and their smiles. It was really sweet and heartfelt.
It is however a beautiful story of how two people can impact each other’s lives in ways none of them ever thought possible. It is a story of opportunities lost and gained. The story was about so much more than I first thought when I began reading.
“I told him something good.”
The quote above was the exact moment where I dissolved into inconsolable tears. I had been waiting for the moment when they would come, because I was positive they would, so when there were 80 pages left of the book I began to get scared. I wasn’t ready for the tears, and I kept putting it off. But of course I needed to know what would happen, and even though I had predicted most of what happened, it still crushed me. Me Before You invokes the kind of tears that are because it is a really heartfelt and sweet story, but also crushes your heart just a little bit. I was genuinely sad when I finished it, but after a couple of minutes I was just really happy that I had read this beautiful story.
I would highly recommend this book to everybody who loves to fall in love with lovable characters and a really good and beautiful story, and who loves magnificent writing that reaches deep inside your heart. This book will forever have a place in my heart and now it is also going to look really pretty on my bookshelf. Yaaay!
“You are scored on my heart, Clark. You were from the first day you walked in, with your ridiculous clothes and your complete inability to ever hide a single thing you felt.”
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