Me Before You Published by Pamela Dorman Books/Viking Also in this series: After You
by Jojo Moyes
Series: Me Before You #1
on December 31, 2012
Genres: Fiction, Romance, Contemporary, Chick-Lit
Pages: 369
Source: Borrowed, Libby
Format: eBook
Find the Author: Website, Twitter, Facebook, Goodreads, Instagram
Reading Challenges: Beat the Backlist 2020
Also by this author: After You
Find the Book: Amazon | Barnes & Noble | Goodreads
ISBN: 0670026603
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Discover the love story that captured over 20 million hearts in Me Before You, After You, and Still Me.
They had nothing in common until love gave them everything to lose . . .
Louisa Clark is an ordinary girl living an exceedingly ordinary life—steady boyfriend, close family—who has barely been farther afield than their 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 now he’s pretty sure he cannot live the way he is.
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, she sets out to show him that life is still worth living.
A Love Story for this generation and perfect for fans of John Green’s The Fault in Our Stars, 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 also means breaking your own heart?
Normally, I like to read the book before I watch the movie. But, in this case, that didn’t happen. And so, even though I loved the movie, I think I actually ended up taking longer to read the book because I already knew the story.
But, I’m really glad I got around to finally reading this.
Louisa, the heroine of the story, finds herself down on her luck and laid off from her job. She lives with her parents, sister, and nephew–who all kind of depend on her for an income as times are difficult. So, Louisa finds a job working as a caretaker for a quadriplegic man.
They definitely don’t hit it off at first, and then from there it’s very touching to watch these two be there for each other and do for each other as no one else can.
Louisa is a charmingly quirky heroine, and Will, her charge, is a complicated intelligent man who is extremely unhappy and depressed.
The whole way this story progresses was just beautiful for me. And because I’d already seen the movie, I knew how it would end–but it didn’t diminish the effect of the story.
Ms. Moyes basically ripped my heart out with this one. But, it was a beautifully-done ripping, so there’s that.
I’ve already started the second installment, Still Me… I can’t wait to see what’s in store for the characters that I’ve grown to love.
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About Jojo Moyes
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.
Reading this book contributed to these challenges:
I haven’t seen the movie. Was it good? I ugly cried reading the book and just could not put myself through watching the film.
Sam@wlabb recently posted…#AmReading YA
Oh. my. goodess. I totally ugly cried too, when I read the book. The movie–same. It was so bad. My husband was like, “Why are you watching this?!?!” But, of course, I think the book is still better. 😉
I’m so glad you enjoyed this one! I’ve been meaning to get to it, and I know a ton of people who loved both the book and the movie.
I feel like this is one of those rare instances when the book and movie were almost as the same in quality. But, I still prefer the book. 🙂