Book Review: Me Before You by Jojo Moyes

“You only get one life. It's actually your duty to live it as fully as possible.”

When I was a freshman in college, my five roommates and I all huddled around a tiny iPad screen to watch Titanic in the very first weeks of settling into our new home. One of the girls would later get a TV to share with us and we watched the first season of Riverdale until 3 in the morning in preparation for season two to come out, (How naïve we were then, unaware of the absolute chaos that Riverdale would become.) My freshman year was a blur of classes, working, and shows and movies such as this. Sometime between episodes of Riverdale and The Bachelor, I came back from work to see the girls watching Me Before You.

I caught a few cute scenes between Lou and Will during their watch and I could tell that Lou seemed to be trying to work toward something, but I wasn't sure what it was. Uninvested in the movie since I walked in sometime in the middle, I bid them goodbye and went to the dining hall.

The Technical Stuff

Reading format: Audiobook by Recorded Books, Inc. Narrated by Alex Tregear, Andrew Wincott, Anna Bentinck, Owen Lindsay, Steven Crossley, and Susan Lyons.

Genre: Fiction/Romance

NeuroCandy Scale: 🍬🍬🍬🍬🍬

Rating: ⭐⭐⭐⭐

Official Summary from the Jojo Moyes Website

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?

Review

When I came across a suggestion to read the book in early 2022, I thought "Isn't that the one I watched a few minutes of in college? All I remember is that he's in a wheelchair and it's supposed to be sad."

A book hadn't made me cry in a long while, so I gave it a shot. Let me tell you, I'm very glad I did! Me Before You is incredibly charming before it turns incredibly sad.

“Push yourself. Don't Settle. Just live well. Just live.”

There was a very forward plot point in the book that did not make the cut into the movie, which I was disappointed by. While navigating her love life and the difficult circumstances of her job, Lou is also healing from trauma from an event that she went through years before the story took place. Moyes handles the subject well, depicting the traumatized brain and emphasizing that victims are not at fault.

Lou’s character is actually a lot more well-rounded in the book than the movie, as is often the case when things need to be cut to ensure a film does not get lengthy. Reading the book before my rewatch of the movie certainly helped me appreciate the characters and the story more because I knew more about them than the movie lets on.

As far as other characters go, I was happy to find that they all served a purpose to the book. Each one was necessary to drive the story forward. While Patrick, Lou's boyfriend, was a complete tool and totally unaware of his partner's needs and wants, I think I enjoyed the addition of his character the most. It added a conflict for Lou that was very much needed as the story progresses and she is torn between a man with whom she has history and a man that makes her feel alive and happy.

Lou and Will's personalities coincide extremely well. Lou is an absolute ball of sunshine, which elevates Will, who is ever-brooding and cynical.

“You make me into someone I couldn't even imagine. You make me happy, even when you're awful.

I would rather be with you - even the you that you seem to think is diminished -

than with anyone else in the world.”

There is a point during the book in which the reader is made to be unsure of what the future holds for our characters and whether the story will see its end. The beauty of audiobooks is that I can't see how many pages are left, so I was on the edge of my seat, willing the story to move forward as I hoped it would.

Also, the wedding scene and conflict is one of my favorites of all time which is saying a lot because I love a good wedding scene. There are so many additional small moments shared between Lou and Will that really build them up, which makes for a heart-warming read.

After all this, the ending fell flat. I cried, but Moyes certainly could have made me cry more. While this book is unique to other sad stories in the way the tragedy unfolds, it did not sit well with me. It drove the plot of the book forward in its entirety, but I found that I didn't like the ending.

I was saddened while finishing the book, but it did not hit as hard as it would have if the ending had happened under natural circumstances. The ending of the book was sad, but it would have absolutely crushed me had it happened under different conditions, especially after the events of the rest of the book.

While I certainly have my opinions on the ending, I thoroughly enjoyed listening to Lou and Will's love story unfold. While Lou encourages more optimism in Will, Will encourages Lou to look past the small town she grew up in and explore possibilities of her future elsewhere. There is a whole world Lou hasn't seen that Will is desperate for her to discover.

“I realized I was afraid of living without him.

How is it you have the right to destroy my life, I wanted to demand of him, but I’m not allowed a say in yours? But I had promised.”

One thing I appreciate about this novel is that even though it's the first installment of a series, it can be read as a standalone. Personally, I was satisfied with the story ending with the first book and do not plan to pick up the next ones. However, if you're itching to know what Lou does with her life, there is more content to read.

Will you need tissues when you finish this book? Maybe. I found that the sleeve of my sweater worked just fine. Is this book life altering? I wouldn't say so. Is it worth a read? Yes. Me Before You is a read that I enjoyed and would definitely recommend, especially as NeuroCandy.