Double Review of Me Before You and After You by Jojo Moyes

Published December 31, 2012 by Pamela Dorman Books/Viking

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 Thoughts…

This is a two part review.    Me Before You is the first book in the Me Before You series by Jojo Moyes.    I have yet to read the second part, but it is definitely next on my list to read.   I have just finished Me Before You and I could not put it down.     Jojo Moyes has always tugged at my heart and written books that keep me hooked from the very first page and this book is no different.     I started and just kept reading and reading and turning pages until I hit the last page.   I then just sat there, thinking about what I had read, wondering what would happen next, and hoping for more of a great story.   We shall see when I start the next book how I feel. 

Me Before You is a story of hope, of building new relationship, and of testing what you feel is right.   Lou must work through all of this.    She leads a rather normal and hum-drum life.    She works, has a steady boyfriend, and lives each day as she lived the day before.    Then she meets Will.    He is a paraplegic who Lou ends up working for.    As they spend their days together, their friendship grows.   But these two are so good for each other.   They each push the other outside of their comfort zones.   They both want the other to continue living life and growing in their lives.   

I did not cry but I did have tears.   I wanted to cheer but I just quietly smiled.    I wished I could change some of the outcomes but I accept that what happened is what was meant to be.     This is an amazing story.  I cannot wait to see what Jojo Moyes has in store for Lou and Will in the next chapter of this story.     

Me Before You Book Links

Amazon   |   Goodreads   |   Barnes and Noble

 

Here is the second part of my review….

After You by Jojo Moyes (Me Before You #2)

Published September 29, 2015 by Penguin

How do you move on after losing the person you loved? How do you build a life worth living?

Louisa Clark is no longer just an ordinary girl living an ordinary life. After the transformative six months spent with Will Traynor, she is struggling without him. When an extraordinary accident forces Lou to return home to her family, she can’t help but feel she’s right back where she started.

Her body heals, but Lou herself knows that she needs to be kick-started back to life. Which is how she ends up in a church basement with the members of the Moving On support group, who share insights, laughter, frustrations, and terrible cookies. They will also lead her to the strong, capable Sam Fielding—the paramedic, whose business is life and death, and the one man who might be able to understand her. Then a figure from Will’s past appears and hijacks all her plans, propelling her into a very different future. . . .

For Lou Clark, life after Will Traynor means learning to fall in love again, with all the risks that brings. But here Jojo Moyes gives us two families, as real as our own, whose joys and sorrows will touch you deeply, and where both changes and surprises await.

After You is quintessential Jojo Moyes—a novel that will make you laugh, cry, and rejoice at being back in the world she creates. Here she does what few novelists can do—revisits beloved characters and takes them to places neither they nor we ever expected.

My Thoughts...

I definitely recommend reading these books in order.   I was lucky enough to get them both at the same time.    Jojo Moyes did not waste words or pages giving the history of Will and Lou.    Therefore if you read them out of order you may not totally understand why Lou is acting as she is, why Will is no longer in the picture, or why the surprise is a surprise.       There are many series that you can read out of order or that are standalone books but this is not such a series.     

The surprise is the part of the story that hit home with me the most.   I am familiar with that surprise.    I can relate to Lou’s frustration yet am proud of how she stepped in, took control, and took care of it.     She did not have to; she had no responsibility to do that.    It shows how upstanding and true to Will she really was.    

I devoured Me Before You.   After You is the story of Lou’s life without Will in it.    I enjoyed how Lou struggled with moving on with her life.   She did not just forget about Will.   She held onto their friendship and relationship with him for a long time unwilling to move on.      I liked that she went to a Moving On support group and made friends there even though she did not think it would help her.     I loved that she such a unique job and that she had a horrible boss.     As the story goes on you could feel Lou grow up.   She started to stand up for herself, stand up to others she felt were doing her wrong, and do what she wanted not what others thought she should do.     

I highly recommend checking out this series.   Read them in order.    See how Will and Lou affect each other’s lives, see how they made each other better, and devour the books.   

After You Book Links

Amazon   |   Goodreads   |   Barnes and Noble