Me Before You (Me Before You #1) by Jojo Moyes – SPOILER FREE REVIEW

Title: Me Before You
Author: Jojo Moyes
Genre: Adult, Contemporary
Publication Date: January 5th, 2012
Pages: 369
Publisher: Penguin Books
Rating:

Goodreads Synopsis:

Louisa Clark is an ordinary girl living an exceedingly ordinary life—steady boyfriend, close family—who has never 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, 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?

This isn’t going to be a huge review as I don’t actually have that many feelings towards this book.
Overall, it was okay, I didn’t hate it and I didn’t love it.

I’m going to say first that I’m not exactly the most emotional person and I read books for the adventure and excitement. So I don’t usually read books that are meant to be sad. So, I knew from the start that this book wouldn’t make me cry or be heartbreaking to me. Just think of me as a rock when it comes to the sad emotion in books.

Spoiler free!

Writing:

The writing was well done and it meant that you kept reading and didn’t want to put the book down. The description of different things within the book was very well done and it was very easy to picture places, people, and objects that are mentioned in the book. I also liked that there was a couple chapters within the book that it swapped to other characters point of view.

Plot:

To me the plot was okay, it was kind of predictable. (I’m going to try and say this as best I can without spoiling it). BBecauseI was told that the end of the book was sad and would break your heart, etc then I knew that something bad would happen in the end and then when you find out something, in about the middle of the book, then it was obvious to me what the sad ending was going to be.
I want a book that keeps me guessing, not one that I can predict the ending to before the half way point.
Also, I know this book could be really eye-opening to some people in regards to the struggles of a wheelchair-bound person, but for me, it wasn’t as I have personal experience. My former best friend is in a wheelchair, it’s not to the extent of Will but I understood the struggles of things like trying to find car parks, having people staring, dealing with grass and things like that. So to me, it was kinda eh when it came to these parts of the books, but if you had no experience with someone in a wheelchair I can see that this book could be eye-opening and interesting. I do like that it was a diverse read in that aspect though.

Characters:

I did really like Louisa, I can’t say I agree with some of the things that she did in the book, but I did like her never give up attitude that she held for most of the book. I liked Will’s witty remarks and sarcasm, it was fun trying to figure out what he would come up with next. Camilla was an interesting character and you will find out why if you read the book, her struggles within herself and just trying to hold herself and her family together was a constant struggle for her. I also don’t agree with some of the things she did in the book either. Steven Traynor was someone who you feel like you should kind of hate because of his actions that you find out about towards the end of the book, but when one of the chapters swaps to his point of view, you understand and appreciate what he is sacrificing himself for his son. I also really like all of Louisa’s family, they were fun and interesting characters and they felt like a real family, loving and caring. Patrick I kind of want to punch at times and it makes me sad that for the movie Matthew Lewis was cast as his character, being a diehard Harry Potter fan, I feel bad to want to punch Matt’s character haha.

Overall:

It was an okay book and if you enjoy sad books then, by all means, go ahead you’ll probably love it, but if you’re like me then it’s probably not the best book for you!

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