Hello darling reader friends! Are you still recovering from the sugary, emotional cocktail that encompasses February the 14th every year? This book is sort-of a romance, but not really. JoJo Moyes' Me Before You is definitely an emotional roller coaster. I started it on the recommendation of my friend Mary (shout out!), who is a librarian, therefore I knew it must be legit. All librarians have a secret sixth sense- book judging. You should trust them. They live with books. Why didn't I become a librarian again? Oh yeah, because I couldn't be quiet for more than ten seconds. I have a big mouth. ANYWHO.
Here is the shelfari.com description of the book:
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.
Throughout the whole book, the main character and care-taker Lou is on a mission to convince Will, a quadriplegic, to live. She has six months to accomplish this mission. She is not a trained care taker. She has no medical skills. She was hired to be her kooky, joyful, busy self in order to revive his spirit. The touching, ironic, yet predictable aspect of the story is that although she is supposed to help Will regain his life and dignity, HE helps HER with the same goals. She learns to take the risk of stepping outside of the comfortable "safe" walls we build for ourselves. He helps her to clean out the skeletons in her closet and to embrace life and all it has to offer her.
My favorite parts about this book are the hilarious characters and the writing. I love British humor. I listened to the audible edition of the story and read along on my kindle when I wasn't listening. I definitely enjoyed the audible better for the timing and the fun accents! The story and humor reminded me very much of the movie The Intouchables (pic below), which I have to admit I enjoyed better than Me Before You for the ending.
SPOILER ALERT: Will chooses death, after all the beauty and love that is created within the six months of Lou interacting with him. Maybe I shouldn't be mad at him, but I am. I always tell myself just to let myself be with the people and experience their side of the story throughout a book. And I did. But I still disagree. He was so smart and had so much left to offer the world, and to offer Lou, and I feel cheated from his decision. We are so much more than our bodies. Maybe I simply can not fathom, even after reading the book, what it is like to be a quadriplegic. It must be so difficult. I have no doubt. I know I do not understand. What I loved about the book is that neither did Lou. But she respected him and stayed with him. You do not have to agree with someone to respect them. In fact, I think the most powerful argument for your opinion is respect for those who have a different one.
This is personal. I do know what it is like to hate my body. It is something that I have struggled on and off with for a long time. I have done very unhealthy things to myself because I couldn't see anything but pudge in odd places and not enough pudge in other places. You might be so surprised! It makes me smile looking back because it seems so far away now. I have been fully redeemed of that hatred. My body is now something that I see as a tool for all the beauty that is beaming within it. From the inside out, I have found grace and hope, placed there from my Creator. I won't accept that hatred from myself or the world any longer. So if you are reading this, I just want to leave you with this message: THERE IS HOPE. Be kind to every part of yourself, from your crooked pinky toe to your wrinkly elbow. Your body is carrying sunshine within it. And that sunshine is YOU.
Love from the Baby SisterLit,
Jillian
