Tuesday, June 14, 2016

Jojo Moyes broke my heart: Me Before You and After You

Me Before You 
Author: Jojo Moyes

Goodreads: 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.
Author: Jojo Moyes

Goodreads: “You’re going to feel uncomfortable in your new world for a bit. But I hope you feel a bit exhilarated too. Live boldly. Push yourself. Don’t settle. Just live well. Just live. Love, Will.”

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.


Review:

Me Before You
Well, my heart it literally broken into bits. Absolutely, tiny little bits and pieces that only another book will be able to fix...in a couple of years. I love these two books. I'm not a crier. I hate to cry. Many may say it's stupid to say this, but I think makes me feels weak and too emotional. But then again, having a good cry is good too.

In the first book, I love the journey we are taken on through. Lou is an amazing character that truly goes through a change that impacts her life. She's not the standard heroine that I feel society has come used to in fantasy novels or any other contemporary work. Will, while I did feel he was a bit of the stereotypical male asshole turned nice guy, he was amazing and his character was more than that wheel chair. The other characters were amazing at taking my emotions on a ride. I had a love/hate relationship with many of the characters.

The overall plot was amazing. The love story was well-balanced with the everyday life of Lou's and the Traynors. To me, it was believable. (Then again, some of it has happened in my life.) The ending was incredibly heart breaking. So happy there was a sequel.

After You
First off, the new Lou in this book was so strange. The book opens to her working in a bar. I'm sorry, but from the first book, I couldn't see her doing that. Hell, I couldn't see her doing have the stuff she did in After You based on her character from the first book. But then again, she did change after she met Will. Unfortunately, it lasted only for a bit.

In the description, it tells us Lou goes to the Moving On group, which everyone can come conclusions about on their own. While I believe a lot of the book was about Lou finally moving on with her life and starting anew from Will, I also believe it was about finding closure to a chapter in her life that wasn't done. Will left this giant mark on her heart, on her life, and then he left. In a sense, the new characters in the book are there to help her find that closure she needed. To me, it was as if Lou needed to reassure herself, in some way, that even with Will gone, she still has a lot left to do in this world, and that the people she met help her come to that conclusion. Can you see what I mean?

There were parts of this book that threw me for a loop. It all revolved around the character from Will's past that enters Lou's life. There were parts of this book that just seemed...stupid and crazy. But then again, it's Lou.

Overall, this book was just as great as the first one. Not much as of a tear-jerker as the first one, but the ending has a moment that takes you back to the first book.

I really hope there's a sequel to this book. I need to know what happens with Sam and Lou.

5 Starfish


1 comments:

  1. Loved the review of the first one! And yeah, felt the same. I've been thinking of picking up the second one for quite a while now. Still not sure if I will.

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