A Review of 'Me Before You' by Jojo Moyles

In the limited spare time that I have one of the things I enjoy doing most is losing myself in a good book.  Having joined a book club about a year ago my range of reading has definitely widened and there have been quite a few good reads in that time along with one or two less successful ones!  However it is very rare to read something so good that you want to stop everything and stay within the world that the characters in the novel inhabit.

I know that I normally do not do book reviews and no-one has asked me to promote this novel, but I enjoyed it so much that I wanted to share it with you.

'Me Before You' by Jojo Moyles is a beautifully written story about Lou Clark & Will Traynor.  She is a 27 year old woman living at home, happy in her little world until she loses her job and finds herself working as a carer for quadriplegic Will Traynor.  He has been injured two years previously and is bitter about the loss everything in his life that had been important.  From his job and his holidays to his girlfriend there is nothing left.  The story is about their relationship and how it builds and develops from it's very rocky start.

We see how hard the daily routing is for Will and the constant pain he is in.  We watch as Lou learns to help with his medication, how to help feed him and gets to a point of understanding his needs so that it becomes second nature to her.  We see the anguish of Will's mother and the discomfort in the eyes of strangers, but we also see how Will wants to broaden Lou's horizons and how she manages to get him to leave the comfort blanket of the annexe where he lives.  We see the banter between the two of them and the strengthening of their feelings for each other.

Although written mainly through the voice of Lou, there are some other chapters where characters such as her sister or Will's father have their take on what is happening, and this is what helps to make it such a rounded story.  The characters are so real that you feel as if you know them and the dialogue so natural that we could be speaking ourselves.  

However this is more than just a love story.  At the centre of this is a moral dilemma which  will impact on everyone's lives.  (You need to read it to find out what it is).  In my heart I knew what I wanted to happen but in my head I wasn't so sure, and I was hoping as much as Lou for what she wanted.  I laughed and cried, and I finished the book thinking Jojo Moyles had got it completely right.