After, Me Before You
Note: There may be spoilers below. Please proceed with caution.
There are very few movies that I've watched that can actually make me cry; there are even fewer books. But I can now add one more to that list which is countable on one hand.
I'm not normally one to read novels whose front cover boasts swirly fonted letters and back cover's description promises a sappy romance, but Jojo Moyes' Me Before You defies expectations. Yes, it's a boy meets girl narrative. Yes, at the end of the day this is a love story. But it is so much more than that.
This atypical romance between Louisa Clark, a seemingly ordinary girl living an ordinary life in a small town, and Will Traynor, a quadriplegic who feels trapped by his circumstances and unable to live the life he used to lead, is so beautifully written, I was hooked from the first page. Moyes' writing flows seamlessly together, capturing the mood of a room or internal struggles of a character with precision. She paints pictures with her words in a way I haven't encountered in a long time. Perhaps this is why the most emotional of moments were able to bring tears to my eyes. As I read the words, enthralled in this world, it was like I could see it all happen in front of me. I could feel it happening to me.
Moyes does this really great thing where we get to see the story from other points of views. She devotes chapters to Will's mom and dad, Lou's sister, and Nathan. It would have been really cool to see more from Will's point of view, but I guess we'll have to settle for the brief time we get to spend inside his head during the prologue. That, and it might have ruined the ending if we knew what Will was thinking all along.
And her characters are all so real. Each and every one of them has a depth that you would not have imagined. There is no caricature. No formula being followed. They are full of surprises, unpredictable as people truly are. It's hard not to fall in love with the protagonists, hard not to cheer for them, hard not to feel their pain and anguish or joy and delight.
But even underneath all this, there is another level of subtext. The question of what it means to love someone and how far you're willing to go to make sure the ones you love are happy. How much of our lives should be dictated by our choices and how much should we heed to the control of the ones who love us? It's a philosophical question posed and perhaps even answered by this book. The ending, as heartbreaking as it is, is still in many ways sanguine. And that is one of the things I love the most. Life is never black and white. Things are never as straightforward as they seem. But that out of something terrible and awful, it's possible to create something beautiful and good. In a really peculiar way, one of the most depressing books I've read all year is now one of my greatest sources of hope.
So if you have a spare moment or two and are looking for a real tearjerker that can tug at your heartstrings, Me Before You is a definite must read. If you don't feel something after reading this book, I would be tempted to say that you might actually be heartless. But don't just take my word for it, go and read this bloody amazing, brilliant, extraordinary novel. Or I guess if you're really lazy, you can wait for the movie to come out in June. Looks like Jojo Moyes wrote the screenplay so there's a good chance it's going to be true to its source. You can bet you'll find me in the theater, probably crying my eyes out at all the wrong moments.
P.S. Here's the trailer if you haven't seen it yet:
There are very few movies that I've watched that can actually make me cry; there are even fewer books. But I can now add one more to that list which is countable on one hand.
I'm not normally one to read novels whose front cover boasts swirly fonted letters and back cover's description promises a sappy romance, but Jojo Moyes' Me Before You defies expectations. Yes, it's a boy meets girl narrative. Yes, at the end of the day this is a love story. But it is so much more than that.
This atypical romance between Louisa Clark, a seemingly ordinary girl living an ordinary life in a small town, and Will Traynor, a quadriplegic who feels trapped by his circumstances and unable to live the life he used to lead, is so beautifully written, I was hooked from the first page. Moyes' writing flows seamlessly together, capturing the mood of a room or internal struggles of a character with precision. She paints pictures with her words in a way I haven't encountered in a long time. Perhaps this is why the most emotional of moments were able to bring tears to my eyes. As I read the words, enthralled in this world, it was like I could see it all happen in front of me. I could feel it happening to me.
Moyes does this really great thing where we get to see the story from other points of views. She devotes chapters to Will's mom and dad, Lou's sister, and Nathan. It would have been really cool to see more from Will's point of view, but I guess we'll have to settle for the brief time we get to spend inside his head during the prologue. That, and it might have ruined the ending if we knew what Will was thinking all along.
And her characters are all so real. Each and every one of them has a depth that you would not have imagined. There is no caricature. No formula being followed. They are full of surprises, unpredictable as people truly are. It's hard not to fall in love with the protagonists, hard not to cheer for them, hard not to feel their pain and anguish or joy and delight.
But even underneath all this, there is another level of subtext. The question of what it means to love someone and how far you're willing to go to make sure the ones you love are happy. How much of our lives should be dictated by our choices and how much should we heed to the control of the ones who love us? It's a philosophical question posed and perhaps even answered by this book. The ending, as heartbreaking as it is, is still in many ways sanguine. And that is one of the things I love the most. Life is never black and white. Things are never as straightforward as they seem. But that out of something terrible and awful, it's possible to create something beautiful and good. In a really peculiar way, one of the most depressing books I've read all year is now one of my greatest sources of hope.
So if you have a spare moment or two and are looking for a real tearjerker that can tug at your heartstrings, Me Before You is a definite must read. If you don't feel something after reading this book, I would be tempted to say that you might actually be heartless. But don't just take my word for it, go and read this bloody amazing, brilliant, extraordinary novel. Or I guess if you're really lazy, you can wait for the movie to come out in June. Looks like Jojo Moyes wrote the screenplay so there's a good chance it's going to be true to its source. You can bet you'll find me in the theater, probably crying my eyes out at all the wrong moments.
P.S. Here's the trailer if you haven't seen it yet:
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