SPOILERS ALERT.
SPOILERS ALERT.
You have been warned.
Me Before You
By Jojo Moyes
Penguin, 2013
I rode the bandwagon for this book. I knew it was a best seller in Amazon a few years back, but I was still in my Rainbow Rowell phase then. With the movie's trailer scattered all over social media, starring Emilia Clarke and Sam Claflin, I made the jump and boy, did I get a wallop.
Me Before You is the story of Louisa Clarke and Will Traynor. Two very different people who were thrown together into circumstances they have no control of. Both discovered love but in the end, it was the choices they made that defined who they were for each other.
What worked
Louisa and Will have chemistry. Like opposite poles of a magnet, they were drawn to each other instantly. Moyes, however, revealed this so carefully through well developed characterization of Louisa and restraint in keeping Will's mindscape from the reader. It is through her description of Will's actions and subtle affections towards Lou, the events that they are put together and the plotting of crucial events, like the family dinner, the wedding and their trip to the maze that made him such a darling despite his bossy exterior. Lou may seem like a teenager at age twenty six, but Moyes was able to present why this was so in an experience that left her fearful and cautious. Thus, her child like qualities of transparency, cheerfulness and sincerity scored big time not only in readers' hearts, but in Will's as well.
Their banter and witty conversations were delightful to read. It was easy to love these two. Indeed, this is the couple worth rooting for. That is why, when the time came for Will to end his life, tears can't be helped but pour out.
That was the most difficult part for me. It was tough letting go of Will and seeing Lou in misery. What now? After all the effort and the love, the sacrifice and the suffering, Will has chosen to leave her with an impressive inheritance and inspiring words to live by. How can one's joy be a source of pain? Yes, this is love that is true, but the choice to leave and to let go is a way of loving too. Isn't it? Or is it?
I couldn't help but think how unfair Will had been to Lou. On the one hand, he was fair and humane to her considering that she deserves a better man who could give her, not just inspiring words to go and live boldly, to see the world and to conquer one's fears but for her to be loved as a woman should be loved. Something that Will was very good at before being confined to a wheel chair.
What did not work
Which is my issue at the end of the book. I want to know what happens to Lou after Will. She deserves her happily ever after or a closure that would tell me that things are going to be alright.
This is why, I am off to read the sequel, After You.
Over all, I love the book because of its fearless narration of how love can bring out the best in us and that loving is the respect we give to the ones we love as they make choices we often couldn't fully grasp.
Rating: 4 Bookmarks
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