Me Before You

To be honest i was really looking forward to read this book. I´ve had it since last summer but I haven´t found the time to read it until now. I wanted to read it before the movie comes out so now it was kind of mandatory to read it, mostly because I really want to see the movie… I mean Sam Claflin and Emilia Clarke, what else do you need to want to see the film?

But that wasn´t the main reason why I purchased the book. I´ve read other book by Jojo Moyes and I really enjoyed, and as matter of fact I tend to be quite skeptical and I wanted to know if that book was an anomaly or just a prove of what a great author she was. For those who are wondering, it is the second one. A prove of how great she is as an author. I feel like I am rambling just a little too much, so without further do I am going to start talking about Me Before You.

As I was saying because Jojo Moyes is such a great author I really enjoyed the style in which the book is written and it was such a quick read: I read it in less than a day. I was trapped between the pages of the book until I arrive to the end. But I want to clarify something, even when the book is sad I did not cry. For me rather than a sad book this is an ode to life.

In this story we follow Louisa Clarke a young woman that is quite unique in every single aspect of her life. Louisa suddenly losses her job and she has to try a bunch of new jobs until she ends up working for the Traynors. She has to take care of Will, who is a men that is quadriplegic after a motorbike accident.

Both of the main characters of the story are so endearing,  but if I would have to pick one I would choose Louisa without a doubt. The book is narrated in the first person entirely, mostly by Louisa but there are some characters that are told by the perspective of some other character.

I am not going to start to analyze in further detail any of the characters because in doing so I would spoil some of you. But I cannot, not tell about Nathan. At the beginning he is just the physiotherapist but at the end he is the friend of both Louisa and Will.

To be honest I can understand all the hype that this book has. But I found it to be incredible that everyone is about the love story and no one talks about the bunch of other important topics that this book is about: raping, depression and euthanasia.

Jojo Moyes treat all the topics with respect and in a very intelligent way.

Regarding the raping she does it in a way in which you can imagine what happened but she doesn´t specifically tells you about it. And the author shows us the way in which the characters struggle with the consequences of it. Actually this topic is quite tricky and only those who have suffered it could talk about what it is like. Luckily I am not one of those.

The other two main topics are deal together. On one hand you might think that one (depression) takes to the other (euthanasia) but that´s not my opinion. I do not know anyone with depression and to be honest I am the exact opposite to it. But I can say that I think that is a mental illness, very important and more present in our society that we think of, and that we are not paying enough attention to it. I am pretty sure that being depressed it is something beyond being sad.

And to conclude with the medical topics: the euthanasia. From my privilege point of view I can say that I do not agree with it. I think that life must be protect at all cost, but I understand and respect other points of view. That´s why I have enjoyed so muh how Jojo Moyes has treated the topic. I think that she exposes both points of view during the whole book, but mostly at the end of the book.

Obviously those are my personal opinions and as I´ve previously said I respect different ones.

For my the book is 4 out of 5 stars because despite the fact that I’ve truly enjoyed and I’ve read it so quickly there was something I´ve missed. And now be careful because you might find a spoiler in the next sentence. It´s not that I was not happy with the end of the book cause I think the ending is perfect, it´s consistent with what´s been happening during the whole book.

The main reason for the 4 stars is mostly because I think that the narration could have been faster in some of the parts of the books.

Have you already read the book? What do you think? If you haven´t read it yet, what are you waiting for?

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