Rating: 5 out of 5

“You only get one life. It’s actually your duty to live it as fully as possible.”

― Jojo Moyes, Me Before You

Louisa Clark is an ordinary girl living an ordinary life with her ordinary boyfriend and her not-so ordinary family. Louisa has never been far from her home in a rainy village in the UK, and she is quite content with that. Until Will. Forced to get a job after the tiny cafe she had worked at shuts down, Louisa gets a job as a caretaker. The job requirements seem easy enough– ”give company to disabled and provide basic necessities such as food and medicine.”

However, Will is anything but easy. Having been through a horrific motorcycle accident, Will is a severe quadriplegic who can not get over the fact that his high-fi life of jumping off cliffs and deep-sea scuba diving has been cut short. Moving on becomes difficult for Will–he simply, desperately, wants the old life back. He is moody, bitter and generally just mean. Despite these setbacks, Louisa makes it her mission to provide and care for Will and soon “his happiness means more to her than her own.” When Louisa finds out about a devastating plan Will has made, she makes it her job to show him that life is worth living.

What do you do when making the person you love happy also means breaking your own heart?

Me Before You quickly captured my heart and soul. For those readers who are enthusiastic about an amazing romance characterized by selfless love, Me Before You is the ideal read. Romance included, the dynamic between Lou and Will becomes laugh-out-loud funny. Then, the sad moments of seeing what a quadriplegic really goes through on a day-to-day basis hits the reader and causes such a sense of loss along with gratefulness for the life one has. In regards to that reality, Jojo Moyes makes sure to refuse to sugarcoat all the never mentioned moments that a disabled person goes through. As the novel progressed, I found myself constantly rooting for Will’s perseverance, and praising the way Lou handles every situation in her own, awkward way. As many reviews will contest to, after reading Me Before You, I wanted to reread and reread until I was myself satisfied with the ending.  

Although Me Before You is one of my favorite books, there are some drawbacks that one must address when looking at the text as a whole. I found that Jojo Moyes was very slow at getting to the actual point of the novel, and yes, many readers simply wanted the plot to move on, but other readers found that Moyes took her time getting to the plot of the book. At some points in the book, readers felt that some passages were not needed and that the passages could have been excluded without interrupting the flow of the novel.

But, as an avid reader may see, Me Before You is more about the emotional toll that the novel has and the overall impact that the plot is attempting to sway the reader towards. These “extra passages” can be overlooked, and in the end, the novel reaches a zenith in the realistic fiction world.

Me Before You gains a 5 out of 5 rating because of its plot and emotional impact. I can guarantee as an avid reader that once one becomes attached to the novel (which will happen quickly), one will not want to let it go. Through her writing, Jojo Moyes vividly portrays the world of quadriplegics and the everyday struggles they themselves go through and what the loved ones around them cope with. Despite the small drawbacks, I highly recommend Me Before You as a stand-up novel that deserves the highest of praises.