Book Review: Me Before You

I have found it: A book that is in contention for being one of my favourite books read in 2013. It will undeniably be in my Top 3, up there beside The Light Between Oceans and The Husband’s Secret (review to come in the coming months). It was a book that I could not put down, one that I read through tears and laughter. It was a book that I very much wanted to rush through, and yet I never wanted it to end. It was a book that grabbed my heart and refused to let go.

If you have not yet read Me Before You by Jojo Moyes, I implore you to go pick it up. This book is an exploration of the human spirit – how it can be sparked, how it is trampled, how it can be invigorated, and what ultimately can snuff it out.

Me Before You is about a woman and a man. Louisa Clark is a simple girl living a simple life, just living each day in a simple way. Her world doesn’t extend much beyond her family and her job. It certainly doesn’t extend further than the borders of her little town. After losing a very ordinary, but badly needed job, she finds herself the caregiver of Will Traynor, who until becoming confined to a wheelchair, lived a very big, very exciting, very successful life. Finding himself paralyzed in a wheelchair made living the life he knows impossible. It made living, for him, unbearable. In accepting her new job, Louisa’s small, ordinary world expands to include Will’s and she resolves to make his life worth living again.

Jojo Moyes has written a stunning, heartbreaking love story. Not flimsy chick lit by any means, Me Before You is page turning literature, which plays on the reader’s emotions and judgments while imploring the reader to question the moral truths they thought they held. While the reader spends the majority of the story in the midst of Louisa’s narration, we question ourselves more concerning Will. What would life look like paralyzed? How would we react? What would we want of our future? And, perhaps the most profound question, and the hardest one to answer: is it ever okay to end your life or play a roll in ending someone else’s?

I don’t often seek out things that make me cry. If I see a YouTube video shared on Facebook with a description that says “Grab your tissues”, I will not turn it on. I have decided to protect what little emotional stability I have throughout my day. But, I also don’t cry often any more in general. Becoming a mother gave me a fortitude I didn’t realize I had, saving my tears for when I have time for them, which rarely comes. So, I seek out small and in my opinion, enjoyable moments in controlled environments to let my emotions loose. Every Thursday night I react accordingly to Grey’s Anatomy. And, I treat myself by picking up books full of feeling like Jojo Moyes’ Me Before You.

I love a book that can make me laugh with tears in my eyes. This isn’t a book that I would ever tell people to worry about their emotional well-being while reading. I believe literature gives us a chance to feel a full range of emotions in a safe environment. In Me Before You, that safe environment extends to provide us an opportunity to test our individual moral truths that we thought were unwavering. Me Before You is one of those books that strengthens a reader by allowing her to exercise her emotions and her convictions.

I want to tell you more about this book. I want to tell you about the parts that I couldn’t stop smiling over and the sections where my heart broke. I want to tell you how the book ends and discuss how that made me feel. But I won’t. This book is meant to be enjoyed from beginning to end with no spoilers, allowing a reader to come to the book with raw emotions and unquestioned beliefs. Just take it from me. This is a book you must read.

Moms Reading (or, #MomsReading) is a book club designed for busy Moms in mind. It is an online book club that meets once a month on Facebook to discuss that month’s book. If you would like to join us in November, we are reading The Rosie Project by Graeme Simsion and we will be chatting about it Wednesday, November 27th at 9pm Eastern. Check out the MomsReading page, Like us on Facebook, or join the Goodreads group to keep up to date with our book choices and the book chats.