Me Before You by Jojo Moyes

 

Lou Clark knows lots of things. She knows how many footsteps there are between the bus stop and home. She knows she likes working in The Buttered Bun tea shop and she knows she might not love her boyfriend Patrick.

What Lou doesn't know is she's about to lose her job or that knowing what's coming is what keeps her sane.

Will Traynor knows his motorcycle accident took away his desire to live. He knows everything feels very small and rather joyless now and he knows exactly how he's going to put a stop to that.

What Will doesn't know is that Lou is about to burst into his world in a riot of colour. And neither of them knows they're going to change the other for all time.

There has been a lot of hype surrounding this book and it was appearing everywhere one looked, so after enjoying her other novel, The Ship of Brides, I thought I would give this a read. 

I expected to be blown away by it because of the hype and I wasn't.  It was a well written novel and a good story concept, one that was quite topical and brave to tackle.  

It will certainly open the general discussion on Assisted Suicide and the rights and wrongs of it.  I just felt that the author did not do it quite enough justice.  She seemed to try and make the characters and stories throughout a bit too light and whimsical, perhaps to counteract the seriousness of the main issue but it just didn't seem right to me.  I would have preferred a darker tale throughout - I know what could be darker than being quadriplegic and discussing Assisted Suicide - but that is kind of my point.  I felt the author was trying to be too "chatty" with the characters .

Don't get me wrong it was an enjoyable and interesting read but it just did not live up to the hype, in my opinion.  Still worth giving it a read as long as you go into it knowing that it will probably not blow your mind away.  I am struggling with my points as I am torn between a 3 or a 4 out of 5 for this for the above reasons.  I will go with a 4 as I don't want to put anyone off reading a good book, even if parts of it did not work well for me.