After You

Author:  Jojo Moyes

Genre: Contemporary, Romance, Adult

Publisher: Pamela Dorman Books

Year: 2015

Ranking: 3,5 / 5

 

 Synopsis

“You’re going to feel uncomfortable in your new world for a bit. But I hope you feel a bit exhilarated too. Live boldly. Push yourself. Don’t settle. Just live well. Just live. Love, Will.”

How do you move on after losing the person you loved? How do you build a life worth living?

Louisa Clark is no longer just an ordinary girl living an ordinary life. After the transformative six months spent with Will Traynor, she is struggling without him. When an extraordinary accident forces Lou to return home to her family, she can’t help but feel she’s right back where she started.

Her body heals, but Lou herself knows that she needs to be kick-started back to life. Which is how she ends up in a church basement with the members of the Moving On support group, who share insights, laughter, frustrations, and terrible cookies. They will also lead her to the strong, capable Sam Fielding—the paramedic, whose business is life and death, and the one man who might be able to understand her. Then a figure from Will’s past appears and hijacks all her plans, propelling her into a very different future. . . .

For Lou Clark, life after Will Traynor means learning to fall in love again, with all the risks that brings. But here Jojo Moyes gives us two families, as real as our own, whose joys and sorrows will touch you deeply, and where both changes and surprises await. 

The Author

Jojo Moyes is a British novelist. She studied at Royal Holloway, University of London. She won a bursary financed by The Independent newspaper to study journalism at City University and subsequently worked for The Independent for 10 years. In 2001 she became a full time novelist. Moyes' novel Foreign Fruit won the Romantic Novelists' Association (RNA) Romantic Novel of the Year in 2004. She is married to journalist Charles Arthur and has three children.

Personal Experience with This Book

I do not usually write reviews of the last book on a Saga / Trilogy / Duology but in this case I could not help it. When they announced that Me Before You would have a continuation, I was one of those who said I would buy this book no matter; and it was only having it in my hands and watching the trailer for the film what made me want to start reading it right away. You cannot imagine how I feel now that I have finished it.

I started reading the book with a great desire to read it and when I reached the last chapters, my spirits had fallen much. The book is good, it is a good story, and it has that cute touch of Jojo Moyes and focus on the importance of the family that I love about this author. What happens is that it is not better than the first. In short, I think it would have been much better left to the reader's imagination what happened with Louisa after Will's death.

We have a Louisa that despite having learned so much from Will continues in the same vein of making up every excuse not to leave her shell and comfort zone. One would think that after going through all that, after that epilogue we see as she tries to live, to continue her life with the last letter Will left her in hand, Lou will be a brave and capable woman meeting the challenges of the great city of London. However, we see the same Lou from the previous book, with the same insecurities, the same excuses, more of the same. This point has good and bad things because on the one hand, it is very realistic and, on the other, is very frustrating.

It is realistic because that is exactly what would happen to any human being who is somehow teach to live in a way that has not lived all his life for a short period of 6 months way. I say one does not expect a huge change in the character because 6 months is too little time for that change; furthermore that the person who impulse that change is not with you and it is difficult to follow that path alone. A path to which one is not accustomed and explore it alone is even intimidating. I greatly appreciate this from Jojo’s writing because it gives a touch of realism to the situation of Louisa that is impressive. However, Lou gets too frustrating with the passage of the chapters. I reached a point where I wanted to shake her strongly and say "WAKE UP WOMAN, YOU HAVE TO LIVE YOUR LIFE." And that frustration was so much that ot discouraged me when reading the book.

The Lily situation seemed unnecessary to me. I think it add a bit of history and sentiment, Jojo wanted to give it a more familiar touch but when I imagined this book I expected to find an approach to the life of Lou and not so much towards the Traynor family. I think the book could have been done without the presence of Lily in it perfectly. Although I do not deny that, this character reminded me of Will and in that sense, it touched my heart.

As for Sam I can say that I love him. I think Sam was the reason that I put a 3.5 to this book and not a 3. It is a lovely person. Someone who wants Lou to leave that shelf where she is. He shows that love is more than dream; it is REAL. These two build a relationship that I really liked. I felt a connection between them, I liked very much, and which made me enjoy reading each situation presented to them.

Otherwise, I think I would have liked to see a little more of Lou's family and, how they handle most daily situations, see what they achieved. I would have liked to see less Lily and I would have liked to see more to Lou trying to make decisions.

As a final thought: for me this book was not necessary. I think I would have been perfectly fine with the end of the previous book and I think because "Me before You," touched so much my heart, is the reason that this book did not meet my expectations. Take it as a reading for fun, but do not think about it with the same feeling that I did because you may be disappointed.