They had nothing in common until love gave them everything to lose
Louisa Clark is an ordinary girl living an exceedingly ordinary life - steady boyfriend, close family - who has never been farther afield than their tiny village. She takes a badly needed job working for ex–Master of the Universe Will Traynor, who is wheelchair bound after an accident. Will has always lived a huge life - big deals, extreme sports, worldwide travel - and now he's pretty sure he cannot live the way he is.
Will is acerbic, moody, bossy - but Lou refuses to treat him with kid gloves, and soon his happiness means more to her than she expected. When she learns that Will has shocking plans of his own, she sets out to show him that life is still worth living.
A Love Story for this generation, Me Before You brings to life two people who couldn't have less in common - a heartbreakingly romantic novel that asks, What do you do when making the person you love happy also means breaking your own heart?
Me Before You is a story about personal redemption and self-worth, about finding courage, about knowing what to hold onto and what to let go. It's also a meditation on one of the most controversial and divisive issues of our times. (Reviewed by Norah Piehl).
New York Times Book Review
When I finished this novel, I didn’t want to review it: I wanted to reread it. . . . Moyes’s story provokes tears that are redemptive, the opposite of gratuitous. Some situations, she forces the reader to recognize, really are worth crying over. . . . with Lou and Will she has created an affair to remember.
O, The Oprah Magazine
An unlikely love story . . . To be devoured like candy, between tears.
USA Today
After finishing Jojo Moyes' Me Before You, you grasp why the novel, a word-of-mouth sensation from Britain, has been sold to 28 countries. . . . by turns funny and moving but never predictable.
People Magazine
Funny, surprising and heartbreaking, populated with characters who are affecting and amusing . . . This is a thought-provoking, thoroughly entertaining novel that captures the complexity of love.
Kirkus Reviews
Despite some obviousness in the storyline, this is uplift fiction at its best, with fully drawn characters making difficult choices.
Booklist
Moyes’ latest is made heartwarming, thanks to the vibrancy of its main characters, both of whom will keep readers on their toes with their chemistry and witty repartee. . . .humorous and romantic through and through.
Publishers Weekly
Starred Review. [A] lovely novel, both nontraditional and enthralling.
The Independent (UK)
If you think this tale sounds obvious – she brightens his life, he acts as her Pygmalion – think again: Jojo Moyes draws on the skills she honed as a journalist to create a clear, candid picture of the practicalities of Will's situation – the health issues, the unrelenting pain – while her novelist's mind casts illuminating light on her characters' reactions to the highly emotive and topical subject of assisted dying.
Recent Reader Reviews
Rated of 5
by Louise J Couldn't Put It Down! I didn’t expect the ending of this book at all, it was quite a shock to me to be quite honest and I cried for about ten minutes. The author has done a fantastic job at penning this novel and you won’t be able to put it down once you’ve started and... Read More
Rated of 5
by Diane S. Me before you Finishing this book on the 40th anniversary of the passing of Roe vs. Wade almost seems ironic. The heart of this novel also concerns a pressing moral issue, one I will not comment on nor state which side of the debate I would be on. Louisa and... Read More
At the center of Me Before You is an intensely emotional and ethical debate about assisted suicide; and in particular, of the assisted-death organization, Dignitas, which plays a primary role in the story. Dignitas, founded near Zurich, Switzerland in 1998, has as its motto "to live with dignity – to die with dignity." The organization's assisted suicide programs are very carefully regulated and require that prospective patients undergo a series of psychological and medical assessments. Patients must also certify that they are making the decision to die of their own free will; Swiss law mandates that assisted suicide be done without coercion or self-interest on the part of the person or organization assisting with the process. Suicide is accomplished humanely through ingestion of a powerful overdose of pentobarbital, which first numbs pain, then induces a coma, and finally results in respiratory arrest and death. It's estimated that more than a thousand people have been assisted to die by Dignitas.
Dignitas is not the only organization providing these...
A palliative care doctor on the front lines of hospital care illuminates one of the most important and controversial ethical issues of our time on his quest to transform care through the end of life.
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