Me Before You

Okay, let's just get it over with...which one of you incredible bookies can I blame??

For my headache...

from crying and thinking and my general book-hangover???

Who...can I blame AND thank?

I've spent some of my Spring break with Will and Lou, two characters that are hard for me to forget, courtesy of JoJo Moyes and her book, Me Before You.

I had not heard of the book, I had not read any hype, I just saw that several of you out there were saying that it was great, that it made you think, that it stuck with you. On those small tidbits I added it to the library reserve list and viola, guess which book came in as Spring Break began?!?! 

What? Have I lived in a hole?

 Now I find out that this book is a best seller in 28 countries!?! 

Well, I am a teacher and yes, I guess I have only a little bit of a life from August to June, but how could I have missed this?

 This book is probably making Jodi Picoult quiver right about now. (I know, I was just with her this weekend at the Tucson Book Festival. We're pals now. ;) 

This is a perfect book club book, with discussion aplenty. It's British (but not Downton Abbey.) It's English village and class struggle but no preaching. This is not chick-lit. (Good thing too, I have low tolerance for that.) 

So what is it?

• It's the story of Lou,a local girl going nowhere, who gets laid off from her job as a waitress. She accepts a job as a home care assistant to a 35 year old quadriplegic for 6 months.
• It's the story of Will, who lived life in a large way, now living small due to an accident that has left him a quadriplegic - enraged, sarcastic and wanting to die.
• It's the story of the relationship that grows between Will and Lou.
• It's a story that could be maudlin or story-book pithy and over the top romantic. It is none of that.
• It's a page-turner.
• It requires a tissue or two or three.

So, what are you waiting for? 

Go and enjoy it. You can thank me later.

Favorite quotes...

"It's just that thing you never understand about being a mother, until you are one, that it is not the grown man - the galumphing, unshaven, stinking, opinionated offspring - you see before you, with his parking tickets and unpolished shoes and complicated love life. You see all the people he has ever been all rolled up unto one"

"Her default setting seemed to be stuck on Disapprove."

"So this is it. You are scored on my heart, Clark."

"He had always been like that, our son - quite capable of doing the opposite of what was right, simply because he didn't want to be seen to be complying in some way. I don't know where it came from, this urge to subvert."