After You
JoJo Moyes
368 pages
kindle edition
From the Publisher:
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.
Review:
I couldn’t down Me Before You. I thought it was a good book and really enjoyed reading it. But after reading it I wasn’t sure I would really want to read After You. My kindle version came with the first chapter of After You, but I still wouldn’t even read that. (if you’ve read Me Before You and/or you know the ending, maybe you’ll understand. I mean, why would I want to keep reading?!) I just finished the book and set it down. I was talking to a friend about it and my struggle about not really wanting to read the second book. She had recommended that I read these books in the first place, and she’s always pretty spot on with book ideas for me. She told me I had to read the preview chapter and I would change my mind. And she was right! Once I read the preview chapter of After You I was hooked. I had to read the book.
I only wish I would have enjoyed the rest of the book as much as I liked Me Before You. After You was a good book. I enjoyed it and I read it fairly fast. I had sick kids over the Valentine’s day weekend this year so I was able to read both books. But I didn’t really love this one. Louisa seemed pretty whiny, maybe I would be too, if I had just lost the love of my life, but it wasn’t like she had been in love with him or had a relationship for years and years. Give me someone who has been married and establish a life with the love of their life and then I’ll understand depressed and whiny. I wasn’t crazy about some of the new characters. I liked Sam. But I felt the addition of Lily was a bit much. I thought it was a little crazy how fast Lou accepted her. Parts of Lily’s story were a little too graphic for me, basically she just overall was kinda annoying and I could have done without her in the story. (That sounds harsh, but I just didn’t like her)
I thought the book had some good closure. I was happy for that. I think it’s important to see that life can move on and forward after losing loved ones. It doesn’t always seem easy and it is not always pretty, but life does go on. I felt that book was a good example of that.
The book has a lot more language than Me Before You. And some graphic scenes. If you’re sensitive to that this is not a book for you.
It wasn’t a horrible book. Just not may favorite. Worth maybe the closure. (although that is a big maybe)
Final Score:
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