Me Before You is an interesting romantic novel written by the English author Jojo Moyes and published in 2012. Jojo Moyes is a well-known English journalist and an award-winning novelist known for her romantic novels.
The novel, Me Before You,is about Lousia Clark and Will. Lousia loses her job at a local café when the café closes. Will is a disabled guy due to an accident that happened to him two years ago. When Lousia becomes unemployed she gets a job offer to take care of Will who is desperate because of being disabled and sitting in a wheelchair. However, Louisa could gradually make their relationship better but unfortunately, Will wants to end his life with help from Dignitas, a Swiss-based nonprofit organization for assisted suicide. Louisa learns that he will do this after 6 months and she together with her sister tries to figure out ways to convince Will to abandon the idea of assisted suicide. Louisa takes Will on a vacation to the island of Mauritius and there, she admits her love to him. At the same time, she tells him that she knows about the assisted suicide plans that Will has. However, Will refuses to amend his plans which hurts Louisa, and consequently, she resigns as Willäs caretaker. In the end, Louisa flies out to Switzerland to meet Will for the last time and both of them state that the last 6 months were the best period of their lives. After Will’s death, Louisa learns that Will has left her a decent inheritance to complete her education and secure her future.
The novel takes place in several places over 6 months or a bit more when Louisa is the caretaker of Will. The novel is set at Will’s home, in Mauritius, at Louisa’s home, and in Paris.
The main character in the book is Louisa Clark who is a 26-years old, unambitious girl who becomes unemployed as the local café that she works at closes. She is the protagonist in the novel and everything is centralized around her actions and her way to deal with Will’s disability. Louisa is there to take care of Will, but instead, she falls in love with him and develops to become influenced by this love that becomes central in her life. Her only and main concern is Will’s plans to commit assisted suicide in Switzerland. Therefore, she tries in all possible ways to make him amend his plans and continue living.
“All I can say is that you make me… you make me into someone I couldn’t even imagine. You make me happy, even when you’re awful. I would rather be with you – even the you that you seem to think is diminished – than with anyone else in the world.”
The language in the book is rather moderate neither complicated nor too simple but exactly on the right level for romance novels. There are of course a few hard words to understand by a new learner but overall, the language is a contributing factor to the reading experience as it is not very complicated. The author wanted to deliver a message about love in the story. That is, falling in love is blind and does not take into consideration who the beloved one is. Will has no hope but yet, he finds someone who loves him for the person he is despite his disability and bitterness.
I believe that this is a very interesting romantic book and a passionate love story that ends in a sad way. The author succeeded in delivering the intended message to the reader in a romantic and dramatic framework which contributed to the overall reading experience and made the book more interesting to read with a moderate language.