Me Before You - Review (w/ Movie Commentary)

Me Before You (Me Before You, # 1)

By: Jojo Moyes

Published: December 31st 2012 by Pamela Dorman Books/Viking (first published January 5th 2012)

481 pages

Genre: Adult, Contemporary, Realistic Fiction

Source: Borrowed from the library

( Goodreads | Amazon | Book Depository )

*Note: The above links to Amazon and Book Depository are affiliate links. Affiliate links support giveaways for Somewhere Only We Know readers.

Goodreads description--Lou Clark knows lots of things. She knows how many footsteps there are between the bus stop and home. She knows she likes working in The Buttered Bun tea shop and she knows she might not love her boyfriend Patrick.

What Lou doesn't know is she's about to lose her job or that knowing what's coming is what keeps her sane.

Will Traynor knows his motorcycle accident took away his desire to live. He knows everything feels very small and rather joyless now and he knows exactly how he's going to put a stop to that.

What Will doesn't know is that Lou is about to burst into his world in a riot of colour. And neither of them knows they're going to change the other for all time.

I rarely do this, but I saw Me Before You (the movie) before I read the book. It was more of a timing issue really. I had the book on hold at the library, but it wasn't available to me to read yet, and I really wanted to see the movie in the theater with my friend Paula. I knew I still planned to read it so I wasn't too worried about seeing the movie first.

So as the description says, Lou's been working at a local cafe for several years. And she's been dating the same guy for 6 years. Even though she might not categorize her life as exceptional, she is comfortable, and even content for the most part. But The Buttered Bun closes and Lou loses her job. However, her family depends on her income. She must find another job as soon as possible. After trying everything that Job Center has available for her, she ends up on a job interview to take care of a quadriplegic man.

Will was the definition of a physical man before his accident. He went skiing and skydiving. He climbed mountains. So when an accident with a motorcycle injures him to the point of having only minimal ability to use one arm (he pretty much doesn't have the use of his body or limbs from the chest down), he doesn't see how he can live a life stuck in a wheelchair. But it's more than that. There's constant pain and humiliation, extra infections and illnesses. There are many new changes to his life and body that have turned Will into a bitter, angry man.

Lou is determined to continue her job as Will's caretaker despite his horrible attitude for the sake of her family. They need the money and this is the most well-paying job she's ever had. But Lou stumbles upon some secrets that the Traynor family meant to keep, and that changes everything for Lou. She becomes a woman on a mission. Her mission: show Will that life can be worth living even if it isn't the way that he used to live it. Will's mission: show Lou that every moment of life needs to be lived. It needs to be experienced because you never know when your life might be changed in the most important ways. I believe it would be pretty much impossible to spend as much time with someone as Lou and Will do without developing some kind of bond. These two open up to each other and an unlikely relationship begins to develop.

There are so many questions that Me Before You causes the reader to ask. Will Lou be able to change Will's mind about his new life? Will these two find some way that they can be together? How would you feel if you were Will? Would you be able to stand by a loved one if they made a choice that you couldn't understand or that broke your heart? Does support mean agreement? Will you choose to live your life in the moment or will you take what you have and the time you have for granted?

The first section of the book I remember thinking that the movie pretty much matched up event for event pretty spot on. But by the time you get to the chapter narrated by Camilla things start to change a little. For the most part, the movie was right along with the book. Obviously there are some changes. The biggest ones I noted were familial. Will doesn't have a sister in the movie--probably because they didn't want to pay another actress. They solved this by merging a bit of the sister's traits in with Camilla. They also made Camilla and Steven closer in the movie than they were in the book. Lou's family was a bit different too. I felt like even though they joked on Lou in the movie, they were a bit more critical of her in the book. Also, Lou's relationship with Treena was definitely more strained in the book whereas the movie makes them seem like besties. I also liked the slight change in the movie of the necklace that Patrick gives Lou for her birthday. That made me laugh out loud.

Both the movie and the book made me tear up, but they didn't actually fall. I'm not an easy one to make cry--especially since I'm not pregnant anymore. But both were definitely emotional. I think you pretty much expect them to be sad though.

Me Before You gets 4.5 Stars. I think had I read the book before watching the movie then I might have given it 5 Stars, but since I knew how it all ended that kept me from enjoying the book as much as I would have had I been blind to the story. But had I read the book before, I likely would have been more critical of the movie. Either way, Me Before You is extremely well written and will make you ask all kinds of questions and feel all kinds of emotions. I highly recommend it. Have you read Me Before You? Let me know!

Top Ten New to Me Authors I Read in 2014

Top 10 Tuesday is a post hosted by The Broke and the Bookish and this week's topic is Top Ten New to Me Authors I Read in 2015.

1. CJ Duggan - The Summer series
2. Jay Clark - Finding Mr. Brightside
3. E. Lockhart - We Were Liars
4. Claire Wallis - The PUSH series
5. Tahereh Mafi - The Shatter Me series
6. Barry Lyga - The Jasper Dent series
7. Jen Frederick - The Woodland series & The Kerr Chronicles
8. Kelly Oram - The V is for Virgin series
9. Jojo Moyes - One Plus One
10. Mary E Pearson - The Remnant Chronicles series
11. Jenny Han - To All the Boys I’ve Loved Before
12. Rebecca Donovan - The Breathing series

Have you read any of these authors? What do you think? Who were your favorite new-to-you authors that you read this year? Let me know!

One Plus One - Review

One Plus One

By: Jojo Moyes

Published: July 1st 2014 by Pamela Dorman Books

384 pages

Genre: Adult, Contemporary, Chick Lit, Realistic Fiction

Source: Publisher via NetGalley (Thank you!!)

( Goodreads | Amazon | Book Depository )

*Note: The above links to Amazon and Book Depository are affiliate links. Affiliate links support giveaways for Somewhere Only We Know readers.

Goodreads description--One single mom. One chaotic family. One quirky stranger. One irresistible love story from the New York Times bestselling author of Me Before You

American audiences have fallen in love with Jojo Moyes. Ever since she debuted stateside, she has captivated readers and reviewers alike, and hit the New York Times bestseller list with the word-of-mouth sensation, Me Before You. Now, with One Plus One, she’s written another contemporary opposites-attract love story that reads like a modern-day Two for the Road.

Suppose your life sucks. A lot. Your husband has done a vanishing act, your teenage stepson is being bullied and your math whiz daughter has a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity that you can’t afford to pay for. That’s Jess’s life in a nutshell—until an unexpected knight-in-shining-armor offers to rescue them. Only Jess’s knight turns out to be Geeky Ed, the obnoxious tech millionaire whose vacation home she happens to clean. But Ed has big problems of his own, and driving the dysfunctional family to the Math Olympiad feels like his first unselfish act in ages . . . maybe ever.

One Plus One is Jojo Moyes at her astounding best. You’ll laugh, you’ll weep, and when you flip the last page, you’ll want to start all over again.

I’ve seen Jojo Moyes all over the place. From the very first review I saw from Aussie Zombie of Me Before You, I knew that I would need to read her work at some point. And when the opportunity came up to read and review One Plus One I knew I had to jump on it.

Initially I felt like Jojo Moyes might have been writing from too many POVs. At the very beginning I was getting people confused and wasn’t sure how each POV would draw the story into an overall, cohesive book. It didn’t take too terribly long to know each character, keep them straight, and to begin to see the connections between all of the POVs. The narrators are Jess, Ed, Tanzie, and Nicky.

Jess is a single mom. Her husband, Marty, left around two years ago to move in with his mother and get out of a depression/funk. He hasn’t had anything to do with the kids since he left minus periodic Skype calls. Jess is struggling to make ends meet. She works at least two jobs—as a maid/cleaner and a bartender. She’s working her fingers to the bone trying to take care of her kids—Nicky and Tanzie.

Nicky isn’t even Jess’s biological child. Marty—Jess’s husband—is Nicky’s father. His mother is a drug addict that is mentioned, but we never meet her. He’s been living with Jess since he was eight and she views him as just as much her child as Tanzie. I loved how Nicky looks out for Tanzie. Despite getting bullied and beat up for being a bit different from the other kids at his school, Nicky is going to do whatever it takes to see Tanzie happy. He helps Jess take care of her as much as he can, but he very much needs Jess. He needs a mom, and he needs a dad.

Tanize was a sweetheart. If Nicky’s different from the kids at school, Tanzie is a world apart. She loves math—like advanced level math. She loves sequins and anything homemade by Jess. She was such an adorable kid. Her love of math is actually where the book’s title comes from, and I appreciated the math theories being interwoven into the overall story in a way that made so much sense but without needing to understand advanced level math to understand. I also loved the relationship that Tanzie had with the family dog Norman who was just as much a main character as any of the others. Norman is huge (though I’m not sure exactly what breed). His body produces toxic smells. He can be hard headed and determined. And I fell in love with Norman just as much as the other characters.

And then there’s Ed. He doesn’t seem to fit at all into this equation. He’s the part owner of a software company and is being investigated for insider-trading, of which he’s actually guilty. Ed just wanted to find an easy, quick way to get out of a relationship with a girl that had become entirely too clingy. He was an idiot. And now he’s paying the price. Exiled from his regular home and his office, he spends some time at his beachfront condo where Jess happens to be the cleaning lady. He and Jess end up making a deal where Ed agrees to drive her family to Scotland for Tanzie’s math Olympiad in hopes that Tanzie will win the completion (and the prize money) and be able to go to prestigious private school that Jess can’t afford.

I completely fell in love with these characters. I wanted them all to succeed and find happiness. And I loved the slow development and changes that took place over the course of this crazy, wild, spontaneous adventure they all went on together. The layers upon layers of this story add to such a genuine feel. This is exactly what hooked me. Each character was multifaceted and had their own set of struggles. Each character had separate yet intertwined buildup, conflict, and resolution. While I was enjoying this book, I wasn’t completely hooked early on. I mean I was enjoying myself, but I didn’t find that pressing need to keep reading until after the 50% mark probably. I don’t think that affected my overall opinion of this book, but I did want to note that if you’re having trouble connecting, just keep pushing through. I feel certain you’ll be thankful that you did.

One Plus One actually succeeded where many other books have not. I actually cried. Like tears rolling down the cheeks at this one part. It was so raw and open and heartbreaking in that moment. I’m not the easiest person to make cry so this is often a feat when it comes to books, TV shows, and movies. I’m not sure if the setting being in England has anything to do with the number of f-bombs, but you might also want to be aware of this going into the book.

Favorite quotes:

-…being a parent on your own when you were totally out of your depth was actually the loneliest place on earth.

-She cleaned because if she didn’t she would stand in her overgrown little back garden, lift her face to the sky and scream and scream and scream, and she wasn’t sure she’d be able to stop.

-Who was it who had said you were only as happy as your unhappiest child?

- “Rich is paying every single bill on time without thinking about it.”

-It wasn’t that Ed would make it okay—he had his own problems to deal with—but somehow the sum of them added up to something better.

-It’s weird how you can miss something you only ever complained about.

-The Law of probability combined with the law of large numbers states that to beat the odds, sometimes you have to repeat an event an increasing number of times in order to get you to the outcome you desire. The more you do, the closer you get. Or, as I explained it to Mum, basically, sometimes you just have to keep going.

One Plus One gets 4 stars from me. I thoroughly enjoyed the ride. I loved all the layering of the characters and the stories. And I loved how everything fit together. The whole of One Plus One is definitely greater than the sum of its parts. Have you read One Plus One? What did you think? Let me know!