Me Before You

I was eager to see what FoF members thought of our July selection, Jojo Moyes’ Me Before You, due to the fact that every single voter requested this title on our last ballot. Overall, MBY was well-received with six thumbs-up votes and three so-so’s. Here are some of the initial thoughts from readers as they explained their thumbs-up/so-so votes:

• I thought it was very well-written although I could not relate to Lou. I hated her family, especially the mother, because I thought they treated Lou poorly.
• I saw the ending coming miles away and thought it was a bit predictable. I did like Lou’s family- they were loving and I think the necessity of Lou’s income was just that family’s dynamic. I also thought Will’s mother was very well played out.
• This was a so-so read for me. I got the feeling that the book was just a means to talk about assisted suicide.
• Thumbs up! I definitely sympathized with both of the mothers. The plot was a little predictable but I was OK with it.
• I really loved the first half of the book- so much so that I found myself laughing out loud. But I thought that letting Will die was so clearly the right thing to do. I even found it unbelievable that his family would fight him on it- I wanted them to be more sympathetic. I was relieved at the end of the book. Although I think Will leaving Lou the money was a bit unbelievable.
• I thought MBY had great potential in the beginning but it dwindled.  I didn’t believe that Will would fall in love with Lou- although I could see them becoming friends.
• I liked Lou. I can relate to living with the family where everyone has to take care of each other. This is my generation- being in your twenties during the stock market crash.
• I liked Lou. I thought there were fairy tale elements (we previously compared Lou and Will’s story to Beauty and the Beast) but it was also authentic. I thought Lou’s family was a working class family doing what they can to survive. Everyone deals with what they can within their limitations. I thought the ending was the best ending we could have had. I appreciated that there wasn’t a cliché happily-ever-after or Will dying from another cause.

Next, our group discusses Moyes’ somewhat ambiguous title. Several readers speculated that the “Me” referred to Will and “You” referred to Lou, or everyone else in Will’s life, and was a hint that Will would die before them. Another reader suggested that Will’s family and Lou were thinking of themselves before they were thinking of Will’s needs. In other words, Lou prioritized what she wanted (for Will to live) over Will’s feelings. I mentioned that in an interview, Moyes stated that the title was intentionally unclear but she wanted the personal pronouns to apply to both Lou and Will referring to “who I was before I met you.”

When Lou discovers Will’s intentions and the reason behind her six month contract, she abruptly quits her job. I asked readers if they felt that Lou’s reaction was understandable and if they would have responded in a similar fashion if they were in Lou’s shoes. Below are some of their responses:

• To be fair, I thought it was wrong that the Traynors hired Lou under false pretenses. I was especially annoyed that Will’s mother assumed some sort of “ownership” over Lou (referring to Camilla’s reaction to Lou moving in with Patrick).
• I think Lou was just snobbish about rich people. I would have quit for different reasons.
• I thought it was bad of Lou to quit the Traynors. She left Will in the lurch. Lou made Will’s decision about her.
• I wouldn’t have quit. I’m at an age where I see a lot of sickness and death. I don’t think what Will was asking for is a morally wrong thing.

Before wrapping up, one reader expressed concern regarding the overall theme of the book. She wondered if Moyes’ message in MBY was that being a quadriplegic forced Will to become a better person. When I bounced her question back to the rest of the FoF members, most readers responded in the negative. They found that Moyes wasn’t trying to state that Will’s accident made him a better person, but rather that both Lou and Will’s lives changed drastically from knowing each other. One reader simply stated that knowing Lou made Will a better person, not the accident.

Lastly, it is a common practice in our meetings to bring up another book that would serve as a great read-alike for the current title we’re discussing. We had a unique experience during this meeting in that several readers mentioned “view-alikes” for Me Before You, or movies that they found to be reminiscent of this title. Below are some of the films mentioned:

• The Intouchables
• The Sea Inside
• A Single Man
• The Diving Bell and the Butterfly
• The Sessions

All of these movies are available for check-out at Lisle Library!