Book: After You (Me Before You #2)
Author: Jojo Moyes
Pages: 410
Published: October 2015
Publisher: Penguin
Synopsis:
spoilers for Me Before You
How do you move on after the person you loved died?
Louisa Clark no longer is the happy, ordinary girl, but a woman suffering from the death of Will Traynor the man she came to love. After an accident that forces her to return home, where she hasn’t been in quite a while, her life starts to change.
She joins a support group for people who have lost loved ones. When someone from Will’s past stumbles into her life, everything changes radically. And slowly, not only her body, but also her soul heal and Lou finds herself, new friends and maybe even love.
My Review:
As soon as I heard about a sequel to Me Before You I was so excited and couldn’t wait to get my hands on this book. I was curious what could happen after what happened in book one. Me Before You is one of my absolute favourite books, so I had quite high expectations towards After You. Unfortunately I have to say that they weren’t fully met.
I loved: Meeting Louisa Clarke again. Lou is such a great character. I liked how she was portrayed in this book. It was realistical to feel and act like she did, especially after the death of someone you loved so much like she loved Will. I liked how you could basically feel her struggle to cope with life and everything it puts in her way, like rebellious teenagers, falling off buildings and hot paramedics. I also loved the other characters and how everyone interacted with each other.
As an admitted Jojo Moyes fan, I, of course, loved her writing style.
I didn’t like: I cannot put my finger on the exact thing, but something was missing for me. If you have read any other books by Jojo Moyes, you know that there is a lot of emotional drama and that you will cry a lot. This was especially the case with the prequel of After You. In this book though, the beginning had some drama, but then the book got rather slow. There are some emotions and towards the end all the drama but it didn’t touch me as Me Before You did. And, all the drama at the end was a bit too much in my opinion and it didn’t fit into the plot that well. In my opinion it actually was kind of unnecessary. Plus, I forgot it is a sequel from time to time.
I think I would have enjoyed this book more as a standalone, though I really like it.
Rating:
★★★/5
