Me Before You
Jojo Moyes, 2012
Romance Economics & businessContemporary fiction
A wry, underemployed Englishwoman takes a care job in a grand house and finds her ordinary life opened up by the most difficult person in it. It feels like a quiet, tender exploration of human connection, balanced with moments of gentle wit and profound emotional resonance.
Feels like tenderness, serenity and wonder. About love, friendship and family.
Who it’s for
You may like «Me Before You» if you appreciate character-driven stories about finding meaning in unexpected places. Be prepared for the emotional weight of the narrative, which deals with heavy themes of disability and mortality.
Why read it
Read this book to witness how a simple act of care can profoundly reshape a life and redefine what it means to be present.
A page from the book
What it costs to lose a job you didn't know you loved.
I had never considered that you might miss a job like you missed a limb—a constant, reflexive thing. I hadn’t thought that as well as the obvious fears about money, and your future, losing your job would make you feel inadequate, and a bit useless. That it would be harder to get up in the morning than when you were rudely shocked into consciousness by the alarm. That you might miss the people you worked with, no matter how little you had in common with them. Or even that you might find yourself searching for familiar faces as you walked the high street. Jojo Moyes.Moyes worked as a journalist for about a decade, including at The Independent, before becoming a full-time novelist.
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Questions readers ask
- Is Me Before You for me?
- You may like «Me Before You» if you appreciate character-driven stories about finding meaning in unexpected places. Be prepared for the emotional weight of the narrative, which deals with heavy themes of disability and mortality.
- What is Me Before You like?
- It feels like a quiet, tender exploration of human connection, balanced with moments of gentle wit and profound emotional resonance. Feels like tenderness, serenity and wonder. About love, friendship and family.
- What should I read after Me Before You?
- If you liked Me Before You, try The Pact (Jodi Picoult), People We Meet on Vacation (Emily Henry) and And the Mountains Echoed (Khaled Hosseini).
A taste of the feed
The problem with wanting everything to stay exactly as it is.
He began to trace a pattern on the table with the nail of his thumb. "She kept saying she wanted to keep things exactly the way they were, and that she wished she could stop everything from changing. She got really nervous, like, talking about the future. She once told me that she could see herself now, and she could also see the kind of life she wanted to have - kids, husband, suburbs, you know - but she couldn’t figure out how to get from point A to point B.
The Pact · Jodi Picoult
The oldest child who learned to keep everything buttoned up.
Alex Nilsen is a study in control. In that tall, broad, permanently slouched and/or pretzel-folded body of his, there’s a surplus of stoicism (the result of being the oldest child of a widower with the most vocal anxiety of anyone I’ve ever met) and a stockpile of repression (the result of a strict religious upbringing in direct opposition to most of his passions; namely, academia), alongside the most truly strange, secretly silly, and intensely softhearted goofball I’ve had the pleasure to know.
People We Meet on Vacation · Emily Henry
What would you promise if this life were not the last one?
I love you. I fell in love with you in the depths of my soul, and it’s my soul that will find yours again in the next life.
House of Flame and Shadow · Sarah J. Maas
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