Warning: Contains a teeny tiny bit of spoiler, maybe? Okay kidding, there's a LOT of spoilers.
Title: After YouSeries: Me Before You #2Author: Jojo MoyesGenre: Contemporary RomancePublisher: Penguin BooksPublish Date: 2015Pages: 410Goodreads link: http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/25041504-after-youAuthor link: http://www.jojomoyes.com/Book blurb: How do you move on after losing the person you loved? How do you build a life worth living?
Louisa Clark is no longer just an ordinary girl living an ordinary life. After the transformative six months spent with Will Traynor, she is struggling without him. When an extraordinary accident forces Lou to return home to her family, she can’t help but feel she’s right back where she started.
Her body heals, but Lou herself knows that she needs to be kick-started back to life. Which is how she ends up in a church basement with the members of the Moving On support group, who share insights, laughter, frustrations, and terrible cookies. They will also lead her to the strong, capable Sam Fielding—the paramedic, whose business is life and death, and the one man who might be able to understand her. Then a figure from Will’s past appears and hijacks all her plans, propelling her into a very different future...
For Lou Clark, life after Will Traynor means learning to fall in love again, with all the risks that brings. But here Jojo Moyes gives us two families, as real as our own, whose joys and sorrows will touch you deeply, and where both changes and surprises await.
Overall rate: ★★★☆☆
Favourite excerpt from the book: 'Life is short, right? We both know that. Well, what if you're my chance? What if you are the thing that's actually going to make me happiest?'
Me Before You had been a good reading experience to me, and I was hoping for the same thing with After You. Sadly to say, I pretty much had a hard time finishing this one. I felt forced to complete the book, and at some point I just to hurl the book away and scream at the fiction people in the story. But I was desperate to know the ending, I wanted to see Lou get her real happiness. I mean, yes she was happy, but then Will decided to end his life. I'll never forgive him for dying. Oh yes who cares if he's just a fictional character I'm still pissed
I had absolutely no expectation for After You. I didn't read even the synopsis or any reviews for the book. All I know is that Lou must have some kind of an end to the grief that Will had left behind. The ending of Me Before You seemed to say that Lou was leading a good life after Will, she even went to Paris for goodness sake! But no, after several months (was it?) the grief started eating her again and there she went, back down to a sad depressed state. I admit that I've never had an experience of losing a person that I loved, possibly only the experience of dying cats and an old friend dying at a very young age. Other than that, I have absolutely no experience of handling grief. I know this makes me a person who shouldn't judge, but I can't help but be judgmental whenever I read books related to people who can't move on.
Life goes on. People come and go. People... die. I know it will be hard to move on, yes, I can't imagine losing someone important in life, suddenly the world is missing from their voices and actions. Of course it's going to be hard for everyone. But ruining your own life and becoming a walking ball of sadness is not something worth to do. I'm not sure what I'm trying to say, but After You is filled too much with Lou thinking about Will (Will this, Will that) that it started to get maddening. Don't let me start of how Lily ended up crashing into Lou's life.
Lily, the long-lost-suddenly-emerging daughter of Will Traynor. Who would have thought we would be fed with yet another maddening person? She has her own charms of course, I would give that, but almost eighty percent of her existence just boiled me. Like Treena said (and what I will absolutely agree upon), Lily was not Lou's responsibility. But hey, Lou always thought about fixing and helping others, just not on herself. I mean, I do feel sorry for what Lily had to experience, what she went through with all her broken family and shits, but was it necessary for her to be rude? I'm not the nicest person on earth, sure, but I don't think I could ever tolerate that level of rudeness. Not even in books.
Other than Lily's unexpected appearance, it's good that Lou was welcomed back into her family. After falling off from the rooftop of her flat, though. At least it lead her to be with Sam. Sam was like one of the reasons I kept reading After You. Even Lou pissed me off (with her rejecting to get the job at New York at first because she "needed" to take care of Lily), but Sam was just a real nice man that I wanted to know what will happen to him. This might sound weird, but thank goodness he was shot and thank goodness Lou was there even when it meant violating the rules. Sam was shot, but they both found that they need each other then. And Lily was happy with her newly found family. And Lou decided to go to New York for the job. Bam, everyone's happy!
Thank you, Jojo Moyes. Thank you for the torturing experience. Me Before You would have been good as a stand alone novel, but After You was a great closure for Lou. She got to move on, finally, and properly.
Till next time ♡ Love, Aishah Humaira'
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