I don’t know how in the world I did it, but I managed to finish two books in April! It was a triumph for me considering I haven’t read an awful lot since probably October when I realized getting through the third Harry Potter book was a no-go.
I had started Me Before You back in August as it says on my Goodreads. Thank god that it keeps track because even I don’t know what I actually started reading it! I knew about the book itself from all of my blogger friends and they were going back and forth between loving it and absolutely hating it, and then the film adaption came out and there was a big backlash that came afterwards with0 the whole disabled community, they weren’t so pleased with the actors! I was on fence about the whole thing and so I wrote a blog post back in November called “What’s The Point Of Acting?” that explained my reasons for keeping in open mind for able-bodied actors playing characters with different disabilities.
The story is about Louisa Clark, the ordinary girl who lives a simple life in England, who in the beginning works at a coffee shop while she lives at home with her parents, granddad, younger sister and nephew. She is in a seven-year relationship with Patrick, a man obsessed with fitness. After losing her job, she goes to find another job and the only one she seems to find that isn’t too bad is working as a caregiver to a severely disabled man by the name of Will Traynor.
Will Traynor was “the perfect guy” to some standards. He traveled and did everything that he wanted. He was also a partner at a firm and in a relationship with a beautiful girl Alicia but one day he loses it all when the accident happened and he became a quadriplegic, who was now stuck in a wheelchair with 24/7 care; the man who could do things for himself now had to depend on other people for the most intimate things.
Somehow these two’s lives would change forever, for the best or worse depending on how you looked at them.
One of the things that I applaud for the author, JoJo Moyes for doing is giving the reader all of the information they would need to get a semi-understanding what goes on for a caregiver to somebody like Will. We’re not easy to take care of, sometimes our families aren’t strong enough to lift us and they need help to do things like getting us in and out of our beds, wheelchair, etc. I say “we” even though not everybody is the same, I am able to scoot myself around on the floor but I cannot put myself back on the bed like I used to. I can’t even give myself a proper shower and wash my hair like others can, my mom has to help me for those types of things. So in certain parts, I could definitely relate to Will’s attitude towards life.
The other point of the story is whether or not you should be able to end your life. I think that’ll always be a hard subject to talk about, whether it’s caused by bullying or if you in Will’s shoes and you have to live out your life in a wheelchair, never being able to do the things you loved doing before this happened. I will be honest, this is a touchy subject for me as well because I have been suicidal in the past. I’m not as open about it, because I feel like I would never do it despite having those strong thoughts. Sadly those ideas still live deep in my mind.
I see Louisa and Will’s family point of views on the topic, and at times I will pulling for Louisa’s ambition to try to change his mind, but as my mom and sister were discussing one day, if a person is very depressed and suicidal, and if the first time they don’t succeed that doesn’t mean they don’t have a plan B. Sometimes people don’t feel like their situation isn’t going to change, that is their decision on what to do next. It should be a respected thing, they’re not being cowardly, they just don’t see a light at the end of the tunnel and for a long time I didn’t either, but somehow I lost those thoughts and began to live and love my life.
I hope I haven’t offended anybody with those two paragraphs (I probably have) but I figured since I was going to this review I would decide to unleash all of my thoughts I had while reading this book. Now I can finally watch the film!
Have you read “Me Before You” yet? What did you like (or didn’t like) about it?
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