Book Review Monday- After You by Jojo Moyes| It'sCarenzaB

Hey Guys!
How are you?

Last Monday, I posted my review of Me Before You by Jojo Moyes and this week I am reviewing the sequel, After You. As After You is a sequel, you will not be able to read this review if you have not read either books. I am going to be discussing spoilers, so you have been warned.

After You by Jojo Moyes- Contains Spoilers

Non-Spoiler Thoughts

I will say that I preferred Me Before You as I felt After You was simply answering the fans questions and giving the fans what they wanted. I didn't feel as though it added much to the overall story and I was quite content with how Me Before You ended. However, I did enjoy it as I have been loving contemporary books at the moment. I gave After You 4/5 stars, but looking back I feel as though it was more of a 3.5/5 star book.

Cover Chat

I quite like how minimalistic these covers are. I do wish I had the matching edition of Me Before You, but I do love my movie tie in edition.

Plot

Lou Clark has lots of questions.
Like how it is she's ended up working in an airport bar, spending every shift watching other people jet off to new places.
Or why the flat she's owned for a year still doesn't feel like home.
Whether her close-knit family can forgive her for what she did eighteen months ago.
And will she ever get over the love of her life.
What Lou does know for certain is that something has to change.
Then, one night, it does.
But does the stranger on her doorstep hold the answers Lou is searching for - or just more questions?
Close the door and life continues: simple, ordered, safe.
But Lou once made a promise to live. And if she's going to keep it, she's going to have to invite them in...

This summary is taken from Goodreads and the average rating on Goodreads is 3.71/5 stars.

Opinions

Like I said at the beginning, I did prefer Me Before You. I do think the story could have survived without this book, but I do understand why the fans wanted this. Me Before You left it open to interpretation, so it was interesting seeing where the author would take it. 

I'm going to say that I really didn't like Lily and found her story line uninteresting. She was really self-centred and just kept on getting into trouble. The only moment where I felt sorry for her was when she revealed someone had indecent photos of her. I would have been quite happy if she hadn't been in the book.

I also felt that it would be very unlikely for someone working in an ambulance to use it as a taxi and let people have lifts in it. It is an ambulance, not a taxi. It is used to save lives, not to drive people around. It would be highly unlikely for a paramedic to let someone distract them while on the job and also put that persons life at risk.

It was nice seeing how the relationship between Lou's family had changed. I did feel a bit disconnected from Lou's mum trying to become a feminist as I felt that it was put in there to make people laugh at Lou's father's reaction.

I did like how Lou had kept in touch with Nathan and that he had been able to move on. It was good that Nathan helped her get a job, which meant she could finally move on. I was happy that the author chose not to go down the romance line again. 

Overall, I did enjoy this, but felt that it wasn't necessary to the overall plot. Let me know what you thought in the comments.

Love,

Carenza x 

 

Book Review Monday- Me Before You by Jojo Moyes| It'sCarenzaB

Hey Guys!
How are you?

I recently read Me Before You by Jojo Moyes and I knew that I had to review it. I had seen lots of people in the book community talking about it, but never got around to picking up a copy until January this year. This review will contain spoilers, so if you have not read this book, you will not be able to read this review.

Me Before You by Jojo Moyes- Contains Spoilers

Non-Spoiler Thoughts

At first, I wasn't overwhelmed by this book and for a while, I couldn't understand why there was so much hype around it. It wasn't until I was about half way through, that I began to understand why this book is so loved. It does cover a difficult and slightly controversial issue, but it covers it very well. I gave it 5/5 stars and had I not been on a train whilst finishing it, I would have cried.

Cover Chat

The version I have is the Movie Tie-In edition as the movie came out last year. I do like getting tie-in editions as it shows that a book was popular/ successful enough to become a movie. 

Plot

Louisa Clark is an ordinary girl living an exceedingly ordinary life—steady boyfriend, close family—who has never been farther afield than their tiny village. She takes a badly needed job working for ex-Master of the Universe Will Traynor, who is wheelchair-bound after an accident. Will has always lived a huge life—big deals, extreme sports, worldwide travel—and now he’s pretty sure he cannot live the way he is.

Will is acerbic, moody, bossy—but Lou refuses to treat him with kid gloves, and soon his happiness means more to her than she expected. When she learns that Will has shocking plans of his own, she sets out to show him that life is still worth living.

A love story for this generation, Me Before You brings to life two people who couldn’t have less in common—a heartbreakingly romantic novel that asks, What do you do when making the person you love happy also means breaking your own heart?

Opinion

I'm going to start this section by talking about why there is so much controversy surrounding this book. As Will is a disabled man, he believes he cannot going on the way he is. He isn't happy with his life and wants to die. The author is not saying that all disabled people feel like this or that they should all kill themselves, she is simply saying that this individual feels that their life isn't worth living. I'm sure that the author never intended to offend anyone. There are cases in the media of people who have become severely disabled through illness or accident who want to die because they feel they cannot live their lives to their full extent. I can see why there is controversy, but at the end of the day, this is a work of fiction and these characters are not real.

It would have been interesting if the author had chosen to write this from Will's perspective rather than Lou's, as at some points Lou's feelings cloud her judgement and gets in the way. At times I found Lou irritating as she wouldn't respect Will's wishes and feelings. I understand that in that situation it is hard, but it was Will's wishes and she was unwilling to respect it.

This story was not your traditional love story, which I was happy about. It was very subtle and didn't take over the central plot. I was happy that the author chose not to let Lou's involvement in Will's life change his decision. It would have felt like "oh, I just let this pretty girl change my decision".

I really liked the characters as they all had different voices. However, I felt it unnecessary when the author would change the chapters perspective as it felt as though she was doing this to fill us in. It didn't add to the story, it felt more like a info dump. If this was something she wanted to do, she could have chosen to add more chapters with perspectives from characters other than Lou's.

It wasn't until I was half way through, that I began to feel connected to a character. I guess this is because this book is for adults and I am used to reading about teenagers.  This was one of the most emotional reads I have ever read and like I said in my non-spoiler section, I would have cried if I hadn't been on public transport.

I'll end this on a positive, while this book deals with a saddening issue,  this book had moments of being really funny. Will and Lou's relationship was quite humorous. They would joke about each other and I really liked this as it lightened the mood for the whole book.

So that concludes my review of Me Before You. Let me know what you thought and if you agreed with me at all.
Love,
Carenza x      

Random Recommendations- Contemporary Books| It'sCarenzaB

Hey Guys!
How are you?

So recently I've been thinking about books I don't talk enough about and genres I don't read enough of. I am a die-hard Fantasy fan and will read mostly fantasy all year round, but recently I have fallen out of love with fantasy and have been picking up contemporaries. So I thought I would recommend 4 of my favourite contemporaries, but these are books that I consider to be underrated and deserve more love from the book community. This post will be completely spoiler free.

My first two recommendations have been turned into movies, hence the movie tie-in editions I have. The first is Love Rosie by Cecelia Ahern. Originally published as Where the Rainbow Ends, it follows Rosie and Alex as they struggle through life. Starting as 5 year olds and ending as 50 year olds, this book covers a very large time frame. Told through letters, emails and DMs, at times it can be hard to follow the plot. If you are looking for a cute contemporary which focuses on love, this is the book for you. The movie is also excellent.


My other recommendation is Me Before You by Jojo Moyes. I read this pretty recently and it was one of the most heart breaking books I have ever read. Had I not been on public transport, I would have cried my eyes out. Me Before You follows the story of Louisa Clark (Lou for short) who suddenly loses her job and still lives with her parents aged 26. She tries various jobs, but ends up becoming a career for Will Traynor, a quadriplegic man. I will be reviewing this book in a couple of weeks. This is definitely not your classic love story and does deal with issues around being disabled. I will be going into detail about this in my review. But if you are looking for a slightly more serious contemporary, then this might be for you. I can't wait to watch the movie as I have heard nothing but great things about it.
 

My other two recommendations are seriously underrated, in my opinion. My first recommendation is the Noughts and Crosses series by Malorie Blackman. I read this book almost 6 years ago and I loved it. It deals with racial issues in an unusual way. In books that usually deal with racism, black people are seen as inferior to white people. However in this book, white people are seen as lower than black people. As Malorie Blackman is a author of colour, this book is really accurate to her own experiences with racism. I would say that this book is for more mature readers due to the subject matter, but don't let that hold you back. I read this book when I was 11 years old. It is part of a 4 book series, with a World Book Day book released back in 2003 you can get cheap on Amazon.

My other recommendation is The Truth About Alice by Jenifer Mathieu. I picked this book on a whim and have read a few times since. The Truth About Alice is a story about a girl called Alice, who everyone believes caused the deaths of a high school hero while texting while he was driving. The story is told from 4 different perspectives, all of whom have a reason to twist the truth and only in the final chapter do you hear Alice's perspective on the story. It's a very short and quick read. This book deserves so much more hype than it has.

So that concludes it for my random recommendations, let me know if you want more recommendation posts like this. I also want to say that this is my 100th post! I can't believe I have written 100 posts on this blog, I never thought I'd write that many.
Love,
Carenza x