Me Before You

A Novel

By: Jojo Moyes

Narrated by: Susan Lyons, Anna Bentink, Steven Crossley, Alex Tregear, Andrew Wincott, Owen Lindsay

Length: 14 hrs and 40 mins

Publisher's summary

Discover the love story that captured over 20 million hearts in Me Before You, After You, and Still Me.

They had nothing in common until love gave them everything to lose...

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?

Cast of Narrators:

• Susan Lyons
• Anna Bentink
• Steven Crossley
• Alex Tregear
• Andrew Wincott
• Owen Lindsay

©2012 Jojo Moyes (P)2012 Penguin Audio

Critic reviews

"A hilarious, heartbreaking, riveting novel.... I will stake my reputation on this book." (Anne Lamott, People Magazine)

"When I finished this novel, I didn’t want to review it: I wanted to reread it...an affair to remember." (New York Times Book Review, Liesl Schillinger)

"An unlikely love story.... To be devoured like candy, between tears." (O, The Oprah Magazine)

You'll laugh out loud. You'll cry

Would you listen to Me Before You again? Why?

No. But not because I didn't love it. It's just because there is a finite number of books one can read or hear in a lifetime.

Who was your favorite character and why?

Louisa Clark. From being a simple not overly educated, naive to the arts person, she truly is and becomes a multi-layered personality who didn't realize her own scope. Besides, she has a great sense of humor.

Have you listened to any of the narrators’s other performances before? How does this one compare?

No

Was this a book you wanted to listen to all in one sitting?

Yes. But time constraints did not permit. It's a true page-turner - audibly.

Any additional comments?

Wonderful book. It started out a bit slowly, but still with some anticipation of where is it going. It will make you laugh out loud. It will make you angry. Tears will flow down your cheeks, your nose will run, and your sinuses will ache. I'd love to meet Louisa Clark in another book. All the characters were portrayed realistically.

Surprisingly complex characters, unexpected ending

If you could sum up Me Before You in three words, what would they be?

Reading/listening to this book was a very "satisfying, engaging experience". The characters, although somewhat cliche, are realistic and well developed. The way they relate to each other is very believable. The story follows an interestingly complex course. The author handles issues such as quadriplegia, care giving and assisted suicide, which are integral to the story, with the taste and respect they deserve. The story is thought provoking as well as utterly entertaining.

What does the narrators bring to the story that you wouldn’t experience if you just read the book?

The different narrators add to the characterizations. I really enjoyed the narrator who lends her voice to plucky Louise.

If you could take any character from Me Before You out to dinner, who would it be and why?

Louise is exactly as Will describes her on his final letter to her; she carries her feelings on her sleeve. Although she would certainly be fun to go out with, it is Will Trainer who I would love to have a chat with. The reason why he makes the choice he makes in the novel would be the topic of our discussion.

Any additional comments?

I did not expect to like this book as much as I did. I am not big on "romance" but, although this book is about a relationship between two people that develops into a romance, there are enough equally important elements in the story to engage our brains as well as our hearts.

This is a very beautiful and a very sad book.

I enjoyed every minute of this book. It was a struggle to turn it off. I found the story stuck with me for several days. Therefore, if you are dealing with depression it is not the book for you. It 's about two damaged people, one physically and one psychologically, giving each other extremely meaningful gifts at a time when each of them desperately needs them. It's about profound human generosity. It's a powerful book.

A question of life or death

I almost did not purchase this book because of the awful title, but the customer reviews persuaded me, to my benefit in this case! This is a surprisingly unpredictable story of love and loss, life and death, and of the human capacity for change.

The publisher and other reviewers have provided more than sufficient plot descriptions, so rather than add to those, I'd like to comment a bit on the debates raised and the quality of the production.

The main debate presented in this audiobook concerns a person's right to die through euthanasia. It is not a straightforward debate at any rate, and the book does it's best to present the major sides, with all of their complexities. This is the first such work of fiction I've read on the topic, and so I have to say that overall, the author did a good job of really bringing out the arguments, however at times she did so abruptly.

A few other secondary debates presented in the book concern issues of unemployment and government assistance; class struggle (the most poorly handled in the book, which can be forgiven since it's not front-and-center), and; family strife and familial obligations.

By far the best (in my opinion) idea presented in this book concerned love, and the human capacity to change in the face of love - and not just romantic love, but familial love. The picture of Will's mother and her struggle to remain stoic in the face of both her son's tragedy and her husband's philandering is perhaps the best in the entire story. She served as the rock of the story, the stable anchor against which much strife and drama takes place. Many times, despite her coldness and harshness, I found myself siding with her against Luisa, who was so painfully oblivious to everything at all times.

A few critical notes on the heroine, Luisa. I found her to be the least likable character of the book. She was implausibly naive, the least insightful and one-dimensional character of the book, and as such she was the greatest weakness of the story. In fact I think it would have better served the story had it been told through the perspective of her sister or even Will's father, both of whom seemed to possess more human characteristics than Luisa.

Worst of all was the narration of Luisa, which at times made it difficult for me to distinguish whether I disliked her so much because of the narrator, or because of the writing of her character; I could not distinguish between the two. The narrator is not bad per se, but she was miscast. The voice sounds like that of a 50 or 60 year old woman, when in fact Luisa is supposed to be 26. Perhaps this sounds petty, but I was unable to adjust my perception to anything other than that a 60 year old woman telling the story of how she fell in love with a 35 year old man. Further, because I suspect the narrator is far older than the main character, her telling of many of the jokes and younger figures of speech were presented wrongly, sounding rigid, with incorrect intonation and lacking a young carefree spirit. It sounded a bit the way my grandmother sounds when mocking "young people these days."

I'm aware that these criticisms sound harsh, and yet it's a credit to the rest of the story that I still enjoyed it overall, and gladly listened to it on my daily walks. I waited a few days before writing my review in order to see if it had a lasting impact on me, if it was a story I'd remember, and indeed it is. I've thought about it since, and therefore I think it's a book worthy of a positive review, with only a few hesitations.

Best!

This is the best book that I've read in a long time. I couldn't put it down.

"Death is the mother of beauty"

Powerful, thought provoking, and beautifully performed. You would have to be made of stone not to be moved by this book.

this book pulls every emotion out.

I Loved this book! The narrators were perfect. I'd recommend this book to anyone who has not been able to fall for a book in a while. This book will get you involved and invested

Great book

I loved this book. It makes you cry and laugh. I just wish Will would have changed his mind.

Incredible

This book is far better than the movie. I enjoyed listening to this audible and enjoyed the narrator.

riveting, brilliant, worth the box of tissues

narrated wonderfully, developed without too many left turns but always fascinating. what a sweet find!