After reading ‘Me Before You’ (the first book in this series- follow the link to check out my review –www.rovingbookwormng.com/mebeforeyoureview ), I literally needed some time to heal from the story before I moved on to this one and I am glad that the author wrote a sequel to it as I wasn’t satisfied with the way it all ended.
‘After You’ is what I would call a “Solid” or “Good” story. It touched me on so many levels that I may not be able to fully express in this review and I totally related to it more than any story I have read this year. It may not have the strong emotional punch ‘Me Before You’ gives but in its own way, it satisfies you, at least it did it for me.
The story follows Louisa Clark after Will dies and how she copes with the grief you experience when someone close to you passed away. It also came with a twist (SPOILER ALERT!!!) as Will apparently had a teenage daughter (Lily) he didn’t know existed when he was alive but showed up at Louisa’s front door.
As someone who is still recovering from the loss of both my closest aunt ( mum’s sister and bestie) and my mother one month apart last year, it was like meeting people who understood what I have been going through these past months. Louisa’s meetings with the “Moving On Circle” club where she met other people at different stages of grief was very therapeutic for me. It justified a lot of my feelings and seemed like it was perfect timing for me to read this book.
Also, being the mother of a teenage daughter, Lily’s part of the story was also an important learning curve especially her relationship with her mother. Teenagers can be very difficult to deal with and it is usually easy for people on the outside to judge how a mother should be or what she should have done better. I am in no way excusing her mother’s excesses but I understood some of her choices. This part of the story also helped readers to understand other characters especially as Will’s mother and it was a delight to see her in a different light.
Louisa still stands as my favorite character. Despite her grief, she was still the same funny and animated character. It was also interesting to read how her relationship with her love interest Sam, developed. I am interested to see which way this affaire will go as I am not so big on Sam so keeping my fingers crossed. The story ended with Loiusa’s decision to go out and live her dreams as Will had advised her. I am keeping my fingers crossed to see how all this will pan out in the next /final book in this series.
I really enjoyed reading this book because it was important for me to see how Louisa’s life turned out after Will’s death and I can say it was satisfying. The author did a good job in creating a realistic story here and I am really now a fan.
I highly recommend this book to every one and now I will move on to the next book and will be here again to tell you how it all ended.
Rating: 4.2 Stars
Published: July 19th, 2016 by Penguin Books
Pages: 352
Genre: Fiction
Purchase @ www.amazon.com/afteryou
The Author: Jojo Moyes is a British novelist. Moyes studied at Royal Holloway, University of London. She won a bursary financed by The Independent newspaper to study journalism at City University and subsequently worked for The Independent for 10 years. In 2001 she became a full time novelist. Moyes’ novel Foreign Fruit won the Romantic Novelists’ Association (RNA) Romantic Novel of the Year in 2004. She is married to journalist Charles Arthur and has three children.
