July, 2013 Me Before You by JoJo Moyes

Me Before You by JoJo Moyes is a love story.  Really?  I guess it was a love story that was onesided and selfish and painful and funny and gutwrenching and maddening and star crossed and... I could go on but overall I think we would say we had a difference of opinion on this one.  That being said, the book was wonderful; we all really loved it.  The problem was we could not agree on the outcome.  The main characters, Lou and Will, were wonderfully written, real life people who found each other in the most unusual of circumstances.  Lou was the eccentric, "loser" with no real ambition other than to live her life in the quiet town from which she came.  She was content to live with her parents, date/live with her boyfriend Patrick for another 7 years, and to work menial jobs for the rest of her life it seemed.  Her life changed because she took a job as a caregiver to Will, a quadriplegic who was once a dashing, high power wheeler-dealer.  These two people spent 6 months together and they both acknowledged they were the best 6 months of their lives.  But, and it is a big but, the love they found in each other was not enough for Will.  He just could not live in the shell that his body had become.  The prison that his useless body became was too painful and it blinded him and therefore he could not see any hope for his future.  Because he loved himself more than he could possibly love Lou he chose to quit on them.  The result of this decision was a point we could not come to concensus on.  Some of the group thought Will's choice was really for the good of Lou.  He showed her what living was; he gave her a way to live a much fuller life; he refused to saddle her with a broken man that she would always have to take care of and that she could possibly come to resent.  Others of us felt that his choice was all about Will.  He refused to see that their time together might have been the most important part of Lou's life.  He took her choice away by making his.  His selfish refusal to give them a chance was too heartbreaking.  Regardless of our conclusion, we all agreed this was a really thought provoking, wonderful story.  High marks for Me Before You.