I LOVE a good book. Ya know, the ones I am talking about, the ones that suck you in you completely. Take you to far away worlds and allow you experience something you didn’t even know was possible or simply a story that just alters the way you think of situations, people or things.
Me Before You, By Jojo Moyes was one of those books for me. Although, it wasn’t a thriller and I wasn’t hanging onto each and every word hurried to hear what happens next, I loved this book because it’s one that makes you stop and think…
About life. Your life, other people’s lives, the impact others lives have on your own and how you respond to hard situations.
The story is a love story and a family story, but above all it’s a story of the bravery and sustained effort needed to redirect the path of a life once it’s been pushed off course. In the early months of 2009, Louisa (Lou) Clark, a 26-year-old working-class girl, lands a position as a “care assistant” to an intelligent, wealthy and very angry 35-year-old man named Will Traynor, who has spent the past two years as a quadriplegic after being hit by a motorbike. It is Will’s mother, Camilla (with whom he has a chilly relationship), who hires Louisa, and she does so out of desperation. She knows her son is miserable. She already employs a nurse to attend to his medical needs, but she hopes that somehow Louisa might boost his morale.- NYTimes
A few of my favorite quotes from the story are:
“I had a hundred and seventeen days in which to convince Will Traynor that he had a reason to live.”
“You only get one life. It’s actually your duty to live it as fully as possible.”
“Push yourself. Don’t Settle. Just live well. Just LIVE.”
“… if you’re going to wear a dress like that you need to wear it with confidence. You need to fill it out mentally as well as physically.”
“You can only actually help someone who wants to be helped.”
“Push yourself. Don’t settle. Wear those stripy legs with pride. And if you insist on settling down with some ridiculous bloke, make sure some of this is squirreled away somewhere. Knowing you still have possibilities is a luxury. Knowing I might have given them to you has alleviated something for me.”
“I told him I loved him,” she said, her voice dropping to a whisper. “And he just said it wasn’t enough.” Her eyes were wide and bleak . “How am I supposed to live with that?”
“I kissed him, trying to bring him back. I kissed him and let my lips rest against his so that our breath mingled and the tears from my eyes became salt on his skin, and I told myself that, somewhere, tiny particles of him would become tiny particles of me, ingested, swallowed, alive, perpetual. I wanted to press every bit of me against him. I wanted to will something into him. I wanted to give him every bit of life I felt and force him to live.”
If you are looking for a powerful and emotional book to read this holiday on your flights to and from family, I would highly suggest giving this one a shot.
It taught me that our circumstances are only how we perceive them or what we make of them. That although you might not always achieve your end goal… it’s what you learn on the journey and the growth you make on the way to that goal that is the real success and that LOVE isn’t always enough but LOVING is better then NOT LOVING at all.
Great book, give it a read!
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