After You by Jojo Moyes

After You

AFTER YOU, by Jojo Moyes, is the wildly anticipated sequel to ME BEFORE YOU. If you haven’t heard of ME BEFORE YOU then you’ve most certainly been living under a rock for a couple years.

When the chatter began about a sequel my heart started to jump around wildly in my chest. Then it began worrying because I just could not imagine where Moyes would go with a sequel. After all, ME BEFORE YOU  is perfect.

My finished copy of AFTER YOU arrived on my doorstep this past week. I truly did put everything else aside. I could not wait to find out what Louisa Clark was up to; how she was managing her life without Will, who was the love of her life.

The reason  ME BEFORE YOU was what they call a ” word-of-mouth” sensation was because of the subject matter. Believe you me, when I would slap the book in a reader’s hand and tell her she had to read it, she would get excited. But I cringed when they would turn to the back to read the premise of the story. I  knew what they were thinking. They were NOT going to read a love story between a young woman caregiver and a paraplegic. Hard sell.  But once enough people were convinced by booksellers to read this magnificent story, it became a blockbuster!

“AFTER YOU picks up where ME BEFORE YOU ended, and finds Lou Clark floundering after the death of her first love, Will Traynor. Her grief has detached her from life, and then a startling accident lands her back in her family home. ”

Jojo Moyes has a rare talent in that she can make you laugh with the best of them, as well as cause tears at the drop of a hat. She tells it like it is. We, the readers, are able to identify with her characters; they are so real. We fall in love with them. We feel like we know them intimately.

Jojo brings someone quite shockingly unexpected into Lou’s life with AFTER YOU. This new character brings challenges Lou did not possibly think she could surmount.

Yet another new character appears in the role of “possible” love interest. But is she ready?

Louisa meets a group of real survivors at a support group  that meets in a basement. Though she was loathe to attend at first, she finds solace and begins to come to grips with her new reality through these sessions where grieving people can let their hair down and not be judged. It’s through this group that she meets Sam who is a paramedic. More challenges abound, for both of them.

Get ready for a story full of laughter, tears, fear, tension, and empathy. After all, you’re stepping back into the life of Louisa Clark. And that step is full of all the necessary angst and love it takes to make another blockbuster novel.

I will put my two cents in here at this point and go out on a limb. I think Moyes has done a bang-up job with this extension of ME BEFORE YOU. However, I see the potential for at least one more novel here. I am both excited and worried, once again:) We will all watch together… I do not want to ever feel as if Moyes is being pressured. That is the quickest way to ruin a good thing.

I do wish to mention that the movie version is being made of ME BEFORE YOU. One of my favorite young actresses will be playing the role of Louisa Clark: Emilia Clarke. What an amazing movie it should be.

I am including a link to the bookclub kit which Viking has so generously added.  All you readers who are involved with bookclubs might find this handy.bookclub

I must send out a big thanks to the publicity department at Viking and Penguin Books for sending me a lovely finished hard copy of AFTER YOU in exchange for an honest review!