A review by asurasantosha
Me Before You by Jojo Moyes

challenging emotional sad medium-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? Character
  • Strong character development? It's complicated
  • Loveable characters? Yes
  • Diverse cast of characters? No
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

3.0

I don't know how I feel about this book. The prose didn't blow my mind despite seeming like it was trying to at times. But in that sense, the writing was good.

The themes of this book are really challenging though and broaching a controversial topic and showing all the nuance and grey area, I think was done really well.

I still don't know how I feel about the conclusion of everything though. I'm trying to separate my conflict about the topic at hand with the characters involved. Like, while I loved the banter between Will and Louisa, at the end of the day, I'm not sure Will is a good person. And I think he seems quite shallow and unwavering in those shallow values. But I think we the reader is supposed to feel sympathy for him and maybe even try to route for him or care about his intentions and logic. But his intense certainly is just so off-putting to me. Idk.

Anyway, I think this book is supposed to be a bit uncomfortable and it's supposed to make you think (and cry). So I'm not gonna rate it on enjoyment. I'd rather rate it on the success of what it's set out to do. And this book may be very successful in that regard. But I'm just gonna give it 3 stars for now because I'm still working out wether or not the theme is resting on an overly convenient lack of arc and too static character and wether or not that's ok.

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