After You
Author: Jojo Moyes
352 Pages in Paperback
Published: September 29, 2015
Dates Read: July 20- August 8, 2016
My Rating: 3.5 Stars
Book Summary from Amazon:
“You’re going to feel uncomfortable in your new world for a bit. But I hope you feel a bit exhilarated too. Live boldly. Push yourself. Don’t settle. Just live well. Just live. Love, Will.”
How do you move on after losing the person you loved? How do you build a life worth living?
Louisa Clark is no longer just an ordinary girl living an ordinary life. After the transformative six months spent with Will Traynor, she is struggling without him. When an extraordinary accident forces Lou to return home to her family, she can’t help but feel she’s right back where she started.
Her body heals, but Lou herself knows that she needs to be kick-started back to life. Which is how she ends up in a church basement with the members of the Moving On support group, who share insights, laughter, frustrations, and terrible cookies. They will also lead her to the strong, capable Sam Fielding—the paramedic, whose business is life and death, and the one man who might be able to understand her. Then a figure from Will’s past appears and hijacks all her plans, propelling her into a very different future. . . .
For Lou Clark, life after Will Traynor means learning to fall in love again, with all the risks that brings. But here Jojo Moyes gives us two families, as real as our own, whose joys and sorrows will touch you deeply, and where both changes and surprises await.
My Review
**This review will have some spoilers, so beware.
Nearly two years have passed since the ending of Me Before You. Lou is still mourning the loss of Will. You can feel her pain and anguish in the first chapter. She is now working at a bar in an airport, and not happy there. She’s not living the way Will wanted her too.
She has an accident and returns home to recover. Her folks decide to let her return to her flat as long as she goes to a grief counseling group. She meets a man named Sam through a teenager in the group named Jake.
After some time, Lou seems to start to get her life together when (as the back cover of the book teases)a figure from Will’s past appears. This person appearing changes everything for Lou. The person ends up being Will’s daughter Lily. The daughter that he did not know he had. I could not help but wonder, as Lou did, if Will had known about her would he still have gone to Dignitas to end his life or would he still be around today. Would Lily have been what he needed to stay around despite being a quadriplegic?
Lou basically takes Lily in as Lily’s mother Tanya couldn’t handle her anymore. She was a very difficult teenager who just found out who her father was. Lily staying with Lou helped them both: Lily got to find out who her father was and Lou had a piece of Will. There is more to Lily than we first are led to believe. There is more to her than being the “troubled teenager”. I did have some issues with Tanya basically letting Lou take “custody” of Lily as Tanya did not know Lou. It just seemed like Tanya was just ready to “get rid” of Lily since she couldn’t really handle her.
Jojo Moyes brings back the Traynor family as well with the introduction of Lily and there have been some changes. Nathan has moved to NYC. I liked him in Me Before You and missed him in After You. There were a few scenes with himon the phone, but that wasn’t enough for me.
There is back and forth with the relationship of Lou and Sam. Will they get together or not? Is Lou even ready for that step after losing Will??? She is over her grief?
May people consider Me Before You and After You romance novels. I do not. To me, Me Before You was a life story to. It deals with two people’s lives and the decision one man made and they happen to fall in love. To me, After You is a book about dealing with grief and moving on. When the end of the book was coming, I had in my head the decision I was hoping Lou would make for her future. And I was happy with the decision she made.
There is one paragraph that really tugged at my heart. It is very powerful. This is towards the end of the book(page 325 of 352 in the paperback), so this will giveaway some things: Our eyes locked. And in that moment everything shifted. I saw what I had really done. I saw that I could be somebody’s center, his reason for staying. I saw that I could be enough.
In the paperback there is a “conversation with the author”. A question was asked if there will be anymore books with Lou. Jojo Moyes said she could see a third final book as a possibility if the readers want it. Well, Jojo, as a reader I can say that as a reader, I would love one final book with Lou!
I gave Me Before You 5 stars, so it was going to hard to live up to the original. In fact, I don’t think there is a way for After You to live up to Me Before You. It still did well. I would recommend it, but don’t have super high expectations if you loved Me Before You.
Jane
Author: Michelle Onuorah
414 Pages in Kindle
Published: February 6, 2015
Dates Read: February 11- March 4, 2015
My Rating: 5 Stars
Book Summary from Amazon:
Orphaned. Neglected. Hurt and abused. Jane Daugherty has survived what can only be described as the childhood from hell. After years of mental, physical, and sexual abuse, she has become a fiercely independent young woman – closed off from human connection. Unable to trust people or their ability to be kind, she has vowed to build a new life for herself so that she never has to rely on others again. At 24-years-old, she is fulfilling this vow, successfully working as the youngest tenure-track professor at the University of New York. Brilliant and remarkably accomplished, Jane’s life takes an unexpected turn when she is reunited with the childhood friend she protected in foster care. Alexa Masterson introduces Jane to the family that adopted her, a family that includes her older brother, Aiden Masterson. Instantly drawn to each other, Aiden and Jane embark on a relationship that will either destroy them both or shape them into the man and woman they were always meant to be. Can what started as lust transform into love? And what will bring about the transformation that they ultimately need?
**Please note there is occasional cursing, mild violence, and unapologetic references to sexuality and spirituality within this work of fiction. Reader discretion is advised.**
My review in 2015:
Jane by Michelle Onuorah- What can I say? WOW. Jane and Aiden are two imperfect people. At times I liked Jane’s character, and at times I didn’t. That’s a sign of good writing, getting so into the story and liking the character one moment, and then the next moment wanting to knock some sense into her! At times she seemed older than 24, due to what happened to her in past and how far she got in her education; other times I had to remind myself that she is just 24 and still immature in some ways.
When I started reading it, I thought it would be the “Christian Aiden” and the unsaved Jane. It is not that, so that was a welcomed change. I also LOVED the character Alexa! I would love a book featuring Alexa!
The book did have those difficult moments in it, and I teared up in several places while reading.
[Top]Remember Me
Author: Michelle Onuorah
209 Pages in Kindle
Published: April 26, 2014
Dates Read: December 12-24, 2014
My Rating: 4 Stars
Book Summary from Amazon:
Kristen Tyverson lives the ideal life. Happily married, with three children, she has worked her way to becoming one of the most successful reporters in the country. While reporting on conditions in Afghanistan, she is severely injured during a bombing. For months, she is presumed dead, and her family mourns her passing, unaware that she has survived. When she is found alive, it is revealed that she has no recollection of the past 10 years of her life. Her husband, her children, her career: all a mystery to her. Grateful to have his wife back and determined to hold their family together, Mark Tyverson makes it his mission to win his wife’s heart again — regardless of whether she remembers him or not. Remember Me is a story that traces the hard work of piecing back a life torn apart by memory loss. It explores the hardship both the victim faces as well as those around her, robbed of the person they know when she is robbed of the memories she had. Will Kristen, Mark, and their three children be able to rise to the challenge?
**Please note there is occasional cursing and various references to sexuality and spirituality within this work of fiction. Reader discretion is advised.**
My review in 2014:
I wasn’t sure about Remember Me when I first read the description of the book, as to me the “lost memories” books have been overdone. But Michelle Onuorah had a sale on Remember Me for .99, so I figured “why not?” and got the book. (I had LOVED Type N and Taking Names. I knew it is a different type of book from those.)
I am glad I did buy Remember Me as I enjoyed it! It is all about love; not just romantic but family love. I expected more romantic love based on the cover, but still enjoyed the book.
The beginning is heartbreaking: What Mark goes through thinking Kristen passed away, when in fact, we as the reader know she is alive! I am just a few years younger than Kristen so I identified with her when she realized how much time in her life she lost. I put myself in her position thinking back to the year 2003 and how much of my life I would have lost. I actually put the book down and thought about that for a while.
I enjoyed the faith that Mark and Kristen have in the book. Michelle Onuorah is a proclaimed Christian and wrote that disclaimer in the description of the book. I look forward to reading more from Michelle Onuorah in the future!
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