After You (Me Before You #2) | Book Review

Good Day Everyone! A few months ago, well back in October, I read Me Before You and I really enjoyed it. Ever since I finished that book, I have been wanting to read the second book because I love this world Jojo Moyes has created. When I found this book in the bargain section of Books-A-Million, it was an autobuy. Many months later I am finally getting around to reading this really sweet book. Don’t be concerned about spoilers because they are removed from this review. 

Title: After You

Author: Jojo Moyes

Publisher: Pamela Dorman Books

Released: September 23, 2015

Pages: 352 (Hardback)

“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.

About the Author: Jojo Moyes was born in 1969 and grew up in London. After a varied career including stints as a minicab controller, typer of braille statements for blind people for NatWest, and brochure writer for Club 18-30, she did a degree at Royal Holloway and Bedford New College, London University. In 1992, she won a bursary financed by The Independent newspaper to attend the postgraduate newspaper journalism course at City University.
Jojo worked as a journalist for ten years, including a year at South China Morning Post in Hong Kong, and nine at The Independent where she worked variously as News Reporter, Assistant News Editor and Arts and Media Correspondent.
Jojo has been a full time novelist since 2002, when her first book, Sheltering Rain was published. Since then she has written a further eleven novels, all of which have been widely critically acclaimed.
Jojo has won the Romantic Novelist’s Award twice, and Me Before You has been nominated for Book of the Year at the UK Galaxy Book Awards. Me Before You has since gone on to sell over 8 million copies worldwide.
The film adaptation of Me Before You starring Sam Claflin (The Hunger Games) and Emilia Clarke (Game of Thrones) was released in June 2016 and was a huge box-office success. The screenplay was written by Jojo.
For more information about all of Jojo’s novels, please visit the books page here.
Jojo lives (and writes!) on a farm in Essex, England with her husband, journalist Charles Arthur, and their three children.

MY REVIEW: 

It been over two years since Will Traynor died and Louisa Clark can’t stop grieving over not being able to save him. Lou has moved out of her parents, lives in London, took the trip Will wanted her to, and has a bad relationship with all the people in her past. Now, Louisa has found herself in Will’s shoes – her life is being turned upside down. She gets into some trouble and ends up hurting herself. And now, she meets Lily, who claims to be Will’s daughter. What is Louisa going to do now? 

I really loved the first book in this duology. I loved the writing and the world that Jojo Moyes has created. With this book, it was not as much fun to read this book like it was before. I really wasn’t enjoying the events that happened and there were so many mistakes in the copy that I was reading with the grammar and the editing. I didn’t enjoy most of the characters and it was not fun. 

Within the book, Louisa is still grieving over the death of Will but it basically has taken over her life. Everything seems like she does reminds her of Will. I at least think that after two years you would be better but Louisa was like mental. If you have watched Thirteen Reasons Why, Louisa is more crazy than Clay or Hannah’s mom. I think all of this attributed to the fact that the whole book was bland and just overall sad. I see the premise of the book is supposed to follow Louisa after Will’s death but it was part of every page of this book. 

I was not a fan of the writing of the book at all. Not only was sadness all over this book, the book had no life to it. There wasn’t really anything exciting occurring and it was like the same thing was going on over and over again. Then, it was like I was reading a bunch of time jumps and then things seemed to be stretched out way too much. There were a few great moments with Jojo Moyes’ writing within this book but they weren’t that memorable. There’s something else that happens that I would say but that is a really big spoiler! It was almost like Jojo Moyes took a break from being an author and allowed one of her kids or someone write this book. It was nothing like Me Before You.

The characters, for the most part, were all annoying. And if they were part of the first book, they all almost seemed like they had a new story line and degressed in progress. I understood Louisa’s and Will’s family but the other characters, not so much. I actually found myself a little confused on who was in the scene or what was going on because a – it wasn’t written like it should have and b – the characters were just not that well. I fell in love with all the characters in the first one but in this one, the emotion level was not there.

I see this book just being useless. Most of my questions weren’t answered and for the most part, you still have no idea what Louisa did on this trip that she was supposed to do at the end of Me Before You. The book does teach you a few things about death and the different ways people grieve and all but it wasn’t that greatly illustrated. I was almost expecting myself to ball my eyes out but that never happened and the book is really making me question if I really want to read another Jojo Moyes novel. 

Overall, I would have to give this book a 3 out of 5. I could have lived without reading this book in my lifetime. It just did not live up to Me Before You in any sort. But if you really loved Me Before You and you want to know what happens next, you should totally check the book. Just be ready to be disappointed with the book. 

Have you read this book? What did you think about it? Did you watch the movie for Me Before You? What did you think about it? Was the first book or this one better in your opinion? Would you want a third book? Let me know your thoughts in the comments! 

Happy Reading,