Book Review: Me Before You

06.1.2016

Holy. Cannoli. I was very skeptical of this book when I picked it up. I originally saw it at Powell's and put it on my to-read list, but then those sappy ads began running a few weeks later and I got worried. Don't let the ads fool you though: this was a great novel. I laughed. I cried. I finished it in two days. The book follows Louisa Clark, a recently unemployed barista who needs a job to help her family make ends meet. She takes a job as a sort of low-level care-giver for a quadriplegic man named Will Traynor, and soon finds out that he plans to carry out assisted suicide in a few months. She takes that time to try to convince him that life, even in a wheelchair with limited mobility, is worth living, a task which ends up taking the couple on some (mis)adventures. It's...kind of a love story? There's definitely romance. But also so much more. As an able-bodied person, we so rarely think about accessibility, and increasing the comfort and quality of life for those with disabilities. I had never thought about how hard navigating the mall would be in a wheel chair, how it would feel to not be able to exercise, and how out of control every aspect of life would be. This read definitely changed my view of disability, and gave me a lot of appreciation and gratitude for my body. It sounds heavy now, but this book is juicy as well. 100% page turner. Definitely worth putting on your summer list!