Me Before You (Me Before You # 1) - Jojo Moyes
Maybe most of you have already seen the trailer for the new movie, Me Before You that is coming out on June 3rd of this year. Some of you may be Hunger Games fans, Game of Thrones fanatics, or just anglophile Doctor Who fans, and maybe even Harry Potter fans that are dying to watch this movie because of Emilia Clarke and Sam Claflin, Jenna Louise Coleman, and Matthew Lewis star in this film.
Book Synopsis: They had nothing in common until love gave them everything to lose.
Louisa Clark is an ordinary girl living in an exceedingly ordinary life - she comes from a close family, will probably marry her boyfriend, Patrick, and has never been farther afield than the castle that is the prime tourist attraction of her tiny village. But when the local cafe where she works closes, she takes a badly needed job working for ex-Master of the Universe Will Traynor. Will is wheelchair bound after an accident ended his life as he knew it - big deals, extreme sports, worldwide travel - and he is not interested in exploring a new one.
Will is acerbic, moody, bossy - yet Lou refuses to treat him with kid gloves, and soon his happiness means more to her than she expected. In turn, Will prods Lou to expand her ambitions, but she has her reasons for wanting things to stay the same as they have always been. When Lou learns that Will has shocking plans of his own, she sets out to show him that life is still worth living. What neither of them knows is that they are going to change each other for all time.
Me Before You is about two people who couldn't have less in common - a heart-breakingly romantic story that asks, What do you do when making the person you love happy means breaking your own heart?
Usually when there's a best-selling book being turned into a movie, you know that I'll be reading it. I had my doubts about this book, I was a skeptic from the beginning. There had been warnings from friends and family mostly saying, it's a tear-jerker, why would you want to read something depressing? However, I ignored the naysayers and read on anyway.
Let's start with the main characters: Louisa Clark (Lou) and Will Traynor. I found that Lou was a riot, she held her own and always was honest with Will. Will was a piece of work, he was grumpy, sarcastic, and miserable, yet I ended up liking him. They practically jumped out the page as the movie played in my mind. Everyone always says the book is better than the movie, and usually they're 100% right.
"Tell me something good." - Will Traynor. I was expecting to cry, but I didn't and it wasn't that bad of a book.
There was only one aspect of the book that I didn't like and his name is Patrick. He was unnecessary. The story didn't need his presence, and I felt myself sighing as I read through his lines.
I will definitely be reading the sequel, After You and looking into adding other Jojo Moyes books to my TBR (to be read) shelf on Goodreads.com
Maybe you'll laugh, maybe you'll cry, or maybe you're just going to skip the book and watch the movie.
Rating: ★★★☆☆
Movie Review: Sadly, this movie was a terrible adaptation. The acting was great, but the way the whole story came together, it didn't really meet my expectations.
Casting was spot-on.
The soundtrack was all Ed Sheeran - I was dying of laughter when they decided to cut out the line from the song Thinking Out Loud: when your legs don't work like they used to before.
Oh, and I also thought that the movie should have ended with the scene at the beach.
I wanted them to be together, and it was annoying that the movie cut out so many parts of the book. Honestly, I think that the movie had the potential to be much better than the book. It was a bit of a let down, but if you don't care too much about how much the movie is similar to the book, then by all means, go ahead a watch it. Maybe bring a few tissues to the theater and a friend to cry with. You can probably just fawn over the beautiful cast.
Some parts were laugh out loud, while others were dragging and bothersome.
My wish is that it would have deviated from the book and create the ending that many people wanted, which was for Will and Lou to be together and live happily ever after.
Rating: ★★☆☆☆ (Two out of five for the fact that the acting was great, would've been more if the movie ended how I wanted it to end.)