Me Before You by JoJo Moyes

Louisa Clark is an ordinary British girl in an ordinary British family. She has a steady boyfriend, who she is clearly resigned to be with, but not madly in love with. Her life is quiet, rather dull and pedestrian.  She is content working in a cafe and does nothing to upset the quiet monotony of her life. Her family struggles financially, she has a less than wonderful relationship with her sister and she and Patrick (boyfriend) go out to pubs with friends.
She loses her cafe job when the owner decides to close up shop. Lou needs a job!
She is suggested for a job as an assistant to a quadriplegic. The pay is good and it's close to home. She won't have to do any of the "personal grooming," but rather, just keep him company and in good spirits. What a job that turns out to be.
The interesting part of this novel is captured in this passage from a NYTimes review by Liesl Schillinger:

Lou has never fully lived; Will has, but no longer can. In health, he had exhilarated in “crushing people in business deals.” He had scaled rock faces at Yosemite, swum in volcanic springs in Iceland, sampled warm croissants in the Marais and had his pick of glamorous, leggy girlfriends. After the accident, he can’t walk, can’t feed himself, can’t have sex. The only power he believes he retains is the power to end his life; and, as a man of action, he wants to exercise that power.  But in Lou, he discovers an unexpected outlet for his thwarted energies: teaching her how to exert her own autonomy. “You cut yourself off from all sorts of experiences because you tell yourself you are ‘not that sort of person,’ ” he scolds her. “You’ve done nothing, been nowhere. How do you have the faintest idea what kind of person you are?”

A lot of this book is predictable, for sure, but I read it quickly and it was entertaining.


The ending may surprise some readers. I liked the ending.