Julie's Review: After You

Author: JoJo Moyes
Series: Me Before You #2
Publication Date: September 29, 2015
Publisher: Pam Dorman Books
Pages: 386
Obtained: purchased
Genre:  Contemporary Fiction
Rating: 4.75/5.0
Bottom Line: A wonderful sequel
Grab, Just get it at the library, or Remove from your TBR list? Grab!

Summary: 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.~amazon.com

 Review: After You is a wonderful sequel that let's readers catch up with Lou after Will's death. It isn't easy to see where Lou's at. She's lost. She's out of touch with her parents since her part in Will's death. She's working at an airport bar and then laying awake wondering what she's doing with her life. It isn't until she has an accident that sends her life on the right path. It wakes her up a little bit but it's the people she meets that end up pulling her up from the abyss.

 Lou is trying to get her life back together but Will was such a powerful force in her life, that she's not sure how to go on without him. He wanted her to live her life to the fullest and ensured that she could do that but that's not really Lou. She didn't live an adventurous life before W and she's not sure how to do it now. Sure, she traveled but doing that by yourself can get weary as well. To satisfy her father, Louisa joins a group called Moving On that helps people cope with the death of a loved one.

While I do think that it helped her in some ways, it really was the entrance of Lily and Sam that brought her to the surface again. Sam showed her that she could love again and Lily showed her that it's possible to truly care about someone even if they don't have any true ties to you.

I didn't bawl like I did with Me Before You but I did tear up a few separate times. I laughed a lot though because life is absurd, funny, and painful. Lou still has her wicked sense of humor and her parents crack me up for some reason. Her sister Treen is the one who keeps Lou honest or tries to keep her honest.

I wasn't sure how Ms. Moyes would do a sequel without Will but his spirit lived on in this one. Lou is a great character and it was great to see her grow and find her legs again. I would say more but I don't want to ruin it for you.


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Julie's Review: One Plus One

Author: JoJo Moyes
Series: None
Publication Date: July 1, 2014
Publisher: Pamela Dorman Books
Pages: 381
Obtained: purchased
Genre:  Contemporary Fiction, Women's Fiction
Rating: 4/5
Bottom Line: Sweet but predictable story
Grab, Just get it at the library, or Remove from your TBR list? Library

Summary: Suppose your life sucks. A lot. Your husband has done a vanishing act, your teenage stepson is being bullied and your math whiz daughter has a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity that you cant afford to pay for. Thats Jesss life in a nutshell—until an unexpected knight-in-shining-armor offers to rescue them. Only Jesss knight turns out to be Geeky Ed, the obnoxious tech millionaire whose vacation home she happens to clean. But Ed has big problems of his own, and driving the dysfunctional family to the Math Olympiad feels like his first unselfish act in ages . . . maybe ever. ~powells.com

Review: One Plus One is a sweet story about always looking on the bright side, figuring out what you want and learning to be fine with who you are. This is a misfit group of people we have in this book and somehow Ms. Moyes makes it work. Jess is eternally optimistic and given her situation it's probably best that she has that attitude. Ed made a stupid decision that will end up forever altering his life. Tanzie is a bit of a geek but sweet. Nicky is struggling to fit in and figure out who he is. Mix them all together and you get a story of love and acceptance.

The book isn't without it's tears and laughs but for me it wasn't as strong of a connection to the characters as Me Before You. They are all endearing in their own way but I felt that in this book she was trying to cover too many social issues. Not that they aren't all important but focusing on one or two would have been preferred for this reader.

My favorite character was Nicky. You couldn't help but root for him and want him to come out of his shell. You wanted the people who bullied him to get their karma. You knew they would but you just didn't know how. He's the character who grew and changed. He became more comfortable with who he was and perhaps where he might go to. He opened himself up and when he did that he found that he liked who he was and he liked who he belonged to.

I liked Jess but sometimes I wanted to tell her to shut it. I know there are people in the world who have a cheery disposition but sometimes it's ok to be pissed with how life as sucked. It's ok to be mad at times, just as long as you don't let it get you down.

Ms. Moyes is still an author I will gravitate towards but this wasn't her strongest for me.

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Julie's Review: Me Before You

Summary: They had nothing in common until love gave them everything to lose . . .Louisa Clark is an ordinary girl living an exceedingly ordinary life—steady boyfriend, close family—who has barely been farther afield than their tiny village. She takes a badly needed job working for ex–Master of the Universe Will Traynor, who is wheelchair bound after an accident. Will has always lived a huge life—big deals, extreme sports, worldwide travel—and now hes pretty sure he cannot live the way he is. Will is acerbic, moody, bossy—but Lou refuses to treat him with kid gloves, and soon his happiness means more to her than she expected. When she learns that Will has shocking plans of his own, she sets out to show him that life is still worth living. A Love Story for this generation, Me Before You brings to life two people who couldn't have less in common—a heartbreakingly romantic novel that asks, What do you do when making the person you love happy also means breaking your own heart? ~powells.com  


Review: Me Before You is one of those books that literally everyone has raved about. So much raving that one has to wonder if it will live up to the hype. Well know there are some books that do and some books that fall short of it. Well, I am happy to say that Me Before You does not fall short. It is an exquisite novel. One that makes you think. One that makes you laugh. One that make you cry. This cry is not a pretty one either.

Both Will and Louisa are complex characters. For me, I found Louisa, aka Lou, to be even more complex than Will. It is obvious why Will is surly, moody and bitter; he's in a wheelchair from a horrible accident. Louisa is hired to keep him occupied and company. Goodness knows those are two different things. Will isn't always pleasant to be around or kind to Louisa. Louisa soldiers on. She slowly begins to feel more comfortable around Will. Will becomes more comfortable around her. It isn't until Will gets sick and Louisa stays with him that they begin to bond. Will and Louisa are unlikely allies. There is nothing in their past and present that would make you think that they would find common ground. Just as it becomes Louisa's mission to show Will that life is worth living; it becomes Will's mission to show Louisa what her life could be like if she expanded her thinking. Will gives Louisa the confidence to have the life she should have and Louisa gives Will the love he needs to move on.

I loved Louisa's family. They provided much needed laughs at times when the book was getting heavy. They weren't exactly the most supportive family, but they obviously loved each other. Even though Louisa and her sister, Treena, didn't always get along, they did support each other when it counted.

I also loved how a few of the chapters were told from other people's points of views. It helped to gain some other insight to how both of them were viewed by other people.

Me Before You is a novel of hard choices and finding love in an unlikely way. It is beautifully written and powerful. It make you think about if it would be easy for you to let go and let someone find their happy ending, even if you didn't agree with it. Could you sacrifice your happiness for theirs?

I am thrilled that I read this novel. I can't recommend it highly enough. Do yourself a favor and buy it as your own Christmas present.  

Final Take: 5/5

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Julie's Review: The Girl You Left Behind

Summary:  From the New York Times–bestselling author of Me Before You, a spellbinding love story of two women separated by a century but united in their determination to fight for what they love most. Jojo Moyes's bestseller, Me Before You, catapulted her to wide critical acclaim and has struck a chord with readers everywhere. “Hopelessly and hopefully romantic” (Chicago Tribune), Moyes returns with another irresistible heartbreaker that asks, “Whatever happened to the girl you left behind?” France, 1916:  Artist Edouard Lefevre leaves his young wife, Sophie, to fight at the front. When their small town falls to the Germans in the midst of World War I, Edouard's portrait of Sophie draws the eye of the new Kommandant. As the officer's dangerous obsession deepens, Sophie will risk everything — her family, her reputation, and her life — to see her husband again. Almost a century later, Sophie's portrait is given to Liv Halston by her young husband shortly before his sudden death. A chance encounter reveals the painting's true worth, and a battle begins for who its legitimate owner is — putting Liv's belief in what is right to the ultimate test. Like Sarah Blake's The Postmistress and Tatiana de Rosnay's Sarah's Key, The Girl You Left Behind is a breathtaking story of love, loss, and sacrifice told with Moyes's signature ability to capture our hearts with every turn of the page. ~powells.com 

Review: The German occupation of France in World War I is often overlooked for the occupation with the Nazi regime. The first occupation is where Ms. Moyes sets the historical part of her novel The Girl You Left Behind. I can't imagine being in the position Sophie and her sister Helene were in during the war. To have both of your husbands fighting to win back France from the Germans and then to be told that you will be the place that will serve food to the troops? How do you not do what you should to survive? How do you live with yourself when you know what people are saying? Not only are they saying it behind your back but they are brazen enough to say it to your face, in front of children. When all you can think about is being back with your husband and are so desperate for him, do you do desperate things?

Then we are back in the mid-2000s with Liv who, after 4 years of dealing with her husband's death, still isn't fully back in the land of the living, has to make a crucial decision about a painting that she truly loves. Does it of course have something to do with the fact that it was a gift from her husband? Of course but it's more of a personal connection to the women in the painting. Liv is a mess. There I've said it. The fight for the painting is one thing that is keeping her feet on the planet. She has been in a fog and it is now starting to lift. It is through her fight for the painting that she begins to realize that she needs to let go of the past and start to move on with her life. I love how she fought for something she loved but when it was brought to her attention that it was having negative effects elsewhere, she began to see a bit more clearly.

I loved how Ms. Moyes showed that the past always illuminates the present. That we can always learn something from the past; good, bad or even ugly. Sure, the ending was tied up with a nice big bow, but in this instance I didn't mind. Sometimes you just want the happily ever after. Especially for characters who had been through so much tragedy. I also can't write the review without saying how the title is woven through the novel on so many different levels. I love it when that happens.

I still have Me Before You in my TBR pile but it's been pushed up to the pile of books to be read in December. I'm looking forward to reading her debut novel.

Final Take:  4.5/5

Thank you to Pamela Dorman Books and SheReads.org for my copy of the novel.

 

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Author Interview: JoJo Moyes

We are delighted to have bestselling author, JoJoy Moyes on the blog today where she answers some questions. Her newest book, The Girl You Left Behind is out now!

Q: THE GIRL YOU LEFT BEHIND, though a love story, features strong female relationships as well. What made you want to write about the connections that can form between women? If Liv and Sophie had lived in the same time, do you think they would have been friends?

JJM:  My female friendships are so important to me; I honestly don’t know how women survive without them. I get very bored of reading manufactured narratives that pit women against women; the working mums vs. stay at homes, old vs. young, the ‘evil’ woman boss who is trying to keep younger women down—I don’t recognise these images—most women I know are actually pretty supportive of each other. So I liked having relationships in this book where women are supportive of each other, even if their relationships are often complex and changing. To me that reflects real life. And yes, I think that Sophie and Liv might have been friends—I think through her sister’s grief, Sophie might have understood Liv’s own. And both knew what it was like to utterly adore your husband.

Q: The reclamation of art taken during wartime is central to the plot. How did you first encounter this topic and what kind of research did you do to learn more about it?

JJM: I was briefly the arts correspondent for The Independent newspaper in London, so I knew a bit about the legal issues. But I read an amazing news story about a young woman reporter who had been asked to mind a huge collection of stolen Nazi artwork, and was given a very valuable stolen Cranach as a ‘thank you.’ Many decades later when it came up for auction it was recognised and became the subject of a claim.

Q: It would seem the issue of returning stolen art is clear-cut, but Liv finds herself trying to keep a painting that may have been ill-gotten. Is there room for sympathy on both sides?

JJM: Without wanting to diminish in any way the suffering of those who lost their precious belongings, I think there is. The more time that goes by, the more complicated the issue becomes, as people buy and sell in good faith, not knowing the painting’s tainted past. These things are also complicated when great legal industries spring up around them, as seems to have happened in the case of stolen artwork.

Q: You create a vivid sense of French life under the German Occupation in WWI. Did you know much about this period prior to writing the novel?

JJM: No I didn’t, but the more research I did, the more fascinated I became by it. I knew about the terrible losses suffered in northern France during the first world war, but I knew little about life away from the Western Front, and the fact that in a great swathe of northern France Belgian and French people had their homes and belongings requisitioned in such a widespread and systematic way.

Q: Sophie and Liv exist a century apart, but their lives are strongly connected, making the past feel very much alive in your story. Do you feel a strong link to the past or a particular historic figure?

JJM: That’s an interesting question. I’m not sure I do. I’m always amazed when people do past life regression and say they turned out to be Cleopatra or Florence Nightingale... I think I’d be the anonymous girl who ran the fruit stall near the river, or kept the accounts in the hat shop. But I do like to look at the lives of particularly brave women in history though, undercover women agents, in wartime or Amelia Earhart, say, and try to use their actions to make me braver in my everyday life, like standing up to a traffic warden....

Q: What do you hope readers will take away from THE GIRL YOU LEFT BEHIND?

JJM:  I hope they’ll be transported into a time and place they didn’t know about. And I hope that they will put themselves in the place of Sophie and Liv, and ask: what would I do in their shoes? I love writing strong, resourceful female characters, and Sophie was one of my favourites, so I hope some women might be a little bit inspired too. Mostly I simply hope that they will feel glad they picked up the book and took the journey with me.

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