I joined a book club, so duh I’m gonna write about it. Here’s how: I’ll talk about the book (srsly if you need a spoiler warning, you clearly don’t know how this works), give a rating and provide my own discussion questions for your book club (bc I’m just super nice like that).

Just a little side note: I love reading, but I never have time for it. Because I’m deadline-driven, book club totally provides me with the motivation to read, read, read! Why? Because your reward is wine, cheese and friendship. #imthere

First up was… Me Before You by Jojo Moyes.

General summary: Your classic “Boy Meets Girl” deal. Except the boy meets the girl after he has a crippling accident and after the girl loses her job, which her family relies on, and cripple boy’s mom hires poor girl. AND except that when boy DOES meet girl, he hates her and she also hates him.

So the girl, Louisa (Lou) is forced to work for the surly and sarcastic crippled 35 year old. She drives him around and talks to him. He, Will, slowly warms up to her and thoroughly enjoys making fun of her and her eccentric clothes. Lou has a boyfriend who runs and is obnoxious.

Then she finds out the kicker. The big, huge issue that makes this story different from Beauty and the Beast. Will doesn’t want to live anymore. He led a “big life.” He had a fast-paced job and a lot of friends and pretty ladies. He had tons of money and spent it traveling the world. His new life was just not what he wanted. So he attempts suicide. His parents find him and they save him, but Will tells them he wants to do the whole assisted suicide thing in Switzerland (they are very British, there’s lots of tea involved).

Lou over hears this and flips the eff out. She quits, but slowly she and Mrs. Will’s mom (who’s a hard ass) realized that their only hope of convincing Will to change his mind is the quirky girl. So, Lou plans and plans fun things to do. She even plans a vacation for them. It’s through all of this that Lou realizes she has so much she hasn’t done in her life, and Will pushed her to do it. Lou re-enrolls in school and travels. There’s a great parallel of the man who wants to lead a big life, but can’t and the girl who can but won’t.

On the vacation, since running man ran away after he gave Lou an ultimatum (it’s him or crippled man), Lou tells Will she loves him.

AWWWWW right?

Wrong. Doesn’t make a difference to Will. I cried then and kept it flowing to the very end.

Rating: 8/10 in sadness, 7/10 for romance, 10/10 for, just, ughhh.

Discussion questions:

If you knew you were going to be unable to do pretty much anything at age 35, would you live big and try to experience everything, or live small so you know what you’re getting into?

Could you do what Louisa did? Why or why not?

If you were Louisa, would you have liked to know about Will’s six-month deadline or no?

Would you have gone with him to the facility?

Do you think assisted suicide should be legalized?

Like, how much did you want to travel and seize the day after this book?! SAME.

Up next is: The Girl on the Train

(I can’t wait for this one!)