“Me Before You” by Jojo Moyes is a beautiful, humorous, emotional and direct portrayal of the daily physical and psychological struggles of Will, a quadriplegic. A heartbreaking story which will make the toughest of you emotional; it is definitely a must-read!

         The main character and caregiver, Lou, is easy to like and humorous, as she takes the reader on her journey of self-discovery. Her family faces some economical problems so she tries finding a job. Nothing really suits her and she gets disappointed. In the end, she finds a job which provides her many things, such as “good money”.

           Will is a helpless man whose life has been destroyed. He is very strong, but breaks sometimes. In the first chapter, we see the life of Will Traynor. He enjoys it with his girlfriend while having a great job. Will Traynor is a go-getter in every sense of the word until a motorcycle hits him as he is about to get into a taxi. The result leaves him a quadriplegic. For two years, he endures physiotherapy, uncounted doctor visits and constant pain. He gets through a lot and he loses much more than his mobility. He also loses his home, unable to stay as it is not wheelchair accessible. He loses his girlfriend as well, and even though part of that is because he shuts her out of his pain, he still misses her. Finally, he decides to solve his problem by going to Sweden. Soon after that, he hires Lou to take care of him. She helps him get better and she gets stronger and wiser out of this.

         Jojo Moyes is a novelist and a journalist. She worked at the Independent for ten years before leaving to write full time. Her previous novels have all been critically acclaimed. Some of them are “The Last Letter from Your Lover”, “The Girl You Left Behind” and the bestseller “Me Before you”.  She lives in Essex with her husband and their three children.

By Andriopoulou Dimitra, Nikoleta Kamariari and Panagiotis Gyftomitros