A Worthy Sequel:  After You

Last time, I compared two books with characters dealing with lost love.  Here’s a third, the sequel to Jojo Moyes’ Me Before You.  To quote NPR reviewer Maureen Corrigan: “Writer Jojo Moyes has a name that lacks gravitas. To be honest, I even feel a bit silly saying her name when I recommend her novels to people — which I do, often and energetically.”

While not great works of literature, Moyes’ books are, according to Corrigan, ones that carry on the “comedy-romance tradition” of Jane Austen and Maeve Binchy.  For me, this book and its predecessor, were both satisfying reads that involve believable characters faced with complex, real-world issues.

Me Before You is the story of Louisa Clark, a young woman in her mid-twenties given to wearing funky colorful clothing and bumble bee tights, still living with her parents and working as a waitress in the little English town whose claim to fame is a castle  (I pictured Windsor.)  She is in a dead-end relationship with a guy more interested in running and conditioning than he is in Louisa.  Without a university degree or any real training, few job opportunities are available to her until she spots a high-paying job as a caregiver for Will Traynor, a quadriplegic, who scares her at the interview with his best Daniel Day Lewis impersonation (My Left Foot).  Without giving away too much of this story, suffice it to say that the story takes off as Will and Louisa spar and then become friends and finally more.  Will tells Louisa at the outset that he has agreed to give his parents six months before he will go to a Swiss facility that administers assisted suicide. Previously a handsome, successful young jetsetter before being hit by a car, Will cannot bear to live this new life.  As the novel progresses and Louisa’s feelings for him grow, his choice becomes anathema to her.

After You picks up 17 months after Will’s death; Louisa continues to be depressed and rudderless.  After living in France for a while, Louisa is back in London, waitressing at an airport pseudo-Irish pub where she is forced to wear a leprechaun – like costume, complete with red wig, and suffer the abuse of the highly critical manager.  She lives in a flat purchased with the money Will has left her, but she has done nothing to personalize the place or make it feel like a home.  Despite Will’s last directive to her to “live well”, Louisa is sinking, sitting on her rooftop drinking white wine and staring at the night sky, immersed in her grief.  One night, Louisa walks over to the edge of the roof and looks down the 5 stories to the ground.  She isn’t really intending to jump but a sudden presence behind her startles her and over she goes.  Despite the fall, this is the point at which Louisa’s life actually starts to rebound. Sam, the hunky paramedic who pulls her off the third floor awning (that has saved her life) and Lily, the one responsible for scaring Louisa on the roof, a delinquent 16 year old who has a stronger connection to Louisa than she could have ever imagined, both bring substance and color to Louisa’s life.  There are also the quirky members of the “Moving On” group with whom Louisa meets weekly who help her as they help themselves recover from the grief of losing people they all loved deeply.

Returning to the sequel are Louisa’s family:  the senile granddad, the loving but judging sister Treena, Louisa’s mom who, at Treena’s urging has discovered feminism and her ever-exasperated traditional father.  Louisa’s mother provides some great comedy, refusing to continue to shave her legs much to her husband’s dismay, but also serving as a role model for Louise of what it looks like to reinvent yourself in order to make life more satisfying.  The Traynors, Will’s parents, appear too, now divorced but, like Louisa, still bewildered and grieving.

This book, if not quite as tear-inducing as its predecessor, is a worthy and satisfying sequel.  While the plot seems like it could be just another bestseller romance, the complexity of the conflicts that the characters face with not always clear solutions makes this a better read than you might expect.