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Author: Jojo Moyes
Genre: Contemporary, Adult, Romance
Blurb: Lou Clark knows lots of things. She knows how many footsteps there are between the bus stop and home. She knows she likes working in The Buttered Bun tea shop and she knows she might not love her boyfriend Patrick.
What Lou doesn't know is she's about to lose her job or that knowing what's coming is what keeps her sane.
Will Traynor knows his motorcycle accident took away his desire to live. He knows everything feels very small and rather joyless now, and he knows exactly how he's going to put a stop to that.
What Will doesn't know is that Lou is about to burst into his world in a riot of colour. And neither of them knows they're going to change the other for all time.
I never expected myself to like the book this much. Not because of people's negative reviews. (I distanced myself from as many reviews as possible so I had very limited knowledge about the book before going into it).
Since this was a book within the adult genre, I felt that it was somewhat more realistic. Lou Clark is a 27 year old who still lives with her parents and would sometimes argue with her younger sister in order to receive the attention of her parents. Also, she was almost 'poor' and she lived in a fairly disadvantaged neighbourhood.
I was lucky that the Grishams were the hot news of the evening, or I might have been the topic conversation. In our street, if you climbed into an expensive car it meant you had either pulled a footballer or were being arrested by the plain-clothes police.
Lou Clark also had an interesting personality and a quirky fashion sense. Sometimes she was awkward, sometimes she was passionate, sometimes she was cringy.
Will Traynor was obviously very different in comparison to Lou. He was pretty blunt and sarcastic.
"I just don't really like foreign films." "Everything after Local Bloody Hero has been a foreign film. D'you think Hollywood is a suburb of Birmingham?" "Funny."
However, I was surprised that he wasn't straightforward all the time.
I liked how this book had its funny and lighthearted moments such as the dialogue that took place between Will and Lou Clark. I also liked how the POVs outside of Lou's were placed there for a decent reason (at least for me).
On the other side, this book deals with complicated issues like abuse and the controversial topic of whether Dignitas is right or wrong.
My second complaint is concerning this quote in Nathan's POV:
His blood pressure was down. His colour was returning to normal in front of me. I let out a breath I didn't realise I was holding.
^ Oh, for flip's sake. This novel was published in 2012 so less people probably complained about it back then. Whatever.
Also, though this book was almost long and didn't melt my brain, I felt that it wasn't so special. Not that it was boring and super ordinary but it was not as magical as others made it seem to be. However, it was fun but sad and full of familiar English banter so I was satisfied.
Recommendation: For those who are curious.
Content: Swearing, kissing, also mentioned that the protagonist had sex but gave no real description of what happened.
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| 4 stars our of five |
