Monday, March 7, 2016

After You

Echoes Of Grief

Jojo Moyes’s last bestseller Me Before You (2012) was about an unusually passionate love story between the rich quadriplegic Will Trantor and his carer Louisa Clark, which ended with his assisted suicide.

In the sequel After You, Moyes catches up with Louis eighteen months later. Will’s legacy and his advice to her to “just live well” has allowed her to buy an apartment, but she is still grieving and punishing herself by doing a humiliatingly menial job at an airport bar.  In Louisa’s hometown, people still shun her because of the euthanasia scandal following her like a shadow. She attends grief management sessions and spends her time gloomily ruminating her on the the apartment’s terrace.

Two strange things happen to her—she falls off the terrace, lands up in hospital because of broken bones, and meets a man who will be important in her life. Worse, Lily, the disturbed, delinquent daughter that she never knew Will had, turns up at her doorstep, and demands to be looked after. There are other interesting characters like Louisa’s parents, her senile granddad, her resentful sister, and Will’s parents, also trying to cope with their grief.

Louisa’s life is turned upside down and not necessarily in a good way, though, like all romantic stories, it has a happy ending. Though one wouldn't wish a manipulative whiner like Lily on one's worst enemy.





After You 
By Jojo Moyes
Published by Pamela Dorman Books
Pages: 368

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