I've always had Jojo Moyes pegged for a pure comfort read sort of author. Someone whose works you can pick up knowing in advance (more or less) what you're going to get. A nice story, maybe even a fluffy meringue of a story that you can ease into, not give a whole lot of thought to but let it all wash over you and just enjoy wherever she takes you. Nothing too demanding and maybe even a little predictable. I don't say any of this lightly or even critically, as if any of what I describe is necessarily a bad thing. Besides when a story like that is done well, it can be a wholly satisfying read. I love my comfort reads and reach for them at least as often (and sometimes even more so of late) as any other sort of story that I like to keep company with.
So imagine my surprise when Me Before You, which I picked up on whim at the supermarket of all places (I rarely buy but always look, was happy to see Jojo Moyes on the shelf, skimmed the description--quickly . . .) threw me for a loop. One blurb describes it as "surprising, and heartbreaking . . . a thoroughly entertaining novel that captures the complexity of love." I suspect my eye caught 'surprising', 'entertaining' and 'complexity of love' straight away. Into the basket it went along with all my yogurts, and apples and bread. I didn't even intend to read it right away, but I gave it the cursory 'looking-over' and read a page or two, and then three and four and found I didn't really want to put it down. So, I didn't. I kept reading, and then all of a sudden the 'heartbreaking' part of the description kicked in and I realized that this was not going to be the fluffy meringue of a book I was expecting after all.
I like it when an author turns out to be something more than I was expecting, when she tells a story that is surprising and refreshing in its perspective and plotting. And Jojo Moyes has turned out to be a more complex storyteller than I assumed her to be (I knew she would be good, but just not good in this way exactly). Me Before You is not my first encounter with her work. I really loved Last Letter from Your Lover when I read it a couple of years ago. And it surprised me, too, so I should have known. Happily the publisher has used a cover that is pleasing in its simplicity and doesn't give any false impressions on the content (apparently I was still able to fill all that in on my own and still got it wrong). Jojo Moyes has been publishing books since 2002 but it was only with Last Letter to Your Lover that she has caught the attention of a wider US reading audience. I have a few of her earlier UK-published books which have long sat on my shelves unread.
In Me Before You Louisa Clark is a quirky character. She comes from a close-knit, very average middle class family. Though she's the eldest, she is in the shadow of her overachieving younger sister, which is perhaps why she chooses to dress with a peculiar but stylish panache. She works in a coffee shop and has a nice, average boyfriend and is quite happy and settled with her lot in life. Even ending up unwed and pregnant her sister Treena has ambitions and follows her dreams. Louisa, however, mostly likes to play it safe. And then she loses her job when the Buttered Bun closes its doors. It may not have been much but she loved her job and now is stuck temping, or worse.
Worse ends up being a job assisting a wheelchair bound man who she imagines to be an elderly gentleman whose bum she'll need to wipe and other sundry tasks that hold little attraction for her. But with a sister who is returning to school with a young son in tow and a father who has also just lost his job, Louisa has little choice as it seems the least unappealing job of a list of unappealing jobs she is qualified for. But even this job she doesn't seem qualified for. The wealthy family for whom she is about to work has passed up trained professionals for a twenty-something young woman with a mostly sunny perspective on life who likes wearing striped tights.
On her first day, when she meets the man for whom she'll be caring for, he pulls a "Christy Brown" (a la My Left Foot) on her and she quickly sees she'll have her work but out for her. And she's terrified of him. He's cantankerous and curmudgeonly with a dark disposition and an aura of entitlement about him. However will she manage to care for him? She also quickly discovers why so many other carers were passed in favor of her.
To tell you more would be to ruin it. I will say (and avert your eyes in case you really don't want to know more), this is a love story, but maybe I'll qualify it a little by saying it is a love story for grown ups. And I will say, too, that she had me sobbing, or nearly so. But it's a wonderful story, full of lots of grey areas and difficult choices, just like life. I won't assume I know Jojo Moyes anymore. Rather I will go at her work knowing there is a treat in store--something comforting in its way, but real and true, too. I have loaded Honeymoon in Paris: A Novella onto the ipad I use for work in anticipation of the forthcoming paperback edition of The Girl You Left Behind that is soon to be released. I might, too, have to dig out my copy of Foreign Fruit (which showed up on this list I made a couple of years ago) and compare her earlier work with the later. Once again, Jojo Moyes has pleasantly surprised me.