after you

why i wanted to read it: because i thought i wanted to know what happened to louisa. and it was a selection for the last book challenge erin hosted. i read a whopping five titles last time, yall. usually i manage about half that many. out of ten books. because reading ten books in like four months, for me, seems to be a ginormous feat i may never accomplish, but you know... every time she announces the categories for the next one, i'm all i will finish this bitch this time. this has been going on for a LONG time.

what i liked: sometimes i felt as if we were all wading around in grief, reluctant to admit to others how far we were waving or drowning. i wondered fleetingly whether sam's reluctance to talk about his wife mirrored my reluctance to discuss will; the kind of knowledge that the moment you opened the box, let out even a whisper of your sadness, it would mushroom into a cloud that overwhelmed all other conversation (page 147).

i'd marked about a dozen pages, but after going over them (and it's been months since i'd read this book, so i was reading those pages again without considering the context of those that come before and after), i only like the bit on that one, and i'm not that enthused about the thing.

as for the story, there are parts of it i could appreciate it, and most of those were scenes that involved sam or lily.

what sucked: i did not like louisa in this book. she annoyed the ever-loving hell out of me. nor did i like camilla. i could not reconcile this novel's version of either of these women with those in me before you. and yeah, i know grief can change a gal in some pretty fantastic ways, but... it's like moyes has changed their dna or something. i don't buy it. also there's a subplot involving louisa's parents that is redonkulus.

having said that: watch the film version of me before you. don't even bother with the books.