Sign In Join Now
User Accessibility
  • Increase Font

  • Invert Colours

Search for a Book Browse Books Menu
Me Before You Cover Play Sample

Sample may contain unsuitable content.

Open Audiobook

Audiobook streaming provided by:

OverDrive Logo

Share this book:

Me Before You

AuthorJojo Moyes

NarratorVarious

Duration16h 45m

CategoriesAdult Fiction, Romance

PublisherClipper

VersionUnabridged

  Save to Wish List
  Add to Favourites List

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.

1 (1 Review)
1
0
0
0
0

James Louis 9 Aug 2021

Sad that this book is so popular

Unfortunately like a minority of other bestselling books, this is one of little merit, and is full of ableist saviourism. I would recommend against reading this, especially if one is disabled themselves.

The book’s protagonist Lou spends the book trying to ‘save’ Will, a quadriplegic man.

Will had an accident, leaving him with limited movement of one arm from a c5 spinal injury.

He is suicidal as he feels he is unable to live the life he wants to, and his family’s solution is to have him live in their annex and hire a carer (Lou) to watch over him every minute of the day.

After an unsuccessful suicide attempt, the family agrees that he can go to dignitas if he agrees to wait 6 months.

Lou secretly finds out about this from Will’s mum, and plans a series of ‘adventures’ to try to get Will out of the house and engaged with life again. One of the big resources she uses for ideas and advice is a forum for quadriplegics. However instead of putting Will in touch with others in similar positions, or telling him about the forum, Lou (as his mum also does) takes agency from him by deciding what would be best for him.

Inevitably, Lou (his paid carer) and Will fall in love.
But he still doesn’t want to live, and though at the end he asserts that the last six months were the best of his life, he still wants to die as he wants to be how he used to.

It’s littered with really disrespectful ableist language to describe Will- ‘cripple’, ‘useless arms’, questioning if someone like Will could fall in love or have a relationship. At least 5 different characters said specifically that no one would want to live like that (disabled/wheelchair user).

The grandad character seems to be a prop to give Lou’s family more financial burden. He is disabled, but it isn’t said how. He only has one line in the whole book ‘birthday cake’, though it seems he can also talk enough to offer his bedroom for use (although apparently no one liked how he made his room smell, so his offer was rejected).

The whole book is just based around non disabled saviourism, and is a really crappy book to be promoting on a service such as this.

Related Titles

The Giver of Stars Cover

The Giver of Stars

Author: Jojo Moyes

The Giver of Stars

Author Jojo Moyes

Narrator Julia Whelan

Duration 13h 52m

The greatest love story is the one you least expect.... Alice Wright doesn’t love her new American husband.  Nor her domineering father-in-law or the judgemental townsfolk of Baileyville, Kentucky. Stifled and misunderstood, she yearns for escape and finds it in defiant Margery O’Hare and the sisterhood bringing books to the iso...

View Book
The Horse Dancer Cover

The Horse Dancer

Author: Jojo Moyes

The Horse Dancer

Author Jojo Moyes

Narrator Julia Franklin

Duration 17h 34m

Sarah's grandfather was a horseman of rare talent-only the exceptional are allowed into France's elite riding academy, Le Cadre Noir. But life took an unexpected turn, and now from a council estate in east London, the Captain hopes to train his granddaughter towards a better life. Natasha is a lawyer whose job is to represent the best interests of...

View Book
Coming Home To the Comfort Food Cafe Cover

Coming Home To the Comfort Food Cafe

Author: Debbie Johnson

Coming Home To the Comfort Food Cafe

Author Debbie Johnson

Narrator Madeleine Hyland

Duration 9h 8m

Moving to the little village of Budbury, Zoe hopes the crisp Dorset sea breeze and gentle pace of life will be a fresh start for her and her goddaughter, Martha. Luckily for them both, the friendly community at the caf‚ provide listening ears, sage advice, shoulders to cry on and some truly excellent carrot cake. And when Martha's enigmatic,...

View Book
The Bride Test Cover

The Bride Test

Author: Helen Hoang

The Bride Test

Author Helen Hoang

Narrator Emily Woo Zeller

Duration 10h 6m

Khai Diep has no feelings. Well, he feels irritation when people move his things or contentment when ledgers balance down to the penny-but not important emotions, like love. His family knows better-that his autism means he just processes emotions differently. When he steadfastly avoids relationships, his mother takes matters into her own hands and...

View Book
After You Cover

After You

Author: Jojo Moyes

After You

Author Jojo Moyes

Narrator Anna Acton

Duration 11h 15m

Lou Clark has lots of questions. Like how it is she's ended up working in an airport bar, spending every shift watching other people jet off to new places. Or why the flat she's owned for a year still doesn't feel like home. Whether her close-knit family can forgive her for what she did eighteen months ago. And will she ever get over the love of he...

View Book
The One Plus One Cover

The One Plus One

Author: Jojo Moyes

The One Plus One

Author Jojo Moyes

Narrator Various

Duration 13h 10m

Number one bestseller The One Plus One is the beautiful, poignant and utterly compelling new novel by the internationally bestselling author Jojo Moyes. One eternal optimist... Jess Thomas, with two jobs and two kids and never enough money, wears flip flops in the hope of spring. And when life knocks her down she does her best to bounce right back....

View Book
Dashing Through the Snow Cover

Dashing Through the Snow

Author: Debbie Macomber

Dashing Through the Snow

Author Debbie Macomber

Narrator Allyson Ryan

Duration 4h 30m

Ashley Davison is desperate to spend the holidays with her mother in Seattle. Dash Sutherland has an interview for the job of a lifetime in Seattle and must arrive by 23 December. Both frantic to book a last-minute flight out of California, Ashley and Dash collide at the airport to learn that there are no flights and only one rental car available....

View Book
Creature Comforts Cover

Creature Comforts

Author: Trisha Ashley

Creature Comforts

Author Trisha Ashley

Narrator Julia Barrie

Duration 12h 30m

Fall in back in love with life in this gripping listen about fate and second chances. The eagerly awaited new novel from the Sunday Times best-selling author. Thirty-year-old Izzy Sweetwell has a peaceful life. She lives in the sleepy village of Halfhidden with her aunt with her aunt Debo, who runs the local kennels, a home from home for waifs and...

View Book
If We're Not Married By Thirty Cover

If We're Not Married By Thirty

Author: Anna Bell

If We're Not Married By Thirty

Author Anna Bell

Narrator Rebecca Courtney

Duration 12h 5m

A brilliantly funny, romantic and effervescent read, If We're Not Married by Thirty is the irresistible new novel from the bestselling author of The Bucket List to Mend a Broken Heart and It Started With a Tweet. Lydia's not exactly Living Her Best Life. She never imagined she'd be here at thirty - newly single, a job that's going nowhere and her f...

View Book
The Corner Shop In Cockleberry Bay Cover

The Corner Shop In Cockleberry Bay

Author: Nicola May

The Corner Shop In Cockleberry Bay

Author Nicola May

Narrator Penny Scott-Andrews

Duration 8h 10m

Rosa Larkin is down on her luck in London, so when she inherits a near-derelict corner shop in a quaint Devon village, her first thought is to sell it for cash and sort out her life. But nothing is straightforward about this legacy. While the identity of her benefactor remains a mystery, he - or she - has left one important legal proviso: that the...

View Book