I, along with most of the world it would seem, really enjoyed ‘Me Before You’.  Enjoyed in a sobbing snotfest kind of way – but enjoyed none the less!  So I was excited to see there was to be a sequel.  This is what Amazon had to say about it:

“Lou Clark has lots of questions.
Like how it is she’s ended up working in an airport bar.
Whether her family can ever forgive her.
And will she ever get over the love of her life.
What she knows for certain is that something has to change.
Then it does.
But does the stranger on her doorstep hold the answers Lou is searching for?
Close the door and life continues: simple, ordered, safe.
Open it and she risks everything.
But Lou once made a promise to live. And if she’s going to keep it, she has to invite them in . . .”

Firstly – you don’t have to have read ‘Me Before You’ for this book to work (although I would highly recommend that you do just because it’s a bloody good book)  ‘After You’ would work as a standalone book – and it references back where necessary, but not overly – so you wouldn’t feel like you were missing any ‘in jokes’ if you hadn’t read the prequel.

It follows Lou’s life now – and that of her family and Will’s family. It has a totally different ‘vibe’ to ‘Me Before You’ – and I would say is funnier, more fast paced and varied – but it somehow lacks the ‘heart’ of ‘Me Before You’ – and there wasn’t any snotty sobbing going on at the end this time.

I really enjoyed it – it was a good, easy, escapist read – and it did have such a lot to live up to.  Going for something completely different was definitely the right way to go.  I enjoyed finding out what had happened to Lou – and some of the twists and turns were really clever (I had to flick back and see if I’d missed the obvious clues to one certain revealing of parentage). It had a real air of ‘Bridget Jones’ at times – particularly the slightly disfunctional relationship of Lou’s parents –  but that’s not necessarily a bad thing!

Overall I would recommend it – as I would every Jojo Moyes book I’ve read.  Writing a sequel to such an international best seller such as ‘Me Before You’ is always going to have that ‘difficult second album’ issues – but this was still a good, fun read.  Makes me slightly nervous of when me 12 year old is a few years older though………….