Me Before You

I have mixed feelings about this book. I can most certainly see the mass appeal the story has - the budding romance between Lou and Will really had my hopes up that Will would change his mind, and it was exciting to see them both changing as a result of their unexpected but growing relationship. However, I really had difficulty wrapping my head around the ending and found myself thinking a LOT after finishing this book. (After I got over the whole crying-because-of-the-ending thing.) So many questions. What if he had chosen to live? Why couldn't the author have allowed someone to have found a cure? Why couldn't Lou's love for
Will been enough?

I suppose I can appreciate that the ending wasn't the typical-romance-story-puppies-and-rainbows type deal, but I don't know what I think about assisted suicide. I am pro-life when it comes to unborn children and supporting adoption and foster care especially for women who have opted for that route rather than abortion, but am I pro-life when it comes to assisted suicide? I don't know.

This story presented an exploration of someone's journey through a disability that made this a bit more of a grey area for me. I do not know what it is like to struggle with a disability involving paralysis from the waist down, constant pain, inability to use my arms, and no longer even being able to use the bathroom on my own. This is what has come to define Will's life in the book, and in such a debilitating way that he has attempted to take his life prior to the main character Lou entering the picture. What is that truly like? I don't know and can only begin to imagine.

I am grateful for the opportunity to be challenged in what I believe but find it difficult to read a story like this and not come back to my faith as a landing pad after navigating through the thoughts and questions this book brought to mind. What do I wish? (Call it naive and simplistic if you would like, but this is what comes to mind for me and is how I am reacting to this book.) That Will knew he had value and worth as a human being created in the image of God even before his accident or perhaps even as a result of it. That someone entered his life and explained the gospel and how we are called to view suffering in light of the gospel (e.g., James 1:2-4) and having a changed heart (e.g., Ezekiel 36:26-27). That what happens in life does not always make sense, but nothing is too terrible or too big for God to redeem and restore, whether we can see and understand this on this side of heaven or not.

I probably thought way too much about this book. It's just a book, after all. A fictional story about fictional characters. I also recognize real life is messy, and there aren't always the picture perfect happy endings we expect and perhaps feel entitled to at the end of the story, fictional or not. Maybe I'm just one of those people who is unable to compartmentalize enough to enjoy fiction for what it is and leave it at that and should not be writing reviews of books like this - especially late at night when I'm tired - which I am just fine with, if that is the case.