After viewing many tweets promoting the newly released movie, based on the book Me Before You, I decided to listen to the sequel After You during my commutes.  Not being a fan of romance, it was an easy recording to listen to in that it was predictable and easy to follow.  It was very hard not to be disappointed after listening to the dynamic recording of The Shadow of the Wind.

The main character, Louisa (Lou), is grieving after the death of  her love interest.  He had had chosen to end his own life to escape his quadriplegic body in Me Before You.  Lou is struggling – living alone in London, working at an airport pub and avoiding her family.  In an instant her life is changed by an accidental fall and the discovery that Will had an unknown daughter who has her own issues to deal with.

Me Before you was reported, by the author’s website, to have sold 3 million copies before being made into a movie.  The author shared that she decided to write the sequel After You after receiving many emails and tweets from readers.  She is a full time novelist living in England.

After You is a book where it is easy to anticipate the events of the story making it the perfect story to read on a beach vacation where the reader wants to relax and wait for a predictable and happy ending.  I clearly am not in the right frame of mind for this kind of a book at the moment and and if the narrator described something being done ostentatiously one more time, I might have had to forgo the end of the book.  This made me reflect on the comments by Stephen King against the liberal use of adverbs in his book, On Writing.  I also struggled with the lack of research into the role and actions of paramedics but won’t comment specifically so as not to spoil the book for others.  In the end parts of the story were unrealistic – but perhaps the reader is not meant to consider these facts.