After You by Jojo Moyes

I finished reading Before You by Jojo Moyes within just a couple of days of starting it. I loved that book, as you can tell in my previous blog post about it. It made you think, challenged you to put yourself in the main character’s shoes and see how you would feel, or if you would do anything different. When I saw that it had a sequel, I was ecstatic!! Even though I hadn’t finished reading Before You, I immediately went out and bought After You. I didn’t even bother checking the ratings on it(mistake). Once I finished Before You, the next day I started After You. And it was bad. BAD. I was in shock.. page after page I found myself thinking, “oh it’s only been the first few pages, it has to get better!”. The characters and their choices made me cringe. It definitely gave me second hand embarrassment. The first book was a crazy situation but not unrealistic. While reading After You, I kept thinking, “yeah right, could never happen” and mentally rolling my eyes to the back of my head. The characters lost any growth they had achieved and just generally annoyed me. That being said..there is still another book that follows After You and it is called Still Me. Still Me has great reviews and I just purchased it this afternoon. I am hoping it reminds me of why I fell in love with the characters in the first place! After You has a 3.7 rating on GoodReads.

*A side note…I am a huge Down syndrome advocate. I spend a lot of my time volunteering to help people of all ages with Down syndrome. I also promote positive interactions for others who have not yet got to experience the beauty that is Down syndrome. That being said, I NEVER say the “r word”. Have I said it before? Yes. And then I learned about the pain and hurt it causes people with Down syndrome and their families/friends and I vowed to never say it again. Jojo Moyes uses the “r word” one time in After You and it was completely unnecessary. I almost stopped reading the book all together after that. There are SO many other words to use. If you would like to read more on why the “r word” is offensive and how it hurts, click the link below:

https://staging.r-word.org/r-word-why-pledge.aspx#.XNCZgJNKjVo