After You

I admit: I HATE when a sweet love story gets me, but I truly enjoyed After You by Jojo Moyes! I had no intention of reading it, but when the publishers sent me a copy of Still Me (#3 in the trilogy), I did what every #bookstagrammer does – I took it to my #instastories and asked you guys what to do! Those of you who answered made it clear that I couldn’t skip After You (which secretly bummed me out because now I was having to commit to not one, but TWO more books…and my #TBR pile is ever growing and the last thing I needed was to add TWO more books!!!! #bookwormproblems).

Anyway, I bit the bullet and added TWO more books!!!, and I’m so glad I did.

Apparently, I like Louisa Clark more than I want to admit! 😉

I remember after reading Me Before You that I loved Will’s character. But now I’m confused because I LOVE and ADORE Sam in After You (is it possible for Will to be dethroned?!?! #askingforafriend)! I’m crossing my fingers that they somehow make this long distance relationship work because I can’t imagine that Moyes has it in her to create THREE dreamy, lust-worthy guys!

I haven’t read Still Me yet so I can’t determine if I could have skipped After You or not, but I’m super glad I didn’t (shoutout to those of you that said I needed to read it!). It was a lovely continuation of the first book. The new characters were a wonderful addition, and I appreciated the development of the previous ones. I like Louisa Clark as a grieving woman who also has a solid amount of strength (and humor) within her that keeps her from just wallowing endlessly in despair.

The underlying theme of After You is grief of a loved one and how to start moving forward. I loved the message that we are all imprinted with love in some way – and if you’re grieving the loss of a loved one, that “moving on/forward” doesn’t mean you’re leaving them behind or forgetting about them. I imagine the loss of a spouse/significant other is different in many ways than that of a parent, but there are so many similarities in all the different kinds of grief and I loved how Moyes incorporated all losses throughout the book.

After reading this one, I’m even more excited about Still Me; I can’t wait to get to it!