“You don’t have to let that one thing be the thing that defines you.”

Jojo writes in the introduction to this one that she never really intended to write a sequel to Me Before You, but the fans demanded one so here it is. I’m not sure that Me Before You really needed a sequel, but I’m glad she provided one — even if it’s not quite as good as the first (when are they ever, really?).

“You know what makes me feel down? The way you keep promising to live some kind of a life, then sacrifice yourself to every waif and stray who comes across your path.”

So a couple of years after Will’s death, Louisa finds herself floundering, despite Will’s instructions to live her best life in his absence (and his financial contribution to doing so). She’s once again working in a bar, and although at least she has her own flat now, she basically comes home to it alone every night to drink herself into a stupor. On one such night, she’s startled on her rooftop garden and falls off the fucking roof (my first though: “Seriously? Moyes plans to put Louisa into a wheelchair now??”). So now she has to drag herself up even further to get back to living her life. While she’s back at home, she sees how her parents’ marriage is changing, in part due to her mother’s discovery of feminism. Things change even more when a teenage girl shows up at Louisa’s door a few months later — a teenage girl named Lily, who claims to be Will Traynor’s daughter. Louisa gets wrapped up in the drama of this obnoxious little child, meets a man, makes some bad choices, and emerges from the other end.

It takes a long time to get used to Lily, and to really understand why on earth Louisa puts up with her shit. The presence of Louisa’s new dreamy man helps a bit. I liked Louisa’s relationship with him, and I grew to enjoy Lily as well. I could have totally done without Louisa’s mom’s transformation into a feminist icon, however. Not that I don’t applaud her choices — I just thought Moyes played them occasionally for humor, occasionally straight — and the balance seemed a little off. I did love me some Sam, though.