Praise for Me Before You
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1e26ddfa-8682-47f5-9fb7-43f8d306c0c8Moyes, Jojo - Me Before You
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Treena can’t relate to the way Louisa
feels about Will because she’s never really been in love before. She can only do so by imagining the way she would feel if her son, Thomas, were in Will’s situation. Maeve Binchy’s death revived the ongoing debate about whether a woman writer needs to have children in order to really understand the human condition. Where do you weigh in? Oh gosh. That’s a toughie. I have writer friends who would kill me if I dared to suggest they couldn’t imagine their way into some aspect of the human condition because they’d never given birth. But all major life experiences will change you as a writer—they have to. I acknowledge that when I had children I personally felt like I’d lost a layer of skin, and I do wonder whether that visceral level of love and fear does somehow feed its way into your writing. I know it does into other aspects of my life. You’re a two-time winner of the Romance Novelists Association Book of the Year Award. What do you think distinguishes a really great romance novel from a merely good one? For me, it’s steering away from the obvious; also, perhaps, taking the reader into settings where she might not normally go, whether that be into the past or some extreme situation. Do you like reading romances as well as writing them? Who are some of your favorite writers? I don’t tend to read romances per se, but I read across all sorts of genres and most of what I read has a love story at the heart of it (don’t most books?). Some of my favorite writers include Kate Atkinson, Nora Ephron, and Barbara Kingsolver. More recently I loved the Hunger Games trilogy and Gillian Flynn’s Gone Girl. You’ve been writing fiction for more than a decade, but your previous book, The Last Letter from Your Lover, won you the attention of a much wider audience. Has your suddenly higher profile changed the way you write? It’s made it harder! I find I’m questioning what I’m doing from a much earlier stage: Is this plotline going to tie me in knots later? Is this character relatable? Is this story too slow getting going? I feel as though, ten books in, I’m only just learning my craft. What are you working on now? My next book, The Girl You Left Behind, is set in modern-day London and in Occupied France in 1916. I’m 80,000 words into a new book, which is very different. It’s about a single mother, working as a cleaner, who makes some possibly unwise decisions while trying to help her children. It’s a road trip, and an unlikely romance, and it’s about unconventional families and love and getting by when the world seems set against you. Q UESTIONS FOR D ISCUSSION 1. If you were Louisa, would you have quit working for the Traynors? If yes, at what point? 2. Were you able to relate to the way Will felt after his accident? What about his outlook on life did you find most difficult to understand or accept? 3. Discuss the meaning of the novel’s title. To whom do the “me” and “you” refer? 4. Louisa often finds Mrs. Traynor cold and judgmental. Is there an appropriate way to behave in Mrs. Traynor’s situation? 5. What is your opinion of Mr. Traynor? Did it change after you read his side of the story? 6. Why is Louisa able to reach Will when so many others could not? 7. Were you as surprised as Lou to learn of Will’s plans? 8. Compare Louisa’s relationship with Treena to Will’s relationship with Georgina. Do siblings know one another any better simply because they are related? 9. Would Patrick have asked Louisa to move in with him if he hadn’t felt threatened by Will? If Louisa had never accepted her job with the Traynors, where would her relationship with Patrick have gone? 10. Discuss Louisa’s own secret ties to the castle. Would most girls in her situation have blamed themselves? Should Treena have behaved differently in the aftermath? 11. What did you make of the way Lou’s mother, Josie, judges Lou’s decisions regarding Will. Is Josie’s reaction fair? 12. Before his accident, Will was a philanderer and a corporate raider who would probably never have given Louisa a second look. Why is it that people are so often unable to see what’s truly important until they’ve experienced loss? To access Penguin Readers Guides online, visit the Penguin Group (USA) Web site at www.penguin.com. Document Outline
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