After You

After You by Jojo Moyes           Audio Book:  11 hours      Paperback Book:  400 pages         

This book picks up where Jojo Moyes previous book, “Before You,” left off.    Louisa Clark has taken the trip Will Traynor provided for her.    While his intention was to broaden her experiences and improve her life it didn’t.   Louisa just feels lost, out of place and not accepted by the people she meets.   She ends up coming back home, more knowledgeable of the world than when she left geographically at least, but, saddened by the feeling that maybe there isn’t any place for her.    Much of the book is very down and the reader goes through the emotions that Louisa is experiencing and the utter depression she is going through still mourning Will Traynor (the paraplegic man she cared for on a daily basis for 6 months only to lose him to suicide which he had planned before she got there and made her an acoomplish to fulfill his wishes.   He had been her world once they got close then her world was ripped from her grasp and though she begged him to stay with her, it was a forgone conclusion in his mind that he would leave his life on his terms and in his timing.    Louisa was left in a limbo like void – going through the motions of trying to survive each day without the man she loved above all else.   Her family didn’t get her and couldn’t understand why she didn’t just slog it off and get on with her life.    She was too emotionally attached for that and everything brought back a memory it seemed to the point where she goes out onto a roof  to sort her thoughts and try to recover her former positivity.   While standing at the edge of the roof she turns when she hears a woman behind her scream (the woman thought she was planning to jump).   The scream startled her so that she loses her footing and falls off the roof.   Fortunately her fall is broken half-way down and she doesn’t die though she never gets past the stigmata of being a jumper in both her family and acquaintances minds.   A lot happens and the paramedic that works on her ends up becoming a friend.    Lots happes I don’t want to spoil all of it but she gets another shock when she comes in contact with the alleged daughter of Will Traynor which no one including Will’s parents knew about.    Lots of adventures ensue and while the author’s writing is always good, this is probably my least favorite of her books.    The storyline necessarily has to be down in tone dealing with depression and grief but this one was just way too down throughout over one thing and another so the tone was off-putting to me.    Kind of like the difference between eating a sweet and a sugar free sweet.    Good, just not as good without the sweetness you are accustomed to which you can’t stop mentally comparing it to.    3 stars for this one.    I would have liked to see the main character have fun and retain her eccentricities like she was in the first book in this storyline.    She was such a fun character when first introduced that it was impossible not to like her.    Now, she just feels damaged and no longer has that perky be my own kind of gal vibe.   In this one she is more the victim than the victor.    A valiant effort, just so low-key and down throughout.