Book Review #82: Still Me by Jojo Moyes

 

Me Before You, the first book in this trilogy, is one of my absolute favourite books, and it was one of the first books that I ever reviewed. It took me a few years, but near the end of last year I read the second book, 'After You'. I didn't review it because I didn't have much to say about it, but I didn't feel like the first book needed a sequel. And however I feel about this third instalment, I don't think this story needed to be a trilogy.

After the events of the first two books, Lou Clark is living in New York, working for a rich family, and trying to keep in touch with her boyfriend back home. While in New York, Lou meets a man who reminds her of someone she used to love, and when New York begins to feel like home, Lou is torn. Where is she supposed to be? Who is she supposed to be? And how will she ever figure it out?

While I enjoyed this book more than the second one, I didn't love it.

For a start, this is an almost 500-page book. Now, while this is the same for the first book, Me Before You, there was so much packed into that first book that it felt absolutely necessary. For this one, I found that so much of the story was filler, and things that I wasn't really interested in, that it didn't need to be as long as it was.

And in the same vein, there were a few issues with pacing for me. The first 300 pages took such a long time to get through, because they completely dragged on, and some of what happened, and the way it was described, was unnecessary. But in the last 200 pages, not only did the book get really interesting, but it rushed towards its conclusion, and it could have done with moving a bit slower.

One of the things that made Me Before You as amazing as it was, other than how original the story was, was because of the relationship between Lou and Will. If you're going to write two sequels, and call them love stories, you need to be able to capture the relationship that the two had in another way. For me, the downfall of the book is that Lou's relationships, her friendships, and her character, are nothing like they were in the first book. 

I liked the fact that we got to see Lou out of her home environment for the first time. We got to see her stretch her muscles and spread her wings. But in doing that, we lost a lot of what made her story special. We lost her parents, her sister and nephew, the Traynors, even Lily, so it all had to mean something. For me, while I'm glad that we got a whole set of new characters, I never really felt like Lou was comfortable in New York, and because of that, I wasn't entirely comfortable either.

There were times when a love-triangle or two was forced into the plot, and they never really worked for me. One reason for this was because I didn't completely love Lou's boyfriend, but I knew that any additional love interests wouldn't be anything serious because of the way that these stories go. I didn't think this story needed forced drama to work.

I think the best thing about these books is the character that Moyes has created in Lou Clark. There were times when I was reading this, when I almost decided just to not finish. But ultimately I persevered because of Lou. I needed to know how her story would end, and I loved being inside her head (even if I didn't enjoy what was happening). She is the reason that these stories are successful, and this was a great way to close this chapter of her life. 

What was good?

Some of the new characters were really great. I enjoyed reading about them, and even the ones who ended up not being good people were still really interesting to read about.

What was bad? 

Other than what I've already mentioned, I feel like the second book did a lot of work on the character of Sam that got destroyed in this one. He became a character that I didn't like, and I was struggling to see why Lou should stay with him. It would have been great for Lou's love interest to be almost as loveable as Will was.

Overall 

It took me a really long time to read this book, and part of that was because there were so many parts of the book that just didn't feel important. But I liked looking into Lou's world for a final time, and I think that her place at the end of this book was a good way to conclude her story.

2/5