Heather K (dentist in my spare time)'s Reviews > After You

I hate to upset fans of Me Before You (hell, I'm a huge fan of Me Before You), but this was a very underwhelming sequel. I think if you are expecting the emotional punch of the first book you are going to be sorely disappointed.

I'm not ashamed to say that Me Before You had me up reading until very late at night and then crying my eyes out until very early the next morning. It was the kind of book that sticks with you, the kind of book that is extremely hard to follow up. It ended on a very powerful note, so any book that calls itself a "sequel" has to match that kind of power. This didn't, not even close.

We follow Lou's life a year and a half after the death of Will, and we see what her life has become. Honestly, I didn't enjoy this Lou very much. Gone is any spark, any vitality, any humor, and without those aspects of her personality I had trouble staying engaged with her. I didn't like this pushover Lou, and I barely recognized her from the previous book.

Her life is wholly depressing. Lou is stuck completely in this sort of limbo, and reading about her mostly boring day to day things felt one-note and tedious. Lou's family details, like her mother's newfound feminism and her sister's meddling, seemed contrived and almost silly. I didn't get what those side plots added to the story, and I didn't find them compelling.

Lou's love interest was just... there. He was sexy in a classic romance way- the patient, motorcycle-riding savior- but I simply didn't feel the chemistry between him and Lou. It felt like a relationship without weight, certainly without the intensity of Lou's relationship with Will. If you are going to present a love interest to follow the one from Me Before You, it would have to be absolutely epic... this wasn't.

And don't get me started on Lily. No spoilers from me, but Lily just irritated me to no end. She was SO selfish, and I struggled to feel much sympathy for her rich-girl plight. I know the author tried to give us reasons to empathize with Lily, especially near the end with her convoluted backstory, but I was rooting for Lou to branch out and have more of the story-line to herself.

However, this book's greatest crime, IMO, was that it was boring. I kept putting this book down and starting other stories, only to force myself back to this one after a few hours. And though this book has brief moments of greatness, and it wasn't bad or offensive in any way, it also failed to grab me the way I was expecting it to. After the way Me Before You gripped me, I think this was the biggest let down of all.

**Copy provided by the publisher in exchange for an honest review**