Scan barcode
marialschez's review against another edition
4.0
Me ha gustado más de lo que pense aunque ha habido detalles que no me han convencido.
sienea's review against another edition
2.0
2 1/2 Stars
Louisa Clark finds herself without a job. Her family depends on her paycheck to keep them afloat and without it, there is tension within the family. She goes through a series of dead-end jobs and those that simply don't fit. Somehow, she lands a job as a care-taker for a quadriplegic man named Will Traynor. The Traynor family are well-known in town and are quite fabulous and wealthy. Will was an extremely active man who took life by the horns and lived every day to the fullest. Injured in a freak accident, he is now confined to a wheelchair and must depend on others for his basic care.
Will has decided that this life he's living is one that he'd rather not. He has made a decision to take his life and his care into his own hands. But what he didn't count on was Louisa Clark. He couldn't have imagined in his wildest dreams that this colorful and chatty woman will change his life just as she can't imagine that this abrasive and rude man will change hers in ways unimaginable.
My opinion of this book is quite different from pretty much everyone else. Since the movie was announced, everyone has been falling all over themselves with praise for this book. I can respect their opinions and can even see why many have rated it much higher. But I just couldn't get there. There were too many things that annoyed me for me to give it anything higher than my 2 1/2 stars. The plot wasn't lacking, the writing wasn't lacking. It for me, it was the characters.
One of the main characters is Louisa Clark, alternately known as Lou or Clark. She is a 26 year old woman who seems to have no ambition in life other than to dress herself in the most garish and outrageous outfits she possibly can. She is immature, selfish and resentful. Due to incidents that happened to her in the past, she refuses to even try to do anything that might better her life or the lives of those around her. She engages in fights with her sister that I outgrew when I was in my teens. She is in a relationship with a man that's going nowhere and she does nothing to help it one way or the other. I almost feel sorry for Patrick, especially when she whines about how he changed from a doughy couch potato into a hard-bodied runner. Really?!
Louisa has absolutely no marketable skills beyond being able to make a cup of tea, smile and chatter on about nothing. How she landed an interview as a care-taker in the first place is a bit of a stretch. But being hired!? She has absolutely no experience whatsoever but is hired by this wealthy family to look after their severely disabled son? Not on your life. I understand wanting someone who is not a stuffy, old Nurse Ratched, but come on. It was such a stretch of the imagination for me that it really did detract from the storyline. I just couldn't get past it.
Will and Louisa don't get off to a very good start. He's quite abrasive and rude, and I can empathize here because knowing the kind of life that he lived prior to his accident, I don't think I would exactly be a ray of sunshine either. He's battling to take control of his life against the wishes of his family and the last thing that he wants is someone new intruding into his life and trying to wrest control away from him once again. But he really is a jerk.
I know that a lot of people have a real issue with the elephant in the room. Will wants to take ultimate control of his life and be the person who decides when it ends. Everyone is going to have an argument either for or against the right to die. Everyone is entitled to their opinion. What I didn't like was how Will tries to take control of Louisa's life. Will is telling Louisa that she needs to live. She needs to not settle and live her life as fully as possible. I can empathize with how Will is feeling in his present condition, but isn't it a little more than hypocritical to tell someone how to live their life when you are begging for control of your own? And how can you be so emphatic that someone go out and LIVE when you are counting down the days until you can die? I don't know, for me it just didn't jive.
I will admit that I cried and that I did find some of the later interactions between Will and Louisa to be very touching and very tender. I think that they did bring each other happiness for a brief period of time. I was very surprised with the ending, especially given everything that led up to it. I'm not sure what the message was that the author was trying to get across because with the way that the story ended, the message really became quite muddled and far too many people came away with what I think was probably the wrong message.
I will say that each person is going to get something different from this story. This was just my opinion. I would recommend that you pick it up and read it. This was a well-written story, I just had some issues I couldn't get over. I will probably take up the sequel just to see what happens to Louisa after the epilogue.
Louisa Clark finds herself without a job. Her family depends on her paycheck to keep them afloat and without it, there is tension within the family. She goes through a series of dead-end jobs and those that simply don't fit. Somehow, she lands a job as a care-taker for a quadriplegic man named Will Traynor. The Traynor family are well-known in town and are quite fabulous and wealthy. Will was an extremely active man who took life by the horns and lived every day to the fullest. Injured in a freak accident, he is now confined to a wheelchair and must depend on others for his basic care.
Will has decided that this life he's living is one that he'd rather not. He has made a decision to take his life and his care into his own hands. But what he didn't count on was Louisa Clark. He couldn't have imagined in his wildest dreams that this colorful and chatty woman will change his life just as she can't imagine that this abrasive and rude man will change hers in ways unimaginable.
My opinion of this book is quite different from pretty much everyone else. Since the movie was announced, everyone has been falling all over themselves with praise for this book. I can respect their opinions and can even see why many have rated it much higher. But I just couldn't get there. There were too many things that annoyed me for me to give it anything higher than my 2 1/2 stars. The plot wasn't lacking, the writing wasn't lacking. It for me, it was the characters.
One of the main characters is Louisa Clark, alternately known as Lou or Clark. She is a 26 year old woman who seems to have no ambition in life other than to dress herself in the most garish and outrageous outfits she possibly can. She is immature, selfish and resentful. Due to incidents that happened to her in the past, she refuses to even try to do anything that might better her life or the lives of those around her. She engages in fights with her sister that I outgrew when I was in my teens. She is in a relationship with a man that's going nowhere and she does nothing to help it one way or the other. I almost feel sorry for Patrick, especially when she whines about how he changed from a doughy couch potato into a hard-bodied runner. Really?!
Louisa has absolutely no marketable skills beyond being able to make a cup of tea, smile and chatter on about nothing. How she landed an interview as a care-taker in the first place is a bit of a stretch. But being hired!? She has absolutely no experience whatsoever but is hired by this wealthy family to look after their severely disabled son? Not on your life. I understand wanting someone who is not a stuffy, old Nurse Ratched, but come on. It was such a stretch of the imagination for me that it really did detract from the storyline. I just couldn't get past it.
Will and Louisa don't get off to a very good start. He's quite abrasive and rude, and I can empathize here because knowing the kind of life that he lived prior to his accident, I don't think I would exactly be a ray of sunshine either. He's battling to take control of his life against the wishes of his family and the last thing that he wants is someone new intruding into his life and trying to wrest control away from him once again. But he really is a jerk.
I know that a lot of people have a real issue with the elephant in the room. Will wants to take ultimate control of his life and be the person who decides when it ends. Everyone is going to have an argument either for or against the right to die. Everyone is entitled to their opinion. What I didn't like was how Will tries to take control of Louisa's life. Will is telling Louisa that she needs to live. She needs to not settle and live her life as fully as possible. I can empathize with how Will is feeling in his present condition, but isn't it a little more than hypocritical to tell someone how to live their life when you are begging for control of your own? And how can you be so emphatic that someone go out and LIVE when you are counting down the days until you can die? I don't know, for me it just didn't jive.
I will admit that I cried and that I did find some of the later interactions between Will and Louisa to be very touching and very tender. I think that they did bring each other happiness for a brief period of time. I was very surprised with the ending, especially given everything that led up to it. I'm not sure what the message was that the author was trying to get across because with the way that the story ended, the message really became quite muddled and far too many people came away with what I think was probably the wrong message.
I will say that each person is going to get something different from this story. This was just my opinion. I would recommend that you pick it up and read it. This was a well-written story, I just had some issues I couldn't get over. I will probably take up the sequel just to see what happens to Louisa after the epilogue.
tafeeeeee's review against another edition
emotional
hopeful
inspiring
reflective
sad
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Loveable characters? Yes
5.0
As beautifully poignant as I expected. Even though I've seen the movie and knew how the book would end, there was still a part of me that hoped Will would change his mind. In the end, it was his choice and I support that wholeheartedly.
lariiii25's review against another edition
challenging
emotional
funny
reflective
sad
tense
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
4.0
heiden2020's review against another edition
challenging
emotional
hopeful
informative
inspiring
reflective
sad
medium-paced
3.5
oliviavdr's review against another edition
5.0
Don't finish this book before you have to be somewhere.
I lived this book. It was incredibly hard to put down and the story breaks your heart in the best ways. The only thing I would recommend is not being like me. Don't read the last 100 pages of this book before you go to a meeting. It's just a bad idea :)
I lived this book. It was incredibly hard to put down and the story breaks your heart in the best ways. The only thing I would recommend is not being like me. Don't read the last 100 pages of this book before you go to a meeting. It's just a bad idea :)
jessicaswan's review against another edition
3.0
Gah my heart. This book broke my heart and now I want to watch the movie. I don’t think I’ll be reading the rest of the series as this book felt solid enough for me.
taniagatz's review against another edition
5.0
I'm not okay. Never will be. Damnit.
Look, I'm not really a sucker for a love story. They tire me out. Before I started this book, I figured it was going to be kind of Nicholas Spark-ish. Predictable, gratuitous. That's why I put it off for so long (years, even!). Then my sister read the book and watched the film and became obsessed with it all, so I decided to give it a go.
Oh boy. Oh boy. Okay, I'm not going to say I was completely surprised, because I definitely saw it coming from the beginning. More specifically, from when I was about 30% in onwards. But that did not make me enjoy it any less, which I think is the magic of this book. I suddenly found myself rooting for these characters so hard that I felt as if I were part of the story myself. Louisa is a lovable dork (although a bit typical sometimes, but very likeable nevertheless) and Will. Oh Will. He is rude in a sarcastic way. And then you fall in love with him. Just like that.
[SPOILERS]
If I'm completely honest with you, even though I was desperately hoping he'd change his mind in the end, I knew he wouldn't and I understood why, which irremediably made it more frustrating altogether. I desperately wanted Lou's love to be enough for him, but I could see why it was more about the kind of life he was destined to lead than her feelings for him or even her as a person. It didn't have anything to do with Louisa. To see two people in love and who could make, and made, each other happy being torn apart in such a cruel and inevitable way... It was honestly heartbreaking. I ended up crying my eyes out on the street. I got home looking as if I'd gotten robbed or something.
Anyhow, I am so happy and grateful that Lou was able to make Will's last few months worthwhile. I will never get over that, I can tell you that now. And about the sequel, I'm not going to bother reading it. Not because I don't think it's good (I don't have a clue), but because I don't think it's necessary. I think the ending is perfect as it is. Will's letter to Louisa will haunt me for the rest of my days. This book is going to stay with me for ever.
Look, I'm not really a sucker for a love story. They tire me out. Before I started this book, I figured it was going to be kind of Nicholas Spark-ish. Predictable, gratuitous. That's why I put it off for so long (years, even!). Then my sister read the book and watched the film and became obsessed with it all, so I decided to give it a go.
Oh boy. Oh boy. Okay, I'm not going to say I was completely surprised, because I definitely saw it coming from the beginning. More specifically, from when I was about 30% in onwards. But that did not make me enjoy it any less, which I think is the magic of this book. I suddenly found myself rooting for these characters so hard that I felt as if I were part of the story myself. Louisa is a lovable dork (although a bit typical sometimes, but very likeable nevertheless) and Will. Oh Will. He is rude in a sarcastic way. And then you fall in love with him. Just like that.
[SPOILERS]
If I'm completely honest with you, even though I was desperately hoping he'd change his mind in the end, I knew he wouldn't and I understood why, which irremediably made it more frustrating altogether. I desperately wanted Lou's love to be enough for him, but I could see why it was more about the kind of life he was destined to lead than her feelings for him or even her as a person. It didn't have anything to do with Louisa. To see two people in love and who could make, and made, each other happy being torn apart in such a cruel and inevitable way... It was honestly heartbreaking. I ended up crying my eyes out on the street. I got home looking as if I'd gotten robbed or something.
Anyhow, I am so happy and grateful that Lou was able to make Will's last few months worthwhile. I will never get over that, I can tell you that now. And about the sequel, I'm not going to bother reading it. Not because I don't think it's good (I don't have a clue), but because I don't think it's necessary. I think the ending is perfect as it is. Will's letter to Louisa will haunt me for the rest of my days. This book is going to stay with me for ever.
laurenelopez's review against another edition
emotional
reflective
sad
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated
5.0