Interpretation
Pauline Sara-Jo Moyes was born on 4 August 1969 in Maidstone, England. Before
attending university, Moyes held several jobs: she was a typist at NatWest typing statements in
braille for blind people, a brochure writer, minicab controller for a brief time. Early in her
writing career, Moyes wrote three manuscripts that were all initially rejected. With one child,
another baby on the way, and a career as a journalist, Moyes committed to herself that if her
fourth book was rejected, she would stop her efforts. After submitting the first three chapters of
her fourth book to various publishers, six of them began a bidding war for the rights.
Moyes became a full-time novelist in 2002, when her first book Sheltering Rain was
published. She continues to write articles for The Daily Telegraph.
Moyes' publisher, Hodder & Stoughton, did not take up the novel Me Before You and Moyes
sold it to Penguin. It sold six million copies, went to number one in nine countries, and
reinvigorated her back catalogue resulting in three of her novels being on the New York
Times bestseller list at the same time. Moyes would later write two sequels starring Louisa Clark,
the protagonist of Me Before You: After You in 2015 and Still Me in 2018. In 2016 the film
adaptation Me Before You was released and the screenplay was written by Moyes. Me Before
You hit the New York Times bestseller Top Ten chart in 2016 and spent 19 weeks on the chart.
This book was also nominated for Book of the Year at the UK Galaxy Book Awards.
As a child, Moyes remembers reading National Velvet by Enid Bagnold and how that book
made her feel that, as a child, she could achieve things greater than she thought possible at the
time.
Jane Austen is an author whom Moyes admires for her ability to write about what truly
influences love and what makes a love story realistic (i.e. what pushes them apart, not what
brings them together).
Moyes lives on a farm in Great Sampford, Essex, with her husband, journalist Charles
Arthur, and their three children.
She wanted to convey social messages as the widening gap between the rich and poor and
people’s attitude towards each other.
All Moye’s novels are true to life, many of them are based on articles or news.
Jojo describes her writing style as, ‘emotional, heartfelt, and I’d really hope for
intelligent. I try to write characters who are properly complex and I trust the readers to work out
some things for themselves.’
Jojo Moyes’ style of writing. It was witty, honest, and perfectly designed so that you will
come back, wanting more. Moyes allows you to really think about what it’s like to live as a
quadriplegic and connect to the person behind the disability. I felt there were several important
messages to take away from the story and I found that they really touched me as a reader. I
thought it was a heartfelt and entertaining read and would highly recommend it.
 Title
From the 1st point of view, the meaning of the title is obvious: both Lou and Will changes
after meeting each other and turns into a good person.
Also it can mean “putting myself before you”. Will certainly does this, choosing to go
through with assisted suicide despite his growing relationship with Lou. Also Louisa slowly
comes to put her own needs and desires of other people, at least when it is right to do so.
 Conflict
There are 2 main conflicts: internal, cause both Lou and Will fight with their fears,
emotions, try to make themselves better; external – at the beginning of the novel we have an
obvious conflict between Louisa and Will, but it was solved, ‘cause they fell in love.
 Narrative method
In general, the narration is quite chronological, but we very often see flashbacks. The story
is told from 1st person, like it is Lou’s diary of she tells about her future.
 Usage of language
Jojo Moyes uses colloquial style of writing, it’s simple, easily understood by even
teenagers. So, it’s a book for everybody.