JOJO MOYES Me Before You PENGUIN BOOKS Table of Contents Chapter Chapter Chapter Chapter Chapter Chapter Chapter Chapter Chapter Chapter 10 Chapter 11 Chapter 12 Chapter 13 Chapter 14 Chapter 15 Chapter 16 Chapter 17 Chapter 18 Chapter 19 Chapter 20 Chapter 21 Chapter 22 Chapter 23 Chapter 24 Chapter 25 Chapter 26 Chapter 27 Q&A with Jojo PENGUIN BOOKS Me Before You Jojo Moyes was born in 1969 and brought up in London A journalist and writer, she worked for The Independent newspaper until 2001 She lives in East Anglia with her husband and three children She is the author of nine novels, two of which, The Last Letter From Your Lover (2010) and Foreign Fruit (2003), have won the RNA Novel of the Year award www.jojomoyes.com www.twitter.com/jojomoyes To Charles, with love PROLOGUE 2007 When he emerges from the bathroom she is awake, propped up against the pillows and flicking through the travel brochures that were beside his bed She is wearing one of his T-shirts, and her long hair is tousled in a way that prompts reflexive thoughts of the previous night He stands there, enjoying the brief flashback, rubbing the water from his hair with a towel She looks up from a brochure and pouts She is probably slightly too old to pout, but they‟ve been Antoree Singapore gửi tặng bạn với lời chúc niềm vui hạnh phúc Trải nghiệm tiếng Anh kèm với GIA SƯ BẢN NGỮ TẠI ĐÂY going out a short enough time for it still to be cute „Do we really have to something that involves trekking up mountains, or hanging over ravines? It‟s our first proper holiday together, and there is literally not one single trip in these that doesn‟t involve either throwing yourself off something or –‟ she pretends to shudder „– wearing fleece.‟ She throws them down on the bed, stretches her caramel-coloured arms above her head Her voice is husky, testament to their missed hours of sleep „How about a luxury spa in Bali? We could lie around on the sand … spend hours being pampered … long relaxing nights … ‟ „I can‟t those sorts of holidays I need to be Antoree Singapore gửi tặng bạn với lời chúc niềm vui hạnh phúc Trải nghiệm tiếng Anh kèm với GIA SƯ BẢN NGỮ TẠI ĐÂY book that is burning inside you, even if it‟s not the most obvious book for the market In fact I wrote Me Before You without a publishing contract – and I wasn‟t entirely convinced it would find a publisher, given the controversial subject matter It was just something I Antoree Singapore gửi tặng bạn với lời chúc niềm vui hạnh phúc Trải nghiệm tiếng Anh kèm với GIA SƯ BẢN NGỮ TẠI ĐÂY needed to write But doing it just for myself was strangely liberating And luckily several publishers bid for it when it was finished so I was very happy to move with it to Penguin Your books always have an incredibly moving love story at the heart of them What is it about the emotional subject of love that makes you want to write about it? I have no idea! I‟m not very romantic in real life I guess love is the thing that makes us the most extraordinary things – the emotion that can bring us highest or lowest, or be the most transformative – and extremes of emotion are always Antoree Singapore gửi tặng bạn với lời chúc niềm vui hạnh phúc Trải nghiệm tiếng Anh kèm với GIA SƯ BẢN NGỮ TẠI ĐÂY interesting to write about Plus I‟m too wimpy to write horror … Have you ever cried while writing a scene in any of your books? Antoree Singapore gửi tặng bạn với lời chúc niềm vui hạnh phúc Trải nghiệm tiếng Anh kèm với GIA SƯ BẢN NGỮ TẠI ĐÂY Always If I don‟t cry while writing a key emotional scene, my gut feeling is it‟s failed I want the reader to feel something while reading – and making myself cry has become my litmus test as to whether that‟s working It‟s an odd way to earn a living Antoree Singapore gửi tặng bạn với lời chúc niềm vui hạnh phúc Trải nghiệm tiếng Anh kèm với GIA SƯ BẢN NGỮ TẠI ĐÂY Reading Group Questions When Lou meets Will for the first time he is less than welcoming to her, even playing a mean trick on her to put her on edge What were your first impressions of both Will and Lou? Did your view of them change over the course of the book and to what extent? Will and Lou have a profound effect on each other‟s lives How their lives change after they meet compared with how they were before? In what ways they change each other? When Lou first learns of Will‟s intentions to go to Dignitas to end his life, she is shocked that his mother Camilla could be prepared to play such a role in her son‟s death and thinks of her as heartless: a view Antoree Singapore gửi tặng bạn với lời chúc niềm vui hạnh phúc Trải nghiệm tiếng Anh kèm với GIA SƯ BẢN NGỮ TẠI ĐÂY shared by other characters, such as Georgina and Lou‟s mother How you feel about Camilla as a character? Do you think this view of her is justified? Both Will and Lou have experienced a terrible life altering moment – Will‟s accident and Lou‟s assault in Antoree Singapore gửi tặng bạn với lời chúc niềm vui hạnh phúc Trải nghiệm tiếng Anh kèm với GIA SƯ BẢN NGỮ TẠI ĐÂY the castle maze How their reactions to each of their experiences compare? In what ways are their reactions similar/different? As his nurse and friend, Nathan is also a big part of Will‟s life How important is his role in the novel? How does he affect the dynamic between Will, Lou and Will‟s parents? Lou is very close to her family, despite her frequent squabbles with her sister Treena How important are they in the decisions she makes, such as her decision to take the job with the Traynors and keep it – even when she discovers why she is only contracted for six months – and her decision to go to Switzerland to be with Will at the end? Will and Lou come from very different worlds Will‟s was one of success, ambition and privilege before his accident, while Lou inhabits a modest, Antoree Singapore gửi tặng bạn với lời chúc niềm vui hạnh phúc Trải nghiệm tiếng Anh kèm với GIA SƯ BẢN NGỮ TẠI ĐÂY simple and unadventurous world, restricted to the boundaries of the small town she‟s lived in all of her life Do you think they would have fallen for each other if they had met under different circumstances? Will‟s right to die, and Lou‟s determination to change his mind about exercising that right, is a theme that runs throughout the novel How did you Antoree Singapore gửi tặng bạn với lời chúc niềm vui hạnh phúc Trải nghiệm tiếng Anh kèm với GIA SƯ BẢN NGỮ TẠI ĐÂY feel about Will‟s decision at the end? Was it what you expected? Do you think the novel should have ended differently? Antoree Singapore gửi tặng bạn với lời chúc niềm vui hạnh phúc Trải nghiệm tiếng Anh kèm với GIA SƯ BẢN NGỮ TẠI ĐÂY PENGUIN BOOKS Published by the Penguin Group Penguin Books Ltd, 80 Strand, London WC2R 0RL, England Penguin Group (USA) Inc., 375 Hudson Street, New York, New York 10014, USA Penguin Group (Canada), 90 Eglinton Avenue East, Suite 700, Toronto, Ontario, Canada M4P 2Y3 (a division of Pearson Penguin Canada Inc.) Penguin Ireland, 25 St Stephen‟s Green, Dublin 2, Ireland (a division of Penguin Books Ltd) Penguin Group (Australia), 250 Camberwell Road, Camberwell, Victoria 3124, Australia (a division of Pearson Australia Group Pty Ltd) Penguin Books India Pvt Ltd, 11 Community Centre, Panchsheel Park, New Delhi – 110 017, India Penguin Group (NZ), 67 Apollo Drive, Rosedale, Auckland 0632, New Zealand (a division of Pearson New Zealand Ltd) Penguin Books (South Africa) (Pty) Ltd, 24 Sturdee Avenue, Rosebank, Johannesburg 2196, South Africa Antoree Singapore gửi tặng bạn với lời chúc niềm vui hạnh phúc Trải nghiệm tiếng Anh kèm với GIA SƯ BẢN NGỮ TẠI ĐÂY Penguin Books Ltd, Registered Offices: 80 Strand, London WC2R 0RL, England www.penguin.com First published 2012 Copyright © Jojo Moyes, 2012 Cover illustration © Sarah Gibb Antoree Singapore gửi tặng bạn với lời chúc niềm vui hạnh phúc Trải nghiệm tiếng Anh kèm với GIA SƯ BẢN NGỮ TẠI ĐÂY All rights reserved The moral right of the author has been asserted Typeset by Palimpsest Book Production Limited, Falkirk, Stirlingshire Except in the United States of America, this book is sold subject to the condition that it shall not, by way of trade or otherwise, be lent, re-sold, hired out, or otherwise circulated without hthe publisher‟s prior consent in any form of binding or cover other than that in which it is published and without a similar condition including this condition being imposed on the subsequent purchaser ISBN: 978–0–141–96918–3 Antoree Singapore gửi tặng bạn với lời chúc niềm vui hạnh phúc Trải nghiệm tiếng Anh kèm với GIA SƯ BẢN NGỮ TẠI ĐÂY Antoree Singapore gửi tặng bạn với lời chúc niềm vui hạnh phúc Trải nghiệm tiếng Anh kèm với GIA SƯ BẢN NGỮ TẠI ĐÂY Antoree Singapore gửi tặng bạn với lời chúc niềm vui hạnh phúc Trải nghiệm tiếng Anh kèm với GIA SƯ BẢN NGỮ TẠI ĐÂY Antoree Singapore gửi tặng bạn với lời chúc niềm vui hạnh phúc Trải nghiệm tiếng Anh kèm với GIA SƯ BẢN NGỮ TẠI ĐÂY