“Still Me” by Jojo Moyes

Sometimes when my daughter is using the restroom, I hop into her power wheelchair and take a spin around my apartment. Of course she does not like this because it is like a girlfriend borrowing your best dress and parading around town in it. But I like to do it because I think it is important to see what it is like be her. To get a glimpse into the life of someone else is to give yourself some perspective on your own life. This is the theme of Jojo Moyes new book “Still Me,” the third in the series of books featuring the ever-charming Louisa Clark. In the first book “Me Before You,” (LLP Week #20) Louisa is hired as the caregiver for an affluent handicapped man named Will Traynor and the experience changes her life forever. In this new book we follow Louisa to New York City where she gets a job working for Leonard Gopnik and his much younger wife, Agnes. Basically, Louisa steps into the glamorous life of a super rich Manhattan couple and discovers that despite their wealth, they have secretes just like everyone else. This, of course, is the same world Will once lived in before his accident, and it brings her great comfort to see it up close, on the heels of her grief. I have read the two books before this on in the series, and it is essential to read them in order because they do build upon each other. We get to see Louisa grow, mature, make mistakes and learn from her experiences. I know some people might think Moyes is a “chick lit” novelist (a term I don’t love but I see it used so often I thought it would hold meaning here) but there is something so much more significant to her books. They personify the real heart and soul that we are all craving in our own lives. The fact that she wraps them all up into this lovely heroine named Louisa Clark is just about perfect. To purchase this book on Amazon click here.