3.5 stars. 
 Warning : There is an extremely misleading cover blurb on this book. 
 'Gorgeously romantic and partner-ignoringly compulsive.' 
 Is the story gorgeously romantic? Yes, it was in parts. Make no mistake though. This is not a "romance" book in the traditional sense. 
 Me Before You is the story of a quadriplegic man who had everything and lost it all in the blink of an eye after an accident left him helpless. Before the injury, Will lived on the edge and took risks. He had money, love, adventure, and anything else a young and attractive man could ever want. 
 Me Before You is also the story of a woman who comes from nothing, lives in fear, and plays it safe. Louisa's past keeps her from moving forward. 
 As luck would have it, fate brings these two together when Louisa is hired to help care for and be a companion to the wheelchair-bound Will. But will hard decisions rip them both apart? 
 This book made me cry. I probably could have been sad or angry or frustrated but I wasn't. I was just moved. Much like how I felt while reading the book Forbidden, I found myself questioning previous views on a controversial subject. Generally, when I read a book like this, I have a set path for the story that I hope the book will follow. When the path veered off onto a different direction, it should have made me angry. But I couldn't get angry. I understood why things had to happen the way they did. If my original path had stayed on course, the book would have ended, I would have written it off as average, and I would have moved on. Because things were shaken up, I found myself crying and contemplating and waiting to talk to others about the book. 
 The journey itself had me feeling constant emotion : 
 I would not have believed so many people could turn down a cry for help when it involved a wheelchair stuck in mud, especially as the cry came from a girl in a miniskirt and flashing her most endearing smile. 
 "Not 'perhaps.' Promise me you won't spend the rest of your life stuck around this bloody parody of a place mat. 
 "Promise me? Why? Where are you going?" 
 "I just can't bear the thought of you staying around here forever." He swallowed. "You're too bright." He looked away from me. 
 "You don't get it. I don't want to go there in this thing." He gestured at the chair, his voice dropping. "I want to be in Paris as me, the old me. I want to sit in a chair, leaning back, my favorite clothes on, with pretty French girls who pass by giving me the eye just as they would any other man sitting there. Not looking away when they realize I'm a man in an overgrown bloody pram." 
 Every two days I lathered up his jaw and made him presentable. If he wasn't having a bad day, he'd lean back in his chair, close his eyes, and the closest thing I saw to physical pleasure would spread across his face. Perhaps I've invented that. Perhaps I saw what I wanted to see. 
 "You know what? Nobody wants to hear that stuff. Nobody wants to know how it feels to know you will never have sex again, never eat food you've made with your hands again, never hold your own child. Nobody wants to know that sometimes I feel so claustrophobic, being in this chair, I just want to scream like a madman at the thought of spending another day in it." 
 I told myself that, somewhere, tiny particles of him would become tiny particles of me, ingested, swallowed, alive, perpetual. I wanted to press every bit of me against him. I wanted to will something into him. I wanted to give him every bit of life I felt and force him to live. 
 Just by typing all of that out, I started to get choked up again. I wish I could spoiler what happens next (good or bad) but there's no way I can. Reading this book, experiencing what happens with Louisa and Will, I wouldn't rob anyone of that. Have some tissues handy if you cry easily. 
 The reason for the 3.5 instead of the hard 4 star rating is because I felt like there was enough of a story without having every aspect drawn out. I was not a fan of the "alternate viewpoint" chapters that were randomly placed throughout the book. I don't feel like I gained anything from hearing a couple of extra characters share their feelings. Lou and Will were the stars of the book and I would have preferred to keep the focus on them alone.