Me Before You by Jojo Moyes

I'm not exactly sure why I liked this book so much, but I did. I read it almost in one setting. You could call it predictable; The end was not a surprise by any means. And maybe you could even call it a little schmaltzy, since it's a love story that makes you cry.

Somehow, though, I did like it a lot. It's the story of a young woman in Great Britain who loses her job, then is hired as a caretaker/companion for a rich young man, Will, who is a paraplegic.

The main character is the young woman, Louisa. It is written in first person, from her point of view. But there are a few parts where the first person is one of the other characters.

One reason I liked the book is I liked Louisa. I liked listening to her narration. She has a good sense of humor and she feels like a person who I would like to know. 

A big part of the book is that Will wants to die. I hesitate to even write that because it makes the book sound maudlin. It did make me cry, but it didn't feel like a tear-jerker to me. I felt like I learned more about what it feels like to be a paraplegic like Will. Of course there's no way to really understand, but there were definitely insights I had never thought of.

I liked all the characters in the book. I see there is a sequel and others who have read it say they liked the sequel, too, some even better than the first. I plan to read it, too.

The Arsonist by Sue Miller

The Arsonist was recommended to me by "the librarian", my friend at Sinaloa Cafe where we go for Mexican dinner nearly every Friday. Way back years ago when I met her it was because she was reading a book while we were waiting for a table. I asked her what she was reading, and that started a friendship that includes exchanging book recommendations nearly every time we see each other.

Aileen was a librarian at a school when I met her. She and her husband are retired now. We don't see them every Friday, but they are regulars at Sinaloa, just as we are.

This Friday Aileen recommended The Arsonist and You Before Me. I ordered both of them and started with The Arsonist, which I finished yesterday.

When I read the summary on the back of the book, I thought it would be a mystery. That's why I chose to read it first, because I enjoy mysteries. I would not call it a mystery, though. There definitely is a mystery involved -- who is the arsonist -- but even though the fact that there are fires set by an arsonist as a central part of the book, the story is not about figuring out who is setting the fires.

The story is set in "a New Hampshire village" (says the synopsis on the back of the book), Winslow. The main character is Frankie Rowley, whose family has a summer home there, and where now her parents are living year round. Frankie is in her forties, single, and has a career as an aid worker in Africa. When she goes back to Winslow at the beginning of the book, she is not sure whether she'll go back to Africa or not, nor is she sure of what she will do at all.

I hesitated to write "the main character" because two other characters are featured prominently and the author reveals their thoughts and feelings, in the same way she does Frankie's. One of these is Frankie's mother, Sylvia, and the other is her romantic interest in the story, the town's newspaper editor, Bud. Frankie is the main character, but I feel like Bud is a close second, and Sylvia is in third place.

I like the writing, and I thought the story was compelling -- I wanted to keep turning the pages and find out what was going to happen. It's set in nearly present time, but not quite. There are no cell phones, but there are pagers. Some of the sources of uncertainty, making you want to keep reading, are the growth of Bud and Frankie's relationship, her growing awareness of her father's dwindling mental capacities, her mother's feelings toward her husband (Frankie's father), the differences of the town "year-rounders" vs. the summer people, and, of course, the mystery of the fires.

All in all, I recommend the book as a good read. I wouldn't consider it a contender to be a favorite, but I enjoyed it and I could even see myself re-reading it at some point in the future.