Books like Me Before You, love stories with time running out
Me Before You opens on the morning Will Traynor’s life changes. These five pair romance with loss in the same way: a marriage cut short after nine days, a snow day in Oregon, letters to a soldier overseas, a dream of life five years on and a birthday that keeps coming back.
The first page of Me Before You
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 going out a short enough time for it still to be cute. “Do we really have to do 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 the brochures down on the bed, stretches her caramel-colored 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 . . .”
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“I can’t do those sorts of holidays. I need to be doing something.”
“Like throwing yourself out of airplanes.”
“Don’t knock it till you’ve tried it.”
She pulls a face. “If it’s all the same to you, I think I’ll stick with knocking it.”
His shirt is faintly damp against his skin. He runs a comb through his hair and switches on his mobile phone, wincing at the list of messages that immediately pushes its way through onto the little screen.
“Right,” he says. “Got to go. Help yourself to breakfast.” He leans over the bed to kiss her. She smells warm and perfumed and deeply sexy. He inhales the scent from the back of her hair, and briefly loses his train of thought as she wraps her arms around his neck, pulling him down toward the bed.
“Are we still going away this weekend?”
He extricates himself reluctantly. “Depends what happens on this deal. It’s all a bit up in the air at the moment. There’s still a possibility I might have to be in New York. Nice dinner somewhere Thursday, either way? Your choice of restaurant.” His motorbike leathers are on the back of the door, and he reaches for them.
She narrows her eyes. “Dinner. With or without Mr. BlackBerry?”
“What?”
“Mr. BlackBerry makes me feel like Miss Gooseberry.” The pout again. “I feel like there’s always a third person vying for your attention.”
“I’ll turn it on to silent.”
“Will Traynor!” she scolds. “You must have some time when you can switch it off.”
“I turned it off last night, didn’t I?”
“Only under extreme duress.”
He grins. “Is that what we’re calling it now?” He pulls on his leathers. And Lissa’s hold on his imagination is finally broken. He throws his motorbike jacket over his arm, and blows her a kiss as he leaves.
There are twenty-two messages on his BlackBerry, the first of which came in from New York at 3:42 A.M. Some legal problem. He takes the lift down to the underground car park, trying to update himself with the night’s events.
“Morning, Mr. Traynor.”
The security guard steps out of his cubicle. It’s weatherproof, even though down here there is no weather to be protected from. Will sometimes wonders what he does down here in the small hours, staring at the closed-circuit television and the glossy bumpers of £60,000 cars that never get dirty.
“The end result is a lovely novel, both nontraditional and enthralling.”
Publishers Weekly
Content note: assisted suicide
The first page of In Five Years
Twenty-five. That's the number I count to every morning before I even open my eyes. It's a meditative calming technique that helps your brain with memory, focus, and attention, but the real reason I do it is because that's how long it takes my boyfriend, David, to get out of bed next to me and flip the coffee maker on, and for me to smell the beans. Thirty-six. That's how many minutes it takes me to brush my teeth, shower, and put on face toner, serum, cream, makeup, and a suit for work. If I wash my hair, it's forty-three. Eighteen. That's the walk to work in minutes from our Murray Hill apartment to East Forty-Seventh Street, where the law offices of Sutter, Boyt and Barn are located.
Twenty-four. That's how many months I believe you should be dating someone before you move in with them.
Twenty-eight. The right age to get engaged.
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Thirty. The right age to get married.
My name is Dannie Kohan. And I believe in living by numbers.
“Happy Interview Day,” David says when I walk into the kitchen. Today. December 15.
I'm wearing a bathrobe, hair spun up into a towel. He's still in his pajamas, and his brown hair has a significant amount of salt and pepper for someone who has not yet crossed thirty, but I like it. It makes him look dignified, particularly when he wears glasses, which he often does. “Thank you,” I say. I wrap my arms around him, kiss his neck and then his lips. I've already brushed my teeth, but David never has morning breath. Ever. When we first started dating, I thought he was getting up out of bed before me to swoosh some toothpaste in there, but when we moved in together, I realized it's just his natural state. He wakes up that way. The same cannot be said of me.
“Coffee is ready.”
He squints at me, and my heart tugs at the look on his face, the way it scrunches all up when he's trying to pay attention but doesn't have his contacts in yet. He takes a mug down and then pours. I go to the refrigerator, and when he hands me the cup, I add a dollop of creamer. Coffee mate, hazelnut. David thinks it's sacrilegious but he buys it, to indulge me. This is the kind of man he is. Judgmental, and generous.
I take the coffee cup and go sit in our kitchen nook that overlooks Third Avenue. Murray Hill isn't the most glamorous neighborhood in New York, and it gets a bad rap (every Jewish fraternity and sorority kid in the tristate area moves here after graduation. The average street style is a Penn sweatshirt), but there's nowhere else in the city where we'd be able to afford a two-bedroom with a full kitchen in a doorman building, and between the two of us, we make more money than a pair of twenty-eight-year-olds has any right to.
David works in finance as an investment banker at Tishman Speyer, a real estate conglomerate. I'm a corporate lawyer.
“A heartwarming portrait of a broken heart finding a little healing magic.”
Kirkus Reviews
The first page of Forever, Interrupted
“Have you decided if you’re going to change your name?” Ben asks me. He is sitting on the opposite end of the couch, rubbing my feet. He looks so cute. How did I end up with someone so goddamn cute?
“I have an idea,” I tease. But I have more than an idea. My face breaks into a smile.
“Really?” he asks.
He seems too sexy to be a husband. He’s young and he’s tall and he’s strong. He’s so perfect. I sound like an idiot. But this is how it’s supposed to be, right? As a newlywed, I’m supposed to see him through these rose-colored glasses. “I was thinking of going by Elsie Porter Ross,” I say to him.
He stops rubbing my feet for a minute. “That’s really hot,” he says.
I laugh at him. “Why?”
“I don’t know,” he says, starting to rub my feet again. “I just like the idea of both our names together.”
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“I like it, too!” I say. “It’s kinda hot.”
“I told you!”
“That settles it. As soon as the marriage certificate gets here, I’m sending it to the DMV or wherever you have to send it.”
“Awesome,” he says, taking his hands off of me. “Okay, Elsie Porter Ross. My turn.”
I grab his feet. It’s quiet for a while as I absentmindedly rub his toes through his socks. My mind wanders, and after some time, it lands on a startling realization: I am hungry.
“Are you hungry?” I ask.
“Now?”
“I really want to get Fruity Pebbles for some reason.”
“We don’t have cereal here?” Ben asks.
“No, we do. I just . . . I want Fruity Pebbles.” We have adult cereals, boxes of brown shapes fortified with fiber.
“Well, should we go get some? I’m sure CVS is still open and I’m sure they sell Fruity Pebbles. Or, I could go get them for you.”
“No! I can’t let you do that. That would be so lazy of me.”
“That is lazy of you, but you’re my wife and I love you and I want you to have what you want.” He starts to get up.
“No, really, you don’t have to.”
“I’m going.” Ben leaves the room briefly and returns with his bike and shoes.
“Thank you!” I say, now lying across the sofa, taking up the space he just abandoned. Ben smiles at me as he opens the front door and walks his bike through it. I can hear him put the kickstand down and I know he will come back in to say good-bye.
“I love you, Elsie Porter Ross,” he says, and he bends down to the couch to kiss me. He is wearing a bike helmet and bike gloves. He grins at me. “I really love the sound of that.” I smile wide. “I love you!” I say to him. “Thank you.”
“You’re welcome. I love you! I’ll be right back.” He shuts the door behind him.
I lay my head back down and pick up a book, but I can’t concentrate. I miss him. Twenty minutes pass and I start to expect him home, but the door doesn’t open. I don’t hear anyone on the steps.
“A moving novel about life and death.”
Kirkus Reviews
The first page of If I Stay
Everyone thinks it was because of the snow. And in a way, I suppose that's true. I wake up this morning to a thin blanket of white covering our front lawn. It isn't even an inch, but in this part of Oregon a slight dusting brings everything to a standstill as the one snowplow in the county gets busy clearing the roads. It is wet water that drops from the sky—and drops and drops and drops—not the frozen kind. It is enough snow to cancel school. My little brother, Teddy, lets out a war whoop when Mom's AM radio announces the closures. “Snow day!” he bellows. “Dad, let's go make a snowman.” My dad smiles and taps on his pipe. He started smoking one recently as part of this whole 1950s, Father Knows Best retro kick he is on. He also wears bow ties. I am never quite clear on whether all this is sartorial or sardonic—Dad’s way of announcing that he used to be a punker but is now a middle-school English teacher, or if becoming a teacher has actually turned my dad into this genuine throwback. But I like the smell of the pipe tobacco. It is sweet and smoky, and reminds me of winters and woodstoves.
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“You can make a valiant try,” Dad tells Teddy. “But it’s hardly sticking to the roads. Maybe you should consider a snow amoeba.”
I can tell Dad is happy. Barely an inch of snow means that all the schools in the county are closed, including my high school and the middle school where Dad works, so it’s an unexpected day off for him, too. My mother, who works for a travel agent in town, clicks off the radio and pours herself a second cup of coffee. “Well, if you lot are playing hooky today, no way I’m going to work. It’s simply not right.” She picks up the telephone to call in. When she’s done, she looks at us. “Should I make breakfast?”
Dad and I guffaw at the same time. Mom makes cereal and toast. Dad’s the cook in the family.
Pretending not to hear us, she reaches into the cabinet for a box of Bisquick. “Please. How hard can it be? Who wants pancakes?”
“I do! I do!” Teddy yells. “Can we have chocolate chips in them?”
“I don’t see why not,” Mom replies.
“Woo hoo!” Teddy yelps, waving his arms in the air.
“You have far too much energy for this early in the morning,” I tease. I turn to Mom. “Maybe you shouldn’t let Teddy drink so much coffee.”
“I’ve switched him to decaf,” Mom volleys back. “He’s just naturally exuberant.”
“As long as you’re not switching me to decaf,” I say.
“That would be child abuse,” Dad says.
Mom hands me a steaming mug and the newspaper. “There’s a nice picture of your young man in there,” she says.
“Really? A picture?”
“Yep. It’s about the most we’ve seen of him since summer,” Mom says, giving me a sidelong glance with her eyebrow arched, her version of a soul-searching stare.
“I know,” I say, and then without meaning to, I sigh. Adam’s band, Shooting Star, is on an upward spiral, which, is a great thing—mostly.
“Ah, fame, wasted on the youth,” Dad says, but he’s smiling. I know he’s excited for Adam. Proud even.
I leaf through the newspaper to the calendar section.
There’s a small blurb about Shooting Star, with an even smaller picture of the four of them, next to a big article about Bikini and a huge picture of the band’s lead singer: punk-rock diva Brooke Vega. The bit about them basically says that local band Shooting Star is opening for Bikini on the Portland leg of Bikini’s national tour.
“Intensely moving, the novel will force readers to take stock of their lives and the people and things that make them worth living.”
Publishers Weekly
The first page of The Last Letter
Profound regret for writing this letter in pen.
I’m the little sister, but I’m sure my brother already told you that. He’s got a pretty big mouth, which means you probably know that I have two kids, too. Yes, I’m a single mom, and no, I don’t regret my choices. Man, I get sick of everyone asking me that, or simply giving me the look that implies the question.
I almost erased that last line, but it’s true. Also, I’m just too lazy to rewrite the whole thing.
I’m twenty-four and was married to the twins’ sperm donor all of about three seconds. Just long enough for the lines to turn pink, the doctor to say there were two heartbeats, and him to pack in the quiet of the night. Kids were never his thing, and honestly, we’re probably better for it.
If pen pal kids aren’t your thing, I won’t take offense. But no cookies. Cookies are for pen pals only.
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If you’re good with single parenthood in a pen pal, read on.
My twins are five, which, if you did the math correctly, means they were born when I was nineteen. After shocking our little town by deciding to raise them on my own, I just about gave it a coronary when I took over Solitude when my grandmother died. I was only twenty, the twins were still babies, and that B&B was where she’d raised us, so it seemed like a good place to raise my kids. It still is.
Let’s see...Maisie and Colt are pretty much my life. In a good way, of course. I’m ridiculously overprotective of them, but I recognize it. I tend to overreact, to build a fortress around them, which keeps me kind of isolated, but hey, there are worse flaws to have, right? Maisie’s the quiet one, and I can usually find her hiding with a book. Colt... well, he’s usually somewhere he isn’t supposed to be, doing something he isn’t supposed to be doing. Twins can be crazy, but they’ll tell you that they’re twice the awesome.
Me? I’m always doing what I have to, and never what I really should be, or what I want to. But I think that’s the nature of being a mom and running a business. Speaking of which, the place is waking up, so I’d better get this box sealed up and shipped.
Write back if you want. If you don’t, I understand. Just know that there’s someone in Colorado sending warm thoughts your way.
~ Ella
...
Today would have been a perfect time for my second curse word.
Usually, when we were on full-blown deployments, it got really Groundhog Day. Same crap, different day. There was almost a predictable, welcoming pattern to the monotony.
Not going to lie, I was a big fan of monotony.
Routine was predictable. Safe, or as safe as it was going to get out here. We were a month into another undisclosed location in another country we were never in, and routine was about the only thing comfortable about the place.
Today had been anything but routine.
Mission accomplished, as usual, but at a price. There was always a price, and lately, it was getting steep.
I glanced down at my hand, flexing my fingers because I could. Ramirez? He’d lost that ability today. Guy was going to be holding that new baby of his with a prosthetic.
My arm flew, releasing the Kong, and the dog toy streaked across the sky, a flash of red against pristine blue. The sky was the only clean thing about this place. Or maybe today just felt dirty.
Havoc raced across the ground, her strides sure, her focus narrowed to her target until—
“Damn, she’s good,” Mac said, coming up behind me.
“She’s the best.” I glanced over my shoulder at him before training my eyes on Havoc as she ran back to me. She had to be the best to get to where we were, on a tier-one team that operated without technically existing. She was a spec op dog, which was about a million miles above any other military working dog.
“…readers will feel every deep heartbreak and each moment of uplifting love in this tearjerker romance…”
Publishers Weekly
The first page of November 9
Fallon
I wonder what kind of sound it would make if I were to smash this glass against the side of his head.
It’s a thick glass. His head is hard. The potential for a nice big THUD is there.
I wonder if he would bleed. There are napkins on the table, but not the good kind that could soak up a lot of blood.
“So, yeah. I’m a little shocked, but it’s happening,” he says.
His voice causes my grip to tighten around the glass in hopes that it stays in my hand and doesn’t actually end up against the side of his skull.
“Fallon?” He clears his throat and tries to soften his words, but they still come at me like knives. “Are you going to say anything?”
I stab the hollow part of an ice cube with my straw, imagining that it’s his head.
“What am I supposed to say?” I mumble, resembling a bratty child, rather than the eighteen-year-old adult that I am. “Do you want me to congratulate you?”
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My back meets the booth behind me and I fold my arms across my chest. I look at him and wonder if the regret I see in his eyes is a result of disappointing me or if he’s simply acting again. It’s only been five minutes since he sat down, and he’s already turned his side of the booth into his stage. And once again, I’m forced to be his audience.
His fingers drum the sides of his coffee cup as he watches me silently for several beats.
Taptaptap.
Taptaptap.
Taptaptap.
He thinks I’ll eventually give in and tell him what he wants to hear, but he hasn’t been around me enough in the last two years to know that I’m not that girl anymore.
When I refuse to acknowledge his performance, he eventually sighs and drops his elbows to the table. “Well, I thought you’d be happy for me.”
I force a quick shake of my head. “Happy for you?”
He can’t be serious.
He shrugs, and a smug smile takes over his already irritating expression. “I didn’t know I had it in me to become a father again.”
A loud burst of disbelieving laughter escapes my mouth. “Releasing sperm into the vagina of a twenty-four-year-old does not a father make,” I say, somewhat bitterly.
His smug smile disappears, and he leans back and cocks his head to the side. The head-cock was always his go-to move when he wasn’t sure how to react onscreen. “Just look like you’re contemplating something deep and it’ll pass for almost any emotion. Sad, introspective, apologetic, sympathetic.” He must not recall that he was my acting coach for most of my life, and this look was one of the first he taught me.
“You don’t think I have the right to call myself a father?” He sounds offended by my response. “What does that make me to you, then?”
I treat his question as rhetorical and stab at another piece of ice. I skillfully slip it up my straw and then slide the piece of ice into my mouth. I bite into it with a loud, uncaring crunch. Surely he doesn’t expect me to answer that question. He hasn’t been a “father” since the night my acting career came to a standstill when I was just sixteen. And if I’m being honest with myself, I’m not even sure he was much of a father before that night, either. We were more like acting coach and student.
One of his hands finds its way through the expensive implanted follicles of hair that line his forehead. “Why are you doing this?” He’s becoming increasingly annoyed with my attitude by the second. “Are you still pissed that I didn’t show up for your graduation? I already told you, I had a scheduling conflict.”
“No,” I reply evenly. “I didn’t invite you to my graduation.”
He pulls back, looking at me incredulously. “Why not?”
“I only had four tickets.”
“And?” he says. “I’m your father. Why the hell wouldn’t you invite me to your high school graduation?”
“You wouldn’t have come.”
“You don’t know that,” he fires back.
“You didn’t come.”
He rolls his eyes. “Well of course I didn’t, Fallon. I wasn’t invited.”
I sigh heavily. “You’re impossible. Now I understand why Mom left you.”
He gives his head a slight shake. “Your mother left me because I slept with her best friend. My personality had nothing to do with it.”
I don’t even know what to say to that. The man has absolutely zero remorse. I both hate and envy it. In a way, I wish I were more like him and less like my mother. He’s oblivious to his many flaws, whereas mine are the focal point of my life. My flaws are what wake me up in the morning and what keep me awake every night.
Questions
Quick answers
Is Me Before You part of a series?
Yes. Louisa Clark’s story continues in After You and Still Me.