Spotlight Magazines Spotlight Magazine Mansfield North November 2015 | Page 10

Spotlight Magazine

A Good Read

Me Before You by Jojo Moyes

The Fault in Our Stars by John Green

If you prefer to read a
book before seeing the
film adaptation then
this is your chance
to discover one of
next summer’s highly
anticipated films.

Continuing with the theme of personal
relationships in the face of illness comes The
Fault in Our Stars the hugely successful teen
novel exploring the impact of teenage cancer
on the lives of two individuals. 16 year old Hazel
has cancer and is, reluctantly, convinced by her
parents to attend a support group for others in
her situation.

26 year old Lou Clark still
lives with her parents in
the quiet market town
she grew up in. Almost
deserted in the winter
the town’s one draw is
an old castle and when
we meet Lou she works in the local tea shop
serving the coach loads of tourists who come
to visit.
With a quirky dress sense Lou never really feels
as if she fits in and as a teenager longed to travel
the world. However circumstances meant that
she could never bring herself to leave. After
losing her job she reluctantly takes a job caring
for Will, a young quadriplegic man injured in a
motorcycle accident several years earlier. She
is told the job is just for 6 months and despite a
rough start she decides to stick it out and soon
an unlikely bond develops between Lou and
Will.
A romantic novel this also deals with the
sensitive issue of disability and the descriptions
of Will’s day to day life are well written with
brutal honesty and little sensationalism. Things
take a darker turn when Lou learns the reason
why her contract is only to be for 6 months and
she sets out to bring Will new experiences and
remind him of the simple joys of life: not easy
for a wheelchair bound man whose ideal way to
pass the time before his accident was skydiving
or climbing Mount Kilimanjaro.
As a reader you are drawn into the lives of
these characters and the development of their
relationship is believable. In the hands of the
wrong writer this plot line could turn out to be
very twee and cliché but Moyes does not fall
into this trap. The resulting novel is engaging,
difficult to put down and will lead you to
appreciate the small wonders of life.

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Amongst the other patients there is Augustus,
a 17 year old boy who lost a leg to cancer. The
two begin talking and agree to read each other’s
favourite books.
Hazel’s book is a novel by a Dutch writer about a
young girl with cancer: Hazel sees many parallels
to her own life here. Augustus is angry after
reading the book and discovering that it