When I decided to buy this book I thought it’d be another
soppy romantic chick flick. I hadn’t read one of those in a while and thought
it’d be easy reading and light and something different to the book I had read
before – the casual vacancy which had
a lot of darkness and misery.
When I started reading I still thought that this book
would go down the clichéd romantic route, two people meet, hate each other
initially and then fall irrevocably in love and stay together and it’ll be a happy
ever after ending. But what lay in store for me pushed this rather clichéd genre
to its limits.
The story follows Louisa Clark who is a young woman in
her late 20s who has led a somewhat predictable life, never leaving her home
town and comforts. She lived with her parents and was made redundant after the café
where she had worked had closed down. She then went from mundane job to job with
no particular career goals or expectations and eventually took a job albeit reluctantly
as a carer for Will Traynor.
Will had a motorcycle accident and unfortunately this
resulted in quadriplegia, which meant that he has little/no function in his arms
and legs. His injury had left him paralysed and wholly dependent on care for his
day to day needs. He led a very successful life before his accident,
undertaking extreme sport, travelling, holding a well-paid job in the city and
a relationship. He was happy with his life and in an instant his former life and
adventures ended and became a distant memory as he envisaged spending the rest
of his life in a wheelchair.
The two learn from each other. Will finds a new lease of
life and Louisa learns to broaden her horizons. The story then takes a few surprising
twists and turns in a rather unpredictable fashion. This novel explores life
for a quadriplegic and helps us as the reader contemplate the difficulties that
people with cervical spine injures endure on a day to day basis when it comes
to washing, changing, toileting, even eating and drinking. We see how difficult
it is for people in a wheelchair to go to public places where often there aren’t
adequate facilities and this helps us appreciate what we take for granted such
as climbing stairs and walking in mud.
This was a delightful read, with emotional highs and
lows. There are times of laughter and times of sadness as a relationship
between two very different people, in different situations, holding life
experiences and from different social classes build a mutual relationship.
I would thoroughly recommend this read as a story which helps
us appreciate the basics of life – love, freedom, laughter, adventure and
family.
No comments:
Post a Comment