Independent Reading Project: Me Before You By Jojo Moyes

Louisa Clark has never really lived; She is just an ordinary girl living in her ordinary life. She is scared to leave her tiny town and has never even thought about leaving. Her life changes when she takes a six-month job as a caregiver. Her patient is Will Traynor, a quadriplegic. He has lived a very experienced and thrilling life before his accident. Me Before You by Jojo Moyes, brings together two people that are completely different. Jojo Moyes portrays one of the main characters, Louisa Clark, as a very ordinary individual but with Will’s help she discovers her true self.

In The Call to Personhood, Alistair McFadyen attempts to construct an image of the person as an individual but in social terms, as it were cutting a path between individualist and collectivist anthropologies to from a new framework. In the first two chapters, McFadyen sets a theological framework for understanding that the creation and redemption of man requires a relational understanding of man. In the first chapter, McFadyen does this by grounding the 'personhood ' of man in the Christian doctrine of Imago Dei and the trinity. While his framework for the trinity is the Latin Trinity he argues that each person of the trinity is only a Person through relation. The relationship is dialogical and each ‘person’ is a subject of communication. Created in the image of the Trinitarian God humans are thus in dialogue with God and in dialogue with each other, specifically as male and female. The fallen state of humanity marks the rejection of the offer of dialogue partnership with God and thus with each other. The second chapter builds on this by focusing on the recreation of the individual into the image and likeness of Christ through the call of discipleship. The individual is called out of their context and their repentance represents their re-orientation towards Jesus. Yet, the decision of the individual to forsake their present relatedness is not a self-centring as it is a response and an "incorporation into a different relation and relational context" (49).

The Protagonist of this book is Steffi Perry and her and her family have to go through lots of struggles to be happy. This book at first takes place in New York where Steffi works at a restaurant and does really good but at the end of the book it takes place in Sleepy Hollow because that is where she moved and it is somewhere in the country. In the book there are many conflicts and the book is self vs. outside world. Steffi moves to Sleepy Hollow and has to watch a dog which is the only reason she went there and now she also lives close to her family. She has a sister named Callie and she fought cancer a few years before the book was made, Callie has a tumor in her brain and is only given a certain amount of time to live and she wants to

The supplementary text that I chose from the summer reading list is “If I Stay” by Gayle Forman. This novel is about a girl whose name is Mia, that gets into a car accident. This car accident is so severe that Mia’s parents and brother died and left Mia in a coma. While Mia is in a coma, she has to decide whether or not to live. It is a choice that can change Mia’s life. She can either finish everything there or continue to live on.

The book After, written by Amy Efaw, is an addictive, action-packed book. The fiction story is about a girl named Devon Sky Davenport who was pregnant, but in denial. She wakes up one morning, sick, and stays home from school that day. That night, she gives birth at home by herself, and throws the baby in the trash after putting it in a garbage bag. Devon goes to jail where she makes friends and has to cooperate with her lawyer. Devon can’t remember anything from the night when she gave birth but as things start clicking into place, Devon realizes what she has done, and starts having suicidal thoughts. Devon must tell her lawyer the details, although it is hard, so she can be tried in a juvenile court and only get 5 years, but if she doesn’t

The novel ‘The Bell Jar’ written by Sylvia Plath and the film “Me Before You” directed by Thea Sharrock both explore the idea of isolation. Both the author and director use various techniques in their texts to position the audience to understand that isolation makes a person withdraw from life and therefore leads to their downfall. Techniques such as symbolism, motif, imagery, simile and visual and literary techniques allow the author and director to deliver the message.

The book I chose to read over the summer was “Legend” by Marie Lu. The two main characters are Day and June. “Day” Alton Wing is 15 year old criminal teen from the slums of the republic, he is a boy bent on protecting his family and the people of the republic. Day has a stubborn personality and will do anything to bring down the government. June Iparis is a teen military prodigy. She is a smart and also stubborn, she is in love with Day. June has an extreme hatred for her long time old family friend Thomas who murdered her brother. The minor characters are Eden,Tess,Baxter,Anden,Razor and Thomas. The setting of the story takes pace in a dystopian North America where most

On April 22nd of 2009, my wife, my best friend, my soulmate, the love of my life, Elizabeth Umber, was pronounced deceased. It was an extremely shocking death. I was at my job, working through the motions of any other day when I received the phone call that would change my life forever. Elizabeth had been in a car accident and was in the hospital in critical condition. Immediately, I went to pick up my two daughters, Ellie and Sage, from their elementary school and then rushed to the hospital. Four hours later, at 6:42 p.m., Elizabeth was gone. Since that tragic day, I have been living my life as a widower. People tend to conclude that because I am a man and not a woman, living the widower lifestyle would be easier for me.

This was a very interesting and motivating book. Mary Jane lost her husband because he has an aneurysm that burst and he died shortly after it happened. She lost her sense of confidence after that event occurred. She got a new manager position on the third floor of her work place. The third floor is known as “The toxic dump”. The whole staff is always down and not paying attention. One day Mary Jane was walking down the street and saw a famous fish place called Pike’s Place Fish Market. One of the workers saw her and she stood out over the crowd to him. He was talking to her and she was explaining how bad the work place was because everyone was down and not happy like at her last manager position. He was her four points that helped bring up

The connections I have between the book and my life is I really connect to all the daughters in different ways. Especially when they are saying how their mothers are putting pressure on them. I definitely understand what the daughters are saying when they talk about pressure from their mothers, because me being younger in the family and the next one to graduate I have pressure from my mom. My mother always tries to put me in camps, sports, internships and anything for my future, like all the daughters the mothers put them in activities for their future.

My experience with literature begin in kindergarten when reading the Magic Treehouse books. These books were the first in my life that I would actually read willingly cover to cover. Before I would begin to read a book just to quit after I deemed it boring or dull, but these books were different I actually liked them. This would continue until the 3rd grade where I would read different books like don’t you know there’s a war going on, it was a World War II book that was centered on an elementary kid like myself. After that, I read historical fiction consistently mainly involving wars Civil War, WWI, WWII, Vietnam, etc. I also felt like if I had to read for an any assignment it was forced and I would skim or do little actually

“An Imaginary Life” by David Malouf is a first person point of view story, narrated by Ovid himself. It is set in 8 BC when Ovid was exiled from Rome to Tomis. His exile forced him to face many barriers, where language, knowledge and time of the setting were most crucial. Although Rome and Tomis were fairly close, Tomis was behind in inventions and knowledge.

You & Me was a quick and addicting romance. It was sweet and sexy. The characters were adorable and so much fun. Even though the story was short it was very well developed, that it didn’t make me feel lost. The banter between the sexy doctor and vegetarian was laugh out loud funny, I couldn’t stop but giggling at their flirtatious arguments. I definitely want to read more of Author Veronica Larsen’s work. Thx for

“A good friend keeps your secrets for you. A best friend helps you keep your own secrets,” says Lauren Oliver in her book Before I Fall. Oliver has an utterly unique writing style that differs from anything else out there. She combines diverse writing skills to create a style that flows nicely and is truly beautiful. She’s an American author from Brooklyn, New York, and she’s had a passion in writing ever since she was a little kid. Her novels are absolutely stunning because of her outstanding use of imagery and plot twists that really capture the reader’s interest in the story.

“I was considering always in my room of the lodging house and besides, felt that it is vain to try. Because reading a lot of books doesn’t indulge my appetite actually, then, I gave it up. At the same time, gradually I couldn’t catch the meaning even myself that what I read the books so much for.”