Lou Clark knows lots of things. She knows how many footsteps there are between the bus stop and home. She knows she likes working in The Buttered Bun tea shop and she knows she might not love her boyfriend Patrick.

What Lou doesn’t know is she’s about to lose her job or that knowing what’s coming is what keeps her sane.

Will Traynor knows his motorcycle accident took away his desire to live. He knows everything feels very small and rather joyless now and he knows exactly how he’s going to put a stop to that.

What Will doesn’t know is that Lou is about to burst into his world in a riot of colour. And neither of them knows they’re going to change the other for all time.

Me Before You by Jojo Moyes is not

1. a light, fluffy story
2. about Americans

It is, however

1. about living your life to its fullest
2. about finding people at the wrong or maybe right time
3. well-written and charming with characters that seem real

It discusses

1. euthanasia 
2. quadriplegics

It will probably

1. make you cry
2. make you very sad
3. make you very hopeful
4. make you want to change your life

Me Before You isn’t a romance story but it is romantic. It deals with sensitive subjects in a thought provoking way. It’s a book you want to hold close to your heart.

Seventeen-year-old Audra is a sylph, an air elemental. She walks on the wind, can translate its alluring songs, and can even coax it into a weapon with a simple string of commands. She’s also a guardian—Vane’s guardian—and has sworn an oath to protect Vane at all costs. Even if it means sacrificing her own life.

When a hasty mistake reveals their location to the enemy who murdered both of their families, Audra’s forced to help Vane remember who he is. He has a power to claim—the secret language of the West Wind, which only he can understand. But unlocking his heritage will also unlock the memory Audra needs him to forget. And their greatest danger is not the warriors coming to destroy them—but the forbidden romance that’s grown between them.

I read Let the Sky Fall by Shannon Messenger because of two reasons: the cover and the fact that it mentions In-N-Out. For me, the brief scene with In-N-Out is the most exciting part of the book. Now, if you know me, I am 100% serious about this. Unfortunately, it’s not like much else happens in Let the Sky Fall.

The summary already tells you Zane’s story: ordinary boy turned into the chosen one. The chapters are split between Audra and Zane’s narrations. Audra is the super serious mentor to Zane. I didn’t really connect with them because there really isn’t much going on there. I mean, they are not unlikable but I wasn’t invested in them. There is a ~*reason*~ why they Cannot Be but spoiler alert: they fall in love. The mythology behind Let the Sky Fall is interesting because I like the idea of slyphs. Anything with an element as a source of power reminds me of Avatar: the Last Airbender. There is info dumping about the world and their powers but I’ll excuse that here because it’s the first book. ¹

My main problem with Let the Sky Fall is that nothing really happens. 90% of the book is spent on Audra training Zane and that’s about it. There is a battle scene towards the end but by then, it’s not that exciting. The motivations for a particular character in the end also didn’t really make sense to me. Let the Sky Fall isn’t a particularly bad book but it’s also not a particularly memorable one. It’s very much First Book In A Series. I feel like the sequel would be better though with the info dumping and training out of the way.