Reader's Ink discussion

I found that both the Mothers were interesting characters in the book. If you were them, or if they were your Mom, how might that change your opinion of them?

For all I would probably find Mrs. Traynor obnoxious if I met her in real life, I thought her the most sympathetic character in the book: she's intelligent, used to controlling things and being successful (methinks Will might have taken after his Mum) and yet, for the past two years, her entire world has been out of her control. Her daughter is on the other side of the world and blaming her for Will's decision, her son is paralyzed and suicidal, and her husband is only staying with her because he doesn't want to look like the bad guy.

On top of all of that, by respecting her son's wishes, she not only loses him but potentially puts her career at risk. While she might not be too upset about the husband leaving, I finished Me Before You and my heart broke for her.

(Louisa - whatever. She now has money now, and, sure, she cared about Will, but it was six months, and maybe she'll always miss him to some extent, but my guess is she'll get over it and get married and life will go on and all that jazz. Plus, the potential stigma of Will's suicide won't attach to her.)

But Mrs. Traynor - if she were a real person, how would she recover from this? From the day she received that phone call about the accident followed by not knowing if Will would live to the partial victory of him living but almost resenting her, I can't help but think her life has been a waking nightmare. And now she comes home from Switzerland and what? Where does she go from here?

Had she, at times, wished that perhaps Will had died the day of the accident and then, when he attempted suicide, she felt somehow responsible? How does she reconcile that now that he is dead? Is looking out at the annex painful? Does she move and try to start over in a new place? Or does she want to stay in the place where she has happy memories of her family before everything went belly up? Does she still have friends or have many of them drifted away over the past two years or may not want to associate with a woman who allowed her son to commit suicide?

If you can't tell, I would absolutely read a book about Mrs. Traynor and how she comes to terms with what happened. But maybe written by John Green.