Every once in a while, you read a book with characters so engaging you hope it will never end. It’s people and theme begin snaking their way into your dreams. You hope beyond hope someone in Hollywood has already finished the screenplay, because you need to see the movie. Before you’ve even read the last page, you want the sequel. You need to know more, to spend more time in their world. This is that kind of book.

Moyes is a captivating writer, and a wonderful storyteller. Me Before You tells the story of awkward and sheltered Louisa Clark. She lives in a small house with her parents, her sister, her nephew, and her aging grandfather. Responsible for helping the family make ends meet, she finds herself in need of a job. Any job. After a few failed interviews, she lands a job as a caregiver for a quadriplegic, a 35-year-old man named Will Traynor. He was injured in a car accident just two years before, and cannot adjust to his new, motionless life.

Their time together would change her life.

Moyes is skilled at developing her characters into very real people: Will’s constant struggle to accept his new life trapped in a chair; Louisa’s daily challenge to help Will find a reason to live again. Their relationship changes them both in profound ways.

I don’t want to give away a single plot point, because you simply MUST read this book for yourself. I will warn you, it is heartbreaking. But oddly enough, it’s not necessarily a tearjerker. Though you won’t reach the end without shedding a few tears, somehow Moyes draws her story to a close on a positive note. Becoming who we are meant to be can be a painful, even tearful process, but the journey is always worth the pain.

Go. Now. Read. Be moved. And when the movie finally comes out, let’s go see it and laugh and cry together, and be better people for it.