Books like “Me Before You”

What to read after “Me Before You” by Jojo Moyes: a list matched by tropes, mood and atmosphere. Under each book you will see what it has in common.

About “Me Before You”

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1
Twice Shy
Sarah Hogle · 2021
Similar plot moves: “Grumpy Sunshine” and “Forced Proximity”
- Grumpy Sunshine
- Forced Proximity
Maybell inherits her great-aunt's crumbling house in the Smoky Mountains, only to learn the grouchy groundskeeper Wesley is a co-inheritor with very different plans. Forced to renovate together, the dreamer and the shy, scowling loner slowly find in each other the safety they have always wanted.
2
The Charm Offensive
Alison Cochrun · 2021
Similar plot moves: “Grumpy Sunshine” and “Forced Proximity”
- Grumpy Sunshine
- Forced Proximity
Anxious tech genius Charlie is the reluctant star of a reality dating show, and producer Dev is tasked with helping him connect with the contestants. Behind the cameras their unlikely friendship turns into a romance that neither can script.
3
Normal People
Sally Rooney · 2018
Similar atmosphere: “Melancholic”
- Melancholic
Connell and Marianne are drawn together in a small Irish town, then meet again at university in Dublin. Over the years they keep circling each other, hurting and rescuing one another, unable to say plainly what they feel or where they belong.
4
Tess of the d'Urbervilles
Thomas Hardy · 1891
Similar atmosphere: “Melancholic”
- Melancholic
- Star-Crossed Lovers
Tess Durbeyfield, a poor country girl, is sent to wealthy relatives who share her family name. There she is wronged by a young man and later falls in love with Angel Clare, who knows nothing of her past. Society's judgement of her becomes the story's central cruelty.
5
The Roommate
Rosie Danan · 2020
Similar plot moves: “Grumpy Sunshine” and “Forced Proximity”
- Grumpy Sunshine
- Forced Proximity
Clara leaves her buttoned-up East Coast life to move across the country to the man of her dreams, only to find he has sublet her room to someone else. Sharing the apartment with easygoing Josh, whose job would scandalise her family, forces an uneasy friendship that slowly becomes more.
6
A Man Called Ove
Fredrik Backman · 2012
Similar atmosphere: “Melancholic”
- Melancholic
- Grumpy Sunshine
Ove is a grumpy widower who has decided there is nothing left for him, until a noisy young family moves in next door and keeps interrupting his plans. Piece by piece, the neighbourhood draws him back into a life he thought was over.
7
The Time Traveler's Wife
Audrey Niffenegger · 2003
Similar atmosphere: “Melancholic”
- Melancholic
- Star-Crossed Lovers
Henry has a genetic condition that pulls him through time without warning, so his life with the artist Clare never runs in the usual order. They meet again and again at different ages, and their love must hold through long absences and a future neither of them can change.
8
It Ends with Us
Colleen Hoover · 2016
Similar atmosphere: “Melancholic”
- Melancholic
Lily moves to Boston, opens a flower shop and falls for Ryle, a confident neurosurgeon. Their relationship seems perfect until she notices patterns she recognises from the house she grew up in, and the return of her first love, Atlas, makes her question what she is willing to accept.
9
Beach Read
Emily Henry · 2020
Similar plot moves: “Grumpy Sunshine” and “Forced Proximity”
- Grumpy Sunshine
- Forced Proximity
Romance writer January and literary novelist Gus become summer neighbours in a lakeside town, both blocked and both skeptical of each other's genre. They make a bet to write in the other's style and slowly trade barbs for late-night talks, discovering the grief and hope behind their different worldviews.
10
The Fault in Our Stars
John Green · 2012
Similar atmosphere: “Melancholic”
- Melancholic
- Star-Crossed Lovers
Hazel Grace, a teenager with terminal cancer, meets Augustus Waters at a support group. Their cautious romance grows through shared wit and a planned trip to Amsterdam, while both confront what they can and cannot control.
11
Natural Born Charmer
Susan Elizabeth Phillips · 2007
Similar plot moves: “Grumpy Sunshine” and “Forced Proximity”
- Grumpy Sunshine
- Forced Proximity
Pro quarterback Dean, restless and disillusioned with his gilded life, picks up a hitchhiker in a beaver costume on a Colorado highway. Blue, a broke portrait painter running from her past, takes the ride, and their uneasy road trip leads to a Tennessee farmhouse where two guarded people begin to build a life and a makeshift family.
12
Icebreaker
Hannah Grace · 2022
Similar plot moves: “Grumpy Sunshine” and “Forced Proximity”
- Grumpy Sunshine
- Forced Proximity
A rink scheduling clash forces competitive figure skater Anastasia to share the ice with the hockey team and its captain, Nate. What starts as irritation grows into friendship and then something more as she chases a national title and he tries to hold his team together.