She knows she likes working in The Buttered Bun tea shop and she knows she might not love her boyfriend Patrick. She knows how many footsteps there are between the bus stop and home. Sam Claflin and Emilia Clarke as Will Traynor and Louisa Clark in the movie adaptation of Me Before You Did I say cheesy, somewhere above? Well, it wasn't.

Why did I start this post with 'I did it again'? It ‘s not the first time I read books or watch movies recommended by my students and find them not so bad. Well, worse even: I not only read them but also liked them. I googled it, saw there was a movie coming soon starring Emilia Clarke and Sam Claflin, read the synopsis and … promised myself I was definitely not going to read it! Not another cheesy romance my students loved which was going to make me cry!But then, while on holiday in Scotland, I happened to enter a bookshop with books half-price all over and I came out with not only “Me Before You” but its sequel too! I must be crazy, you say? Must be, since I not only bought those books, I even read them. Her answer came after a while: “ Not exactly … not only … it’s pretty special” That was enough to made me curious. “ And then she showed me the book cover with the title.“In English?”“Yes, it is not out in Italian yet”“A romance?” I suspected it from the cover and the title.

I saw one of my students fully-immersed in the reading of a book during the break and asked: 'What is it that you are so eagerly reading?” Her answer was a big smile and “So beautiful, prof.! You must read it. It was around the end of the school year in May.

Me before you book cover