Happy 23rd anniversary to the fandom’s favorite couple, Kevin and Kristin Richardson! ❤️ Couple goals!
Chapter 36 of my Kevin romance, The World Will Be Waiting, is up! This chapter contains a spoiler for the book/movie Me Before You. The book is over ten years old at this point, so I’m assuming most people either have already read it/watched the movie or don’t care to, but just in case, consider yourself warned. I first read this book ten years ago, a few weeks before I got the idea for My Brother’s Keeper. It’s been so long that I forgot that was all the same summer. While Me Before You didn’t directly inspire MBK, I’m sure it did have some influence on me. I definitely watched the movie a few times during the writing of that story. I like both the book and movie but have since learned that it’s almost universally despised by the disability community, particularly people with spinal cord injuries, because of the ending. I have mixed feelings on this myself. As a reader, I’m not a big fan of the ending either and completely understand why people who are actually disabled would hate it. But, as a writer, I respect the author’s commitment to her idea, which was inspired by a true story that ended the same way. I reread the book the first week of my summer break to refresh my memory after including it in my story, and while I still don’t like the ending, the rest of the book holds up. If anyone else who’s read it or seen the movie wants to discuss in more detail, drop a comment on this post or in the chapter!
Full disclosure: This is the last chapter I currently have finished, so I can’t guarantee weekly updates will continue after this week. I do have a solid start on Chapter 37, but writing has been slow-going this week. Hopefully the pressure of catching up to myself will help me kick it into high gear next week so I can keep the regular updates coming. Feedback is always appreciated and helps me stay inspired! 😉
Part of the reason I haven’t written as much as I should have this week is that I’ve fallen back down The Sims rabbit hole. This week, I built two places from the Broken universe: Leonardi’s Pizza and the Empress Theater. The quality of writing in Broken may not be up to my current standards, but the settings I created were pretty solid! They were both based on real life places, my grandparents’ favorite local pizzeria and a restored art deco theater near my college campus that shows old movies. The Sims versions are even cuter! Of course, I had to send Nick and Claire on a date and take some screenshots. For my Broken readers, this is my little Sims reenactment of Chapters 117 and 118. 💛❤️
I also made the parking lot next to Leonardi’s and had fun filling it with vehicles from my fanfic universe. Along with Nick’s silver Jaguar and Claire’s old Toyota (which I made red even though I don’t think I ever mentioned the specific color in the story), there is the yellow Hummer from 00Carter and Song for the Undead (inspired by Nick’s episode of Punk’d), the silver Corolla from A Heart That Isn’t Mine, Jori’s truck from Secrets of the Heart (without the paint job), Brian’s blue BMW and Nick’s green Durango from Broken, Claire’s yellow Beetle from By My Side, Natalie’s white Camry and Kevin’s black Silverado from The World Will Be Waiting, and Kevin’s accessible van from My Brother’s Keeper.
Yeah, so, clearly I have too much time on my hand right now. Happy summer!
Julie,
I did read some of Me Before You a long time ago. I didn’t read the entire book though. I didn’t know it was made into a movie. I also do think there are a few books that were written after that one, but I could be wrong.
You two stories are making me want to give the book another try.
It’s a good book! The movie is actually great, too! The author of the book wrote the screenplay for the movie, so it follows the book closely, and Emelia Clarke was perfect as the main character, Louisa. You could always watch that first and then decide if you want to give the book another try. I’m not sure if it’s streaming anywhere right now. There are two sequels, but I haven’t read those.