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Sometimes, when I finish a book that I’ve loved, I worry that my opinions might be wrong. I feel like I have to wait for them to steep before I serve them to anyone. As if the book was an influence I was under and I need to wait for the hangover to pass before I can discuss it. I finished a book a few weeks ago that I loved deeply and I didn’t write about it in the moment for fear of sounding manic or like a person who didn’t know how to have feelings that weren’t just exclamation marks. I thought if I waited a while to tell you about it I might come up with something original but that’s the thing about romantic comedies, isn’t it, they can’t ever really be that original and that’s why they need to be perfect.
A while ago I wrote about all the tropes in romantic comedies that I don’t like and of course what I meant was, I don’t like it when someone does them badly. The book I want to tell you about today has some of the things I said I didn’t like and guess what, I loved them this time because that’s what happens when you’re being seduced. Things that you didn’t think could charm you turn out to be your new favourite. Except, this isn’t a new favourite at all, because I’ve been charmed by this writer several times before…
You Are Here is the new novel from David Nicholls and as a bookseller and a human I’m recommending that you do a nice thing for yourself and get a copy when it comes out later this month. Look, David Nicholls doesn’t need my help to sell a book or two (million) but I do feel it’s important to champion the superstars sometimes, because people who read a lot of books can get uptight around success and we all need a reminder to get over ourselves when we’re tempted to swerve something just because it’s popular. I don’t doubt this book will hit all sorts of charts and because of the recent Netflix adaptation of One Day it might seem like Nicholls is everywhere and that sort of coverage could make any fool feel some sense of resistance, but I can’t let you make that mistake. Consider this post your metaphorical slap across the face. Sometimes things are popular because they’re excellent. Sometimes the experience eclipses the hype. Sometimes you should just buy the new book from the number one best selling author of global sensation One Day and sometimes, only a David Nicholls novel will do.
David Nicholls writes the romance of reasonable people, and that’s very sexy to me. It’s difficult to explain how boring I find theatrics in love stories without sounding like I’m trying to say I prefer something dull, which isn’t it at all. What I want from a love story is exactly this; two people that I like and want good things for, finding each other and being better for it. Marnie and Michael are good people that Some Life has happened to, and the story of You Are Here is how long it takes them to kiss when they end up on a walking holiday together. This is a book that bravely asks the questions ‘what if this was sexy?’ and also, ‘what if it was not.’ It’s a story that gently presses at the soft places between loneliness and longing, love and loss and even some words that don’t start with L. There’s Laughter. Dammit! Nature, but, the nature of people who find themselves a l-l-little lost. It’s about letting people in, and leaving things behind.
And you have to understand, the writing is so disarmingly warm, reading the novel feels like being on some sort of delightful date even though it’s raining and everyone’s wearing technical fabrics; the bouncy banter and gentle thoughtfulness - is this book flirting with me? That we could feel flustered by a character who wears trousers that zip off into shorts is surely proof of how charming it is, but it’s the pacing and priorities that really do it for me. This is a story of two people dipping their toes back into the idea of desire and their hesitancy only heightens the gorgeousness of it all because it feels so genuine, so much like what would really, realistically, happen.
It seems too pointless a statement to say this is rom-com that avoids cliché because Nicholls would never be so lazy and it feels less like a resistance than a full acknowledgement that the cliché would be wrong, and that what the reader and the characters deserve is something that is true. Even when the opportunity presents itself for a familiar trope-y situation to sneak through without feeling forced – play fighting and falling into the water, only one bed at the inn, somehow, the cliche is abandoned. The action detours into drama, or comedy that is actually funny, or romance that genuinely romantic. In a novel so filled with precipitation, I’m delighted to tell you there is not one single face-snatching kiss in the rain. This isn’t a book about divorcees finding each other because that’s fresher than a story about twenty-somethings, it’s because it’s a book about our friends, Marnie and Michael, and they both just happen to have been married before. It all makes so much sense, it’s all so marvellously human, so joyfully unHollywood - though the inevitable screen adaptation will be lovely I’m sure, and that delicious dialogue deserves to be acted.
I just enjoyed the whole thing so completely. It sounds straight forward but it’s only when you read something that meets you like this, in sync with your own core temperature, that you realise how annoying it is when you’re yanked through the furnaces and ice baths of Other Books. And that when you say something is funny, it’s so rarely proved with a laugh so loud your neighbours might notice. There’s a scene early on in this novel, with a Carole King soundtrack, that put tears in my eyes. I’ve read it three times since and each time I’ve laughed until my dog has come and barked at me in concern.
Once again I’ve told you my vague opinion with giving you any sense of the plot; you can google the synopsis if you’re interested in that sort of thing, you can read glowing comments from every writer you can name, and the reviews will tell you it’s both romantic and a comedy, but you won’t really know until you read it, until you’re laughing and falling in love with it.
When I finished reading it I xweeted a short review to thank the publisher for the proof. I said that ‘I carried the book all around the house with me. I went to bed early and stayed in bed late with it. I could not be parted from this book and when it ended I cried just because I loved it.’ I thanked David Nicholls for the laughs and the squeals and the sighs and the feels. Four weeks later and my feelings are no more sophisticated than that initial comment, but I haven’t carried another book around the house with me since. I can’t remember the last time I cried at another book just because I loved it. So I’ll stick with my initial review, if I was under the influence then I’m still there, and if you’re looking for laughs/squeals/sights/feels – You Are Here.
What a fabulous and useful review. I read A LOT of books but I’ve never read a David Nicholls … however I did really enjoy his article about his love of wet walks in Saturday’s Guardian. I might wait for the paperback for this but I will remember that I should buy it. Also, I like your comments about popular books. I earn my living writing about classical music and the same applies - pieces like Carmen and Handel’s Messiah and the Vivaldi Gloria and the Fauré Requiem are famous and popular because they are full of cracking tunes and very moving to listen to, but some of my colleagues would never dream of going to a performance of any of them.
I can’t wait to read this. I’ve just finished reading Us which I loved and I very much enjoyed Sweet Sorrow too. One day less so but I think it just had SO much hype.