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A review by _onemorechapter_
You Are Here by David Nicholls
adventurous
emotional
funny
hopeful
informative
inspiring
lighthearted
relaxing
fast-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? No
4.0
⚠️Be warned, this may inspire you to dig out those old hiking boots.
“There is who we want to be, she thought, and there is who we are.”
💭Witty and Warm!
Nicholls's knack for warm characters, funny dialogue, and superb scene-setting is as spot-on as ever. I loved this book, but I loved "One Day" more. Nicholls is the master of sensitive, humorous story-telling and gets under the skin of his protagonists. Nicholls really sees people, and he employs the most achingly beautiful turns of phrase to convey just how similar we all are when it comes down to it. I just kept laughing all the way through, not really understanding how the characters felt. The reader is left thinking and remembering moments in the book long after reading.
Marnie meets Michael as they embark on a long group holiday, aiming to walk across the country from the Lakes to the Pennines to the Dales to the Moors. Marnie is not a fan of the outdoors; Michael is full of interesting facts about the landscape. A typical Nicholls romance ensues, heavy on banter, defensiveness, and a slow reveal of vulnerability.
I loved the two main characters and their story. While Marnie is a city-based copy editor who's fiercely independent and witty, Michael is an uptight geography teacher with a vulnerable core struggling with his failed marriage, fertility issues, and trauma. Both are such great characters, and it is lovely to read as the relationship between Marnie and Michael develops. They are relatable and believable characters that you can really root for. They may not be perfect, but they are trying their best. The entirety of this novel is largely two people walking and talking and finding commonalities over many days in the English mud and hills. It's the quiet buildup of a burgeoning relationship. Nature is celebrated throughout this book, with the scenery described vividly and the weather thrown in to immerse you.
You Are Here isn't a complicated book; it's humble, mostly predictable, and generally uplifting. It's a warm-hearted little read that feels like things are working out after life throws crap at you. It's not all sunshine and butterflies, but it's warm and real, and the book works precisely because of the story's honesty and vulnerability as both characters navigate insecurities, trauma, and mental health struggles.
Nicholls doesn’t shy away from confronting harder-hitting themes either. Here he writes of loneliness, divorce, marriage breakdown, infertility, and violence. Yet always, it’s done with tenderness and subtle skill.
Overall, You Are Here is a novel of first encounters, second chances, and finding the way home! It's a simple story, but with lots of depth and humanity.
𝐏.𝐒 This may not have the epic emotional clout of One Day, but especially for those who've been through relationships, come out the other side and see past the glossy tint of the happy-ever-after narratives that just 'aren't', this rings more gently and true.
🔸𝑴𝒚 𝑹𝒂𝒕𝒊𝒏𝒈: ⭐⭐⭐⭐
🔸𝑮𝒐𝒐𝒅𝒓𝒆𝒂𝒅𝒔 𝑹𝒂𝒕𝒊𝒏𝒈: 4.32 (1527)
🔸𝑮𝒆𝒏𝒓𝒆: Romance and Humorous Fiction
🔸𝑹𝒆𝒄𝒐𝒎𝒎𝒆𝒏𝒅𝒂𝒕𝒊𝒐𝒏: Yes, Yes and Yes!
A charming and witty story, I couldn’t put it down and finished it within two days. Loved it so much!
🔸 𝑭𝒂𝒗𝒐𝒓𝒊𝒕𝒆 𝑸𝒖𝒐𝒕𝒆𝒔:
“It’s true I do have time and freedom and I love it, sometimes. But the notion that I should be “making the most of it”, travelling the world or out every night, there’s a kind of tyranny in that too, that life has to be full, like your life’s a hole that you have to keep filling, a leaky bucket, and not just fulfilled but seen to be fulfilled. “You don’t have kids, why can’t you speak Portuguese?” Do I have to have hobbies and projects and lovers? Do I have to excel? Can’t I just be happy, or unhappy, just mess about and read and waste time and be unfulfilled by myself?”
“The risks involved in romantic love, the potential for hurt and betrayal and indignity, far outweighed the consolations.”
“Books saw her through the pupal stage of thirteen to sixteen, frowning at Kafka and Woolf, then tearing through John Irving and Maeve Binchy, widely read in the proper sense, making no distinction between Jilly Cooper and Edith Wharton. There were stories on film and TV and, a little later, in the rolling melodrama of the internet, but those were team activities, noisy and social. Private, intimate, a book was something she could pull around and over herself, like a quilt.”
“perhaps there had been something a little obsessive about it, the way she’d consumed the shelves of the local library, Blyton to Jansson, C. S. Lewis to P. G. Wodehouse, Christie then du Maurier then the Brontës, reading indiscriminately but always passionately, so that even her dislikes were passionate. Dickens, she thought, was preachy and silly, like a teacher putting on funny voices, but never mind, here were Jane Austen and Sue Townsend, Ursula K. Le Guin and Jean M. Auel, and each Saturday morning she’d return her stack of library books, the maximum permitted, placing them on the counter, like a gambler cashing in chips.”
“Sometimes you need to get lost to find your way.”
“There is who we want to be, she thought, and there is who we are.”
💭Witty and Warm!
Nicholls's knack for warm characters, funny dialogue, and superb scene-setting is as spot-on as ever. I loved this book, but I loved "One Day" more. Nicholls is the master of sensitive, humorous story-telling and gets under the skin of his protagonists. Nicholls really sees people, and he employs the most achingly beautiful turns of phrase to convey just how similar we all are when it comes down to it. I just kept laughing all the way through, not really understanding how the characters felt. The reader is left thinking and remembering moments in the book long after reading.
Marnie meets Michael as they embark on a long group holiday, aiming to walk across the country from the Lakes to the Pennines to the Dales to the Moors. Marnie is not a fan of the outdoors; Michael is full of interesting facts about the landscape. A typical Nicholls romance ensues, heavy on banter, defensiveness, and a slow reveal of vulnerability.
I loved the two main characters and their story. While Marnie is a city-based copy editor who's fiercely independent and witty, Michael is an uptight geography teacher with a vulnerable core struggling with his failed marriage, fertility issues, and trauma. Both are such great characters, and it is lovely to read as the relationship between Marnie and Michael develops. They are relatable and believable characters that you can really root for. They may not be perfect, but they are trying their best. The entirety of this novel is largely two people walking and talking and finding commonalities over many days in the English mud and hills. It's the quiet buildup of a burgeoning relationship. Nature is celebrated throughout this book, with the scenery described vividly and the weather thrown in to immerse you.
You Are Here isn't a complicated book; it's humble, mostly predictable, and generally uplifting. It's a warm-hearted little read that feels like things are working out after life throws crap at you. It's not all sunshine and butterflies, but it's warm and real, and the book works precisely because of the story's honesty and vulnerability as both characters navigate insecurities, trauma, and mental health struggles.
Nicholls doesn’t shy away from confronting harder-hitting themes either. Here he writes of loneliness, divorce, marriage breakdown, infertility, and violence. Yet always, it’s done with tenderness and subtle skill.
Overall, You Are Here is a novel of first encounters, second chances, and finding the way home! It's a simple story, but with lots of depth and humanity.
𝐏.𝐒 This may not have the epic emotional clout of One Day, but especially for those who've been through relationships, come out the other side and see past the glossy tint of the happy-ever-after narratives that just 'aren't', this rings more gently and true.
🔸𝑴𝒚 𝑹𝒂𝒕𝒊𝒏𝒈: ⭐⭐⭐⭐
🔸𝑮𝒐𝒐𝒅𝒓𝒆𝒂𝒅𝒔 𝑹𝒂𝒕𝒊𝒏𝒈: 4.32 (1527)
🔸𝑮𝒆𝒏𝒓𝒆: Romance and Humorous Fiction
🔸𝑹𝒆𝒄𝒐𝒎𝒎𝒆𝒏𝒅𝒂𝒕𝒊𝒐𝒏: Yes, Yes and Yes!
A charming and witty story, I couldn’t put it down and finished it within two days. Loved it so much!
🔸 𝑭𝒂𝒗𝒐𝒓𝒊𝒕𝒆 𝑸𝒖𝒐𝒕𝒆𝒔:
“It’s true I do have time and freedom and I love it, sometimes. But the notion that I should be “making the most of it”, travelling the world or out every night, there’s a kind of tyranny in that too, that life has to be full, like your life’s a hole that you have to keep filling, a leaky bucket, and not just fulfilled but seen to be fulfilled. “You don’t have kids, why can’t you speak Portuguese?” Do I have to have hobbies and projects and lovers? Do I have to excel? Can’t I just be happy, or unhappy, just mess about and read and waste time and be unfulfilled by myself?”
“The risks involved in romantic love, the potential for hurt and betrayal and indignity, far outweighed the consolations.”
“Books saw her through the pupal stage of thirteen to sixteen, frowning at Kafka and Woolf, then tearing through John Irving and Maeve Binchy, widely read in the proper sense, making no distinction between Jilly Cooper and Edith Wharton. There were stories on film and TV and, a little later, in the rolling melodrama of the internet, but those were team activities, noisy and social. Private, intimate, a book was something she could pull around and over herself, like a quilt.”
“perhaps there had been something a little obsessive about it, the way she’d consumed the shelves of the local library, Blyton to Jansson, C. S. Lewis to P. G. Wodehouse, Christie then du Maurier then the Brontës, reading indiscriminately but always passionately, so that even her dislikes were passionate. Dickens, she thought, was preachy and silly, like a teacher putting on funny voices, but never mind, here were Jane Austen and Sue Townsend, Ursula K. Le Guin and Jean M. Auel, and each Saturday morning she’d return her stack of library books, the maximum permitted, placing them on the counter, like a gambler cashing in chips.”
“Sometimes you need to get lost to find your way.”