You Are Here by David Nicholls, Review: Witty, warm & wise

With the witty, warm and wise You Are Here, David Nicholls proves once again why he is the master of the grown-up romantic comedy novel. Read my full review.

My Review

With David Nicholls’ iconic novel One Day (and its audiobook) ranking amongst my all-time favourite reading/ listening experiences, I picked up his most recent release You Are Here with very high expectations. So, I am pleased to report that he has conjured up something uniquely special once again.

Key to this novel’s success are Nicholls’

• achingly authentic characters,
• perceptive depiction of the post-pandemic mid-life zeitgeist and
• ability to tap into the wellspring of emotion on that thin line between funny and sad.

“Private, intimate, a book was something she could pull around and over herself, like a quilt.”

Marnie has long been a devourer of books and sponge for all the information and ideas they contain.

“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.”

Her work-from-home proofreading profession means she thinks a little more deeply about the information people convey, critiquing word choices, including her own, on autopilot. This, and her use of humour as a defence mechanism, routinely makes for hilarious contrasts between her inner thoughts during conversations and the words that come out of her mouth.

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In You Are Here, readers are treated to wonderfully wry and clever, literary and pop-culture fuelled banter when David Nicholls pairs Marnie with a match for her innate intelligence and curiosity in Michael.

“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?”

But the trauma Marnie carries is heavy. She wanted children, but circumstances have led to her being divorced and single for some time. Now in her late 30s, she is socially isolated and frustrated. She is “not an introvert, just an extrovert who had lost the knack”. Michael, 42, processing his own trauma, is in a similar position, and craves solitude.

“Sometimes, she thought, it’s easier to remain lonely than present the lonely person to the world, but she knew that this, too, was a trap, that unless she did something, the state might become permanent, like a stain soaking into wood. It was no good. She would have to go outside.”

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In You Are Here, Nicholls excels in the depiction of hilariously awkward social missteps and unfulfilling encounters. These lead Marnie to think more deeply about what she really wants from a relationship.

“The question she needed to ask: Is this someone I’d turn to in a crisis, someone whose memory or image I might summon up when they’re not around? Someone I need? If they came to visit me on my deathbed, would I be pleased, or would I think, What are you doing here? It was a ghoulish criterion to apply on a casual date but this perfectly nice man didn’t qualify, any more than she’d pass the deathbed test for him. One or two more people, that was all she really needed, one or two that she could love.”

Through the alternating first-person narratives of his authentically flawed and engaging lead characters, this novel treads some very deep emotional territory. It also captures so beautifully the awkwardness of first interactions and mismatched timing and expectations.

You Are Here was another memorably moving yet laugh-out-loud read from David Nicholls. I loved it, and recommend it unreservedly to all readers aged 35 and over.

More titles by David Nicholls:

More hilarious banter and heartwarming romance:

Click on book covers for full reviews of each novel.