You Are Here by David Nicholls: book review
Overview: Marnie and Michael are both sad, alone, and going through divorce. Cleo sees them both as deeply in need of saving, and she pulls these two friends from different parts of her life together on a hiking trip. While Michael just wanted to make his walk from coast to coast in peace, Cleo inserts herself into his school-break trip and invites a whole crew of her friends to help him reconnect with the world. She fancies herself a match-maker, but her pairings might not go the way she expects when they all set off down the trail. Overall: 3.5
Characters: 3.5 The only words that come to mind about this book is that it's aggressively fine. There's nothing glaringly wrong with it, but there's also nothing here that inspires any feeling, characters and the romance at the heart of the story included. Michael and Marnie might as well be the same person beyond their genders and the fact that he's from the North and is scared of the city, and she's from London and struggles to tolerate the idea of hiking. They were both forced out of their marriages, awkwardly stuck in young middle age wondering if any of their hopes for their lives will come true. I guess being mirror images is meant to be meaningful in their connection, but they just come across as incredibly flat. All of the characters feel cookie-cutter, more like archetypes in a typical romance than realized people.
Plot: 3 I was excited to read a book about two people who fall in love on a long distance hiking trip. Great premise. There's so much that transpires on a hiking trail! So much possibility for drama! But I realized that there was a distinct lack of tension in the novel, which isn't usually something I pick up on. I read a ton of very low stakes, low action books, and it never bothers me. But, here, I realized the only thing propelling me forward in the book was that the chapters were incredibly short, and I was getting a dopamine hit from finishing each one. In a romance, the tension is extra important because the structure is so well known. And the plot beats are delivered exactly at the expected percentages through the novel. Almost like he used an exact formula or tracker. Emily Henry is a romance author I will always hold up as the pinnacle because she takes this form where everything is expected and predictable and imbues it with a unique texture and detail that makes it feel worth reading. Somehow, Nicholls delivers not only a predictable romance but the most uneventful hiking trip known to man. There were so many missed opportunities here.
Writing: 3 Similar to the characters, there was something just totally flat here. There's nothing technically wrong with the prose, but it feels like there's not much to dig into. So much of the book is dedicated to sticking to the top layer of things. Walking in the woods is where the deep conversations come out. But nothing ever got particularly deep. There wasn't a push to follow up on harder things or create a specificity that would make these characters feel human. I read the book super quickly getting from 35% to finished in a single day, but I just felt like I was still looking for more from it by the end. It's an easy read, but I couldn't get past the thinness. This was particularly surprising given that Nicholls is such a hot author right now with the Netflix adaption of One Day. This is my first from this author, and I can't say I'll be going back.
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