Instead, One Day The Movie delivers a thoroughly enjoyable relationship flick. Out of its tricksy structure - we catch up with two friends on the same day every year for 20 years - Nicholls built up a recognisable, affecting central relationship, a pin-sharp picture of how Britain has changed over the last 20 years and a poignant portrait of how our youthful aspirations get realigned over time.įollowing up An Education, Lone Scherfig follows Nicholls’ conceit faithfully but doesn’t really share its ambition or authenticity. Yet for all its populist success, Nicholls’ book is no bland beach read. That said, I would have liked a touch more of present-day Charlie – his current life intrudes only briefly, and remains thinly sketched.Subtitled “Twenty Years, Two People”, David Nicholls’ third novel, One Day, was ubiquitous in 2009, a stalwart on ‘3 for 2’ tables and book-club reading lists ever since. Although told by the adult Charlie, the writing is superbly alive to the way teenagers try to be arch and cool, while also feeling everything so deeply.

Sweet Sorrow is set over a long, post-GCSEs summer in 1997, when our 16-year-old hero Charlie Lewis reluctantly joins a theatre troupe putting on Romeo and Juliet because he fancies the girl playing Juliet – one Fran Fisher. Bag a copy immediately, because this has got “perfect summer read” smeared all over it like so much factor 30.

It made me feel like something had swollen up inside my chest, and readers are liable to find their thoughts drifting over their own misspent school holidays or crushingly ardent first loves. He returns to similarly fertile territory on Sweet Sorrow, only stepping back into teenage years, the writing an ideal blend of the gently humorous and utterly heartfelt. Does any writer do nostalgia quite like David Nicholls? His bestseller One Daywas partly so adored for the way he captured the feeling of being young, being in love, and being confused.

One day david nicholls review