I was really excited to finally get my mits on this book recently – I picked it up on offer in Tesco’s. The RRP is £7.99 but it’s available currently for around half price on Amazon, and is also available on kindle for you lucky ones out there who have one…

The premise of the book – revisiting the same day every year from the perspectives of the two protagonists “Dexter” and “Emma”, over twenty years tracking the development and course of their friendship with each other – was one which I found really appealing, and I’ve heard a lot of people sing its praises. I was also interested in reading something by David Nicholls after the success of his previous novels, most notably “Starter for Ten”.

The Blurb on the Back of the Book;

“15th July 1988. Emma and Dexter meet on the night of their graduation. Tomorrow they must go their separate ways. So where will they be on this one day next year? And the year after that? And every year that follows?”

My Thoughts;

I expected to completely love this book, and that might be because I had heard so many raves about it… Instead I actually found the book difficult to get into for the very first few chapters, and then found myself getting increasingly frustrated with certain aspects of the characters in the middle, but did warm to them… eventually!

The book opens with Emma and Dexter as students, on the verge of leaving uni, and seemingly on the verge of a one night stand, which doesn’t quite materialise… as the years progress the pair become friends and we see them both travel through their careers and personal life, littered with times spent together.

At the beginning of the book, both characters have aspects I can identify with. Emma is a bit of an  idealist  who is not scared to express her views. Dexter seems less naive, but also comes across as a typical arrogant graduate who feels like he has the world at his feet. As the story progresses, both characters remain very “human”, ie they each have their flaws and make mistakes along the way but evolve into decent people. In a way though. this aspect of the book, although very important (I don’t want to read about perfect people – what’s the point?) was also one of the things I found irritating at times. The character of Dexter especially made me fume sometimes… To the extent I ended up not reading it for a few days, and everytime I thought about picking the book up again, I felt irritated by the thought of having to read about him! On the other hand though I also felt annoyed with Emma for wanting to continue to be friends with him at times…

On reflection though I’m prepared to acknowledge that such reactions can only be provoked by good writing, because as irritated as I was by the characters at times, I still felt compelled to get to the end and find out what happened  to them both…

The ending of the book is very… bittersweet. There is a point in the book where everything changes, and when I reached that point (without giving too much away), the writing struck me as devastating in its simplicity. I also felt like I finally understood why everyone else had raved about the book finally, which was something of a relief, because up until that point I felt like I was missing something.

Overall, whilst this isn’t necessarily the best book I’ve ever read, its not the worst and I am glad I persevered with it and got through to the end, as I ultimately did enjoy the story. I’d recommend this for those who like their tales to have an non-typical ending, and who don’t mind their characters flawed. This book may make you think too, but in a less contrived way than some others I’ve read by the likes of Jodi Picoult. I’d say this book is likely too appeal to females rather than blokes, although there will obviously be exceptions to this…

Apparently this novel is being made into a film too, which is due to be released later this year – I’ll be very interested to see how faithful the film is to the book!