You Are Here
Ratings14
Average rating4
I'll never forgive David Nicholls for [b:One Day 6280118 One Day David Nicholls https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1327873020l/6280118.SY75.jpg 6463667] (IYKYK), but You Are Here was surprisingly enjoyable. Believable chemistry between the MCs, witty repartee, wry British humor, and a much more romantic ending than That Book. Plus a realistic portrayal of depression and isolation: It was as if she'd returned from a foreign country and not let anyone know. The threshold of her flat seemed like a high diving board, too big a leap, too many people watching, and even when she made it out, what did she have to say? Conversation required a warm-up now, time set aside to workshop smiles and responses, and she no longer trusted her face to do the right thing, operating it manually, pulling levers, turning dials, for fear that she might laugh at someone's tragedy or grimace at their joke. In Japan and California, they were developing robots with a more natural and spontaneous set of responses than she currently possessed. The MMC needed to do more groveling to make up for keeping a Big Secret from the FMC, and I would have liked an epilogue to put an exclamation point on the HEA, but those are just some nits to pick because I'm still peeved about that bestselling, award-winning, “we'll take a love story seriously if it's written by a man” abomination.
I won't waste your time with a synopsis. The blurb is there for all to see and it's quite accurate. One Day is one of my favourite novels and I was beyond excited to read You Are Here. When I was approved for an ARC, I began to read immediately, literally devouring the short chapters. Unfortunately, it was a thundering disappointment.
Marnie initially came across as a character of my heart. Bookish, stuck in a job which gives her little satisfaction of late, cherishing her independence, with a deep love for London. I mean come on, she carries her much-loved Wuthering Heights paperback everywhere. This alone should have been enough to make me adore her. And I did, I swear to God I did, until she started to make an utter fool of herself. She became insufferable. The way she throws herself into a heinous secondary character is embarrassing. Her bimbo-girly giggles at the most inappropriate of times. I am sorry to say that she acted like the exact type of woman I loathe and she ruined the entire novel for me. After all, when you have a weak main character in a story of 300+ pages and a cast of two characters (almost exclusively...), the odds are not in the reader's favour. I actually felt sorry for Michael for having to deal with three banshees. Marnie, Nat and Cleo. Their characters were sex-starved hyenas.
No, thank you. I am a scholar, not an idiot.
Now Michael seemed to me as the driving force of the novel. A man in love with his loneliness, insecure but true to his principles, condemned to meet women who want to change him because THEY ARE WOMEN AND THEY ARE ALWAYS RIGHT, DAMN IT! I am so tired of this bloody trope in Contemporary Literature. Just stop.
In fact, I felt that poor Michael put up with Marnie's idiotic irony for far too long. But then again, we teachers are blessed with endless patience when dealing with all kinds of idiots. In any case, these two are important contestants in the competition for the most boring, lifeless, irritating couple in literary history. Characterization in combination with dialogue that seemed straight off the cheesiest Hollywood rom-coms made for illiterate zombies turned this novel into a nightmare.
It's a pity. It truly is because Nicholls excels in creating atmosphere and in communicating the sense of place through vivid descriptions. I could ‘'see'' London, the moors and the rugged beauty of the British coast. Even the various hotels and B & Bs. And then, you have a short scene describing an unnecessary, shocking death and Marnie's response was so inappropriate I would have slapped her right there and then had she been an actual person crossing my path. Girl, you want to open your legs, we get it. Have some decency, for God's sake! Find a bush or something.
So, 300 + pages of two cardboard boxes walking and walking. And talking and talking. Do I need pages after pages after pages of interactions that make me vomit and a female protagonist who embarrasses herself every time she opens her stupid mouth? I certainly don't. For me, this novel is easily included in the disasters of this reading year.
Many thanks to Hodder & Stoughton and NetGalley for the ARC in exchange for an honest review.
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