#Review #NetGalley #YouAreHere

Sometimes you need to get lost to find your way

Marnie is stuck.
Stuck working alone in her London flat, stuck battling the long afternoons and a life that often feels like it’s passing her by.

Michael is coming undone.
Reeling from his wife’s departure, increasingly reclusive, taking himself on long, solitary walks across the moors and fells.

When a persistent mutual friend and some very English weather conspire to bring them together, Marnie and Michael suddenly find themselves alone on the most epic of walks and on the precipice of a new friendship.

But can they survive the journey?

A new love story by beloved bestseller David Nicholls, You Are Here is a novel of first encounters, second chances and finding the way home.

Buy It Here!

My Review

What a lovely read! We meet Marnie and Michael. They are both loners, preferring their own company for different reasons. When a mutual friend organises a weekend away hiking, Marnie can’t think of anything worse and Michael hopes they will all go home early and leave him to cross Northern England, coast to coast, on his own. When Marnie decides to stick it out with Michael after the others have gone home, they find themselves spending the week together completing the walk.

This book was such a delight. I loved Marnie’s character, she has such a dry sense of humour and her attempts to get Michael to raise a smile were wonderful. She was very easy to relate to and I could imagine there are a lot of Marnie’s in the world. Michael took a bit longer to warm to, but as the storyline moved on his character grew on me. They both had their own past issues which they still hadn’t dealt with, and the week’s hike across the country certainly gave them the opportunity to do that. I loved how their relationship developed, with both of them tolerating each other that little bit more hour by hour.

This was a very well written book, capturing the essence of the characters perfectly. The location sounded amazing and there were great descriptions of the country as they crossed it. There was plenty of humour and lots of emotion to fill out Marnie and Michael’s story, and I was hooked very early in book. The ending was predictable, but it was obvious how it was going to end throughout the story. It was still a very enjoyable read though which I would recommend!

The Author

David Nicholls is the bestselling author of Starter for Ten, The Understudy, One Day, Us and Sweet Sorrow. One Day was published in 2009 to extraordinary critical acclaim: translated into 40 languages, it became a global bestseller, selling millions of copies worldwide. His fourth novel, Us, was longlisted for the Booker Prize for Fiction.
On screen, David has written adaptations of Far from the Madding Crowd, When Did You Last See Your Father? and Great Expectations, as well as of his own novels, Starter for Ten, One Day and Us. His adaptation of Edward St Aubyn’s Patrick Melrose, starring Benedict Cumberbatch, was nominated for an Emmy and won him a BAFTA for best writer. The Netflix adaptation of One Day was executive-produced by David.
David’s latest novel, You Are Here, will be published in April 2024 and is available for pre-order now.