Us

I was so very excited to begin reading David Nicholls follow up to his acclaimed novel One Day, and so delved into Us having read nothing but glowing reviews and having experienced the joy of the authors other works.

The story of this book is really quite a clever, if not uncommon one. Married couple Douglas and Connie are getting ready to wave their son, Albie, off to university after his summer holidays. One night Connie wakes Douglas up and announces that once Albie has gone she is thinking about leaving him. She will still be accompanying him and Albie on their “grand tour” of Europe that summer but after that will most likely be leaving.

Hurt and confused Douglas decides to try his best to spend the summer winning over his wife and trying to build bridges with his teenage son, who seems to have little time for his father.

The book is written entirely from Douglas' perspective and we are allowed glimpses back through he and Connie's relationship from their meeting to their marriage and subsequent parenthood. It is immediately apparent that they are very much in the “opposites attract” camp as Douglas is a biochemist and his wife an artist. We also learn Albie is very much his mother's son with an artistic temperament and a desire to study photography.

Douglas is quite a sensible, staid and conventional man, he subscribes to traditional parenting discipline techniques and has high academic expectations of his son, this has led to years of disagreements with his son and wife and his feeling left out.

I found myself sympathising with Douglas, I actually found him the most likeable character in the book. He endlessly tries his best to fit into the artistic world his family inhabits but always seems to miss the mark, applying fact finding techniques to his art history knowledge which annoys his wife and son who just want to “appreciate” the art. His constant trying to manage all the details of the tour, hotel bookings and excursions are met with veiled insults and rolled eyes and I felt genuinely sorry for him.

As the trip goes on and Albie meets a busker and decides, after an argument with his father, to go off on his own things deteriorate and Connie goes home. At this point I really began to get annoyed. I found Albie actually needed a little bit of firm parenting and felt Connie should have been trying to support her husband not leaving him to feel responsible for all that happened on the trip.

In his style of trying to mend fences we follow Douglas as he chases through Europe after his son, with a desperate attempt to make amends and reassure his son of his love and pride in him.

What bothered me about Nicholls book was the unlikeability of the wife and son in the book. I know I've read reviews where people said they struggled to identify with Douglas but for me it was the artistic two I wanted to shake. They seemed so wrapped up in their own little twosome that they failed to see Douglas anymore as a person in his own right. Their joint interests somehow had to overrule Douglas at every turn.

I actually began to think perhaps the best thing to happen to Douglas would be for him to stop chasing his son around Europe, throw his mobile away and go off and have some time doing just what he wanted and see how long it was before his wife and son bothered to seek him out.

I liked this book but I wouldn't say I loved it. I didn't find it as engaging as One Day and by half way through I was getting a bit bored and kept wanting it to pick up the pace. I'm not convinced it is the huge literary sensation it's being hailed as and have read better books about similar topics. I'm sure it will sell in droves based on the publicity but I felt a little underwhelmed.