Us by David Nicholls

I was looking forward to this book as I really enjoyed One Day, The Understudy and Starter For Ten.  It seems though that this anticipation may have ruined my enjoyment of the book as I found it all a little bit flat and ploddy.  I expect rich characters from Mr Nicholls with varied facets to their characters but the people populating Us were pretty much one dimensional.  So much so I have just had to go back and remind myself of their names as I just could not bring them to mind.

It is clear from the start that Douglas and Connie are very, very different people.  It is not just the fact that he is all about Science and she is all about Art, they are just such different personality types so when Connie wakes him in the early hours one morning to say she isn't sure about their marriage it comes as no real surprise.  There is also the lingering feeling that it is partly engendered by good old Empty Nest Syndrome as Albie is due to start College (should this not have been University?) that Autumn.  Despite Connie's pronouncement they decide to continue with their planned month long tour of Europe, their Grand Tour and see if they can save their marriage.

The story itself is told from Douglas's point of view and I did find myself empathising with him.  The itinerary for the holiday made me laugh as this is something we always used to do and that was just for a week in Scarborough never mind a month visiting Paris, Amsterdam and many other points.  The flashbacks to the early days of their relationship are slotted seamlessly in to the tale and Douglas's narration is suitably wry and knowing - he can see the warning signs as well as we can.

There is a nice gentle, dry wit throughout the book but something intangible is missing.  As we learn more about the relationship between Douglas and Connie you can see that Douglas has never really known his wife and so she is almost a caricature of the zany artist and then the hausfrau on the page.  I appreciate that this is due to the author's craft as we only ever know Douglas's viewpoint but it just frustrated me and felt unbalanced.  The treatment of the teenage Albie is fleeting but he feels terribly precocious for a 17 year old boy, more like a 21 or 22 year old who has had the 3 years of living away from home whilst at University to mould and harden them.

The European settings are fresh and vibrant and actually made me want to consider getting a passport; well, for about 10 minutes after I finished the book and then I remembered how much I hate travelling for more than an hour.  The book does dip it's toe in to farce quite frequently with disastrous hotel bookings, left luggage and bizarre encounters.  Maybe this was my real issue with the book as farce just doesn't do "it" for me.

Overall I came away disappointed in the book as it does not have the richness of character or location that the 3 other novels I have read by this author have.