After reading and loving Starter For Ten I started to look for the writers other works. And what a book I found! It had me in floods of tears when I finished it in bed last night, much to the surprise of my lovely wife. One Day – US link/UK link is a funny, emotionally engaging third novel from David Nicholls and it has earned a spot on my shelf of favorites. The book traces the unlikely relationship between Emma Morley and Dexter Mayhew. It is told with toe-curlingly accurate insight and touching observation. If you left college sometime in the Eighties with no clear idea of what was going to happen next, or who your lifelong friends might turn out to be, this one’s a definite for your holiday suitcase. If you didn’t, it still is . . .

The book starts on the 15th of July 1988 and each chapter covers the events in the lives of the two main characters on each subsequent 15th of July up until 2007. This conceit may have made the book feel false but Nicholls pulls it off with aplomb. Em and Dex live, both separately and together, through the two decades and are caught up in many of the events especially the rise of New Labour and reality/youth culture. There is a great deal of humor and frequent and quite shocking tragedies (hence my girly tears). This is put best by an Amazon reviewer, Marion Pennington:

Well, call me an old romantic, but I was GUTTED by the ending. My mouth dropped into a wide O and tears rolled down my cheeks at that short and totally unexpected sentence. I felt cheated. It wasn’t what I wanted to read. I felt like I’d invested twenty years of my life in these peoples’ lives (see how effectively he wrote?!) and this… it upset me. Not that I want my books to be all sweetness and tweeting birdies, but it hadn’t been. There had been bad times and heartbreak and darkness, and I think they deserved more light.

So buy One Day – US link/UK link, grab a box of tissues, and take the phone off the hook. It really is that good.