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This is another beautifully crafted story by David Nicholls. His writing is absolutely, brilliantly, very British-ly perfect, so many passages vacillating between comedy and heartbreak, characters trying to communicate and often misunderstood. The main protagonist Douglas, while a scientist, has an offbeat way of looking at the world with insights that are metaphorically creative and laugh out loud hilarious:

‘I was wary because parties, and dinner parties in particular, had always seemed to be a pitiless form of gladiatorial combat, with laurel garlands bestowed to the most witty, successful and attractive, and the corpses of the defeated lying bleeding on the painted floorboards.�

Beyond the writing, this is as realistic a portrayal of a family as I’ve read in a while: people who love each other, but sometimes don’t like each other. Each character is expertly drawn in all of their flawed and maddening splendor, yet each is eminently likable in their individuality.

'There's a saying, cited in popular song, that if you love someone you must set them free. Well, that's just nonsense. If you love someone, you bind them to you with heavy metal chains.'

And I love that Nicholls didn’t go for the wrapped-up ending with the big bow, years of conflict and discord suddenly forgotten and instead gives us truth and, in that, beauty, even if it isn’t always as we’d hoped for or imagined. If you want to know whether you’ll enjoy this story, read the passages/quotes and that will tell you all you need to know. For me, the entire book was wonderfully quotable.