The recap
On 15 July 1988, Emma Morley and Dexter Mayhew spend the night after their graduation together in Edinburgh, knowing that tomorrow they will go their separate ways. Emma is bookish, funny, idealistic and sure she is meant for something worthwhile; Dexter is handsome, privileged and drifting happily toward whatever comes easiest. Nicholls then checks in on the pair on that same date, year after year, for two decades. Some years find them sharing a holiday or a late-night phone call, others find them barely speaking; along the way come dead-end jobs, a glossy television career, unwise relationships, ambition and disappointment. Each chapter is a single snapshot, and the gaps between them become part of the story: what happened off the page, what was missed, what went unsaid. Warm and very funny, with a sharp eye for the ways people waste time and chances, it is a will-they-won't-they story stretched across twenty years of growing up.
Why read it
For readers who love slow-burn, will-they-won't-they stories and comic, clear-eyed writing about the messy business of growing up.
Fun facts
- 01
Every chapter is set on 15 July, St Swithin's Day; Nicholls needed a plausible mid-July graduation date and wanted an ordinary day rather than a big occasion like Christmas or Valentine's Day.
- 02
In 2010 it was voted Galaxy Book of the Year by the British reading public, ahead of a shortlist that included Stephen Fry, Hilary Mantel and Jonathan Franzen.
- 03
It was adapted as a 2011 film starring Anne Hathaway and Jim Sturgess, and again as a 2024 Netflix series.
