This was a unique story that is told in different threads, but the author did a nice job of weaving all of the stories together. The characters are unusual and all very different. I loved trying to piece the story together while reading it.

3.5 stars

Unfortunately this book was not for me, it was a bit slower than I would like and it just didn't hold my attention. I am sure other people will love it!

Loved this quirky and smart romance that follows four very different "couples" as they navigate love's storms. Set in London, there is humor here, and also heart. Very enjoyable read. Thank you NetGalley and publishers for providing a digital ARC for review.

The Shape of Us is a quirky little London life and love novel. A bit TOO quirky for me i daresay. I just found the characters a bit much for me and couldn't get into it.

Thank you to the publisher for providing an ARC in exchange for an honest review.

A lovely, emotive read. I thought that Drew Davies brought the emotion behind the storyline to life, and it probably helped that the author seemed very in tune with his own thoughts and feelings. I did find it a little bit slow at times and felt myself floundering, but all in all, a pleasant read.

In this book, we follow different characters in parallel. Once they'd been introduced, I couldn't help but wonder if their roads would cross. I think I read until the first half of the book and put the book aside. I felt that at some point, they would meet, but I was tired to wait. I liked the characters except for Adam as I couldn't find an explanation for his attitude, and at the end, still, don't understand why he did that.
I almost did not finish, but in the end, I did not regret forcing myself to the end.
From the beginning, I couldn't help but comparing this book to Anna Gavalda's "Hunting and Gathering". I found the same kind of humor, how the author loves his characters. I don't want to spoil, but I relished the ending that got me quite emotional.

My Rating : 3🌟
I am not a huge fan of third person narrative, but this story was something cute and I definitely enjoyed the characters more than the storyline and how it came together.

Detailed review will be up soon !

A wonderful book about the lives of four very different main characters who all live in London. The stories are all connected by the theme of love and some connecting characters mingle thorough their stories.
The main characters are Jojo, a woman in later life trying to hold onto her marriage. Is that what she really wants? Will she succeed?
Dylan is a young man struggling with the normal teenage problems but also ME and coming to terms with the fact that his father is parenting him alone after his mother left them. How will he cope?
Daisy is just starting a new relationship with Chris. Will they survive the troubles the encounter on the path to true love?
Finally, Adam, who was my favourite character. He has just lost his job. He is scared and does not know how to admit this to his flat mate. So he doesn’t. He continues to go to work every day as though it hasn’t happened. Will he get away with the pretence?
A wonderful book, very funny at times but also touching moments as well. Highly recommend.
Thanks to NetGalley for a Kindle copy of this book in exchange for an honest review.

As soon as I heard about this book I knew it was one I would have to read. There are inevitable comparisons to be made with Love Actually. We have a number of characters, who don’t seem to be linked to the other characters, until all of a sudden Drew Davies dropped a little nugget into the story that made me think, “oh!”. It has that kind of clever plot that I enjoy.

Then there’s the fact that it’s set almost entirely in London. The author himself says it’s a love letter to London and it’s certainly that.

I really enjoyed the characterisations in this book. I particularly liked Daisy and Chris, two people who seem destined to be together but have quite a few hurdles to overcome before that. And I loved JoJo, a woman whose husband is playing away. She doesn’t want to lose him and her way of dealing with that is brilliant. She’s also incredibly straight-talking which I thought was great.

Dylan is a lovely lad, a teenager dealing with a debilitating illness. And then there’s Adam, whose motivations I didn’t quite understand but whom I couldn’t help but like just the same.

I really enjoyed the story, the interconnecting threads worked so well and I liked zipping back and forth between them, slowly bringing all those threads together.

I found this book to be amusing and I smiled quite a lot when I was reading it. But it’s also got its serious side, after all, this is a book about relationships, family, love, loss and other such important life issues.

The Shape of Us is a lovely, heartfelt look at everyday life in London, reminding us that there’s so much strength in each of us. It’s a story that is funny and moving in equal measures and I really enjoyed reading it. I shall look forward to seeing what the author comes up with next.

An enjoyable and funny read with well rounded characters. I sped through the pages and felt really invested and hopeful for their stories. There are several story lines to follow and they all converge at the end, which I found really interesting. Lighthearted and easy to read!

Thank you to Bookouture for providing me with an advanced copy of Drew Davies’ novel, The Shape of Us, in exchange for an honest review.

PLOT - The Shape of Us follows the lives of several Londoners, as they experience major life changes; such as new love, separation, and grief.

LIKE - The Shape of Us reminded me of one of my favorite films, Love, Actually. Both stories are set in England, but more that, the similarities are in tone, with different characters/plots offering different moods. For example, in Davies’ novel, we have a newly involved couple, Daisy and Chris, whose story is primarily light-hearted. Chris does have a tragic backstory, which I will not spoil, but for most of the novel their interactions are sweet and light, two people who are attracted to each other and are fumbling through the early stages of a relationship. On the other end of the spectrum, we have a teenager named Dylan, who is ill and has a crush on a slightly older woman, who has helped him conquer the fears of his illness, but is also very sick herself. Additionally, Dylan has been abandoned by his mother and is being raised by his single father. Every story in The Shape of Us has a mix of seriousness and humor, but Dylan’s is a touch darker than the rest.

The most bizarre character is Adam. Adam has recently become unemployed and is having a tough time rebounding. He finds an employee key card and manages to gain access to the offices of a very prestigious company where he would love to work. Adam takes a chance and uses the card, passing himself off as the card’s owner. Adam keeps pushing his luck, by entering the building at night and snooping through the computers, in which he discovers that some employees are up to no good. If he speaks out, he will blow his cover and possibly go to jail. He is a man who is very lost and continuing to become more muddled with each passing day.

Davis begins each chapter with a few paragraphs about Londoners and living in London. It provides a wonderful touchstone that brought me back to the strong setting for the stories, making London itself, another character. London is one of my favorite places and I thoroughly enjoyed reading about the city. Davis really showcases the vibrancy of London and its equally colorful inhabitants.

DISLIKE- I very much enjoyed The Shape of Us, but I was irked by the book’s tagline = “Not All Love Stories Are Heart-Shaped.” This makes it seem like a cliche love-story, which it is not. This tagline is selling the novel short. The cover with a heart-shaped hot air balloon does not help either. Please know that Davis’ writing is witty and complex, far better than his book cover implies. His writing reminded me of Nick Hornby, whom I adore.

RECOMMEND- Yes. ignore the cover and buy The Shape of Us. It’s quirky, emotional, and delightful.

This is the story of four Londoners all looking for love. Daisy has just started dating Chris, Jojo is in her sixties but her husband's is seeing another woman, Adam has lost his job but is pretending to still go to work everyday and Dylan is a teenager with ME watching the world out of his window. Through alternating chapters you find out the background and stories of each of the characters and their quest for love.

A lovely book full of humour and great characters that you care about and are rooting for... especially Jojo for me.

What a fun and entertaining read! Four different people who are dealing with some bumpy times in their lives and the ways they go about trying to resolve them or just get through them. The stories of each of these people were well written and mostly believable. The characters were all likeable and I found myself hoping things would work out for each of them. This is NOT a book of short stories, it is an entire novel with alternating chapters about each of the characters. Strongly recommend.

Drew Davies has amazing teeth. Actually, I have no idea. I hope he does. What I do know for sure is the Davies has written an intricate, engaging story of very different individuals all seeking love, all finding their own ways apart and together in shifting relationships and surprising realizations. I don't want to give too much away, but the different voices and lives wind up woven together in a magnificent, shimmering whole with laughter, tears, heartache, and jolts of recognition all along the way. I loved reading the story and hated finishing it and leaving behind a vivid, wonderful world--which is how I came to read the back matter and learn about Davies obsession with his teeth...Highly recommended. Light. Fast. Delightful. A heartfelt thank you to NetGalley and Drew Davies for an electronic ARC of this book in exchange for my honest review.

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An enjoyable and entertaining read.
Although the book followed the story of a few different characters it was easy to keep up with and well written.

Several story lines all illustrating the windy, weird and different path that each of us has on our way to finding love.

This book by Drew Davies definitely isn’t run of the mill, we get to find out about Dylan’s struggle with love, Daisy’s on off relationships, JoJo’s fight to regain lost love and Adam’s struggle to win at life. Its nice to pick up the clues of their intertwining stories and see where they lead. I voluntarily read and reviewed an advanced copy of this book. All thoughts and opinions are my own.

I absolutely love discovering new authors and Drew Davies is certainly a new author. I haven’t actually come across him before (sorry Drew) but I loved the sound of this book and I knew that I had to read it as soon as I could. I am so glad that I did because I did really enjoy reading it but more about that in a bit.
I absolutely loved the four main characters in this book and I really felt for them. The four characters are called Daisy, Dylan, JoJo and Adam. Each are lonely and each character is looking for love. I could empathise with that but that’s all I am going to say on that front. I did warm to some characters more than others. I couldn’t help feeling for JoJo especially given the circumstances of her prospective affair. I think that part of the reason why I took to JoJo so much because she is that bit older than the other characters and at her age, she should be with somebody who values her and puts her on a pedestal. Above all she and the other three characters deserve to be happy
I picked up this book at the right sort of time for me. I was feeling pretty fed up, cold, in pain and in need of a distraction. This book certainly gave me something else to think about and it definitely distracted me. I was drawn into this book from the first sentence and by the end of the first page it’s safe to say that I had become addicted to reading this book. The more I read, the more I got into the story and the more I had to read. I just had to keep reading to see if the characters got the happiness that they deserved. It didn’t seem to take me that long to get through the book and I didn’t realise how quickly I was reading until the moment I looked up and was stunned to see that I was 40% through the book. I The characters seemed so real that it was almost as if they had jumped off the page and were just as realistic as you and I. By the end of the book I did feel as though all of the main characters were now my friends.
For me, ‘The Shape Of Us’ is very well written. The author entices you in from the start and before you know it, you are addicted to the story. The author has written about real characters in real situations. The author writes compassionately and sensitively but he also writes with a large dose of humour, which I love. I don’t like reading books that take themselves too seriously.
In short, I really, really enjoyed reading ‘The Shape Of Us’ and I would definitely recommend it to other readers. I can’t wait to read more from Drew Davies and here’s hoping that we don’t have too long to wait until his next book. The score on the Ginger Bok Geek board is a very well deserved 4* out of 5*.

This story revolves around five people: Daisy and Chris, who start dating after a chance encounter on a London street. Then there’s Adam who, having lost his job at a digital advertising agency, soon finds himself getting up each day to go to the office anyway. JoJo’s trying to win back her husband from his much-younger mistress; while teenager Dylan, who has been house-bound with chronic fatigue syndrome, falls for an older woman.
This is a clever, character-driven story with a unique writing style and a quirky cast. Adam’s storyline was my favourite and it was a delight to wait with anticipation to find out how the characters became connected.