I couldn’t even finish this trite and banal coming-of-age tale – although I did skip to the end to see what happened and to find out if I wanted to persevere. I didn’t. Tedious self-indulgent ramblings from a tedious self-indulgent teenager looking back on the big romance of his youth. Nothing and no one engaged me, I wasn’t interested in the narrative, such as it was, and so I gave up. Unconvincing and uninteresting.

I have read all of David Nichols books and enjoy his writing style. This book is all about one summer for a 16 year old boy who seems to have his life crashing around him and then finds his first love. It was good. It was easy to read, but it wasn't particularly exciting. A perfect example of how important a person can be for a period of your life, and then they just fade into your past along with everything else. Such is life.

A truthful funny look at adolescence with love humor and the myriad of emotions that students feel. All teens and former teens should read this first great coming of age novel of the new decade.

David Nicholls writes a sweet, nostalgic coming of age story of first love, a heady affair composed of teenage angst, insecurities, fear, jealousies, fraught emotions and all the mass of confusion that besets the teenage soul at the tender age of sixteen. In the present, Charlie Fisher is preparing to get married, but can't help looking back to 1997, school had broken, aware he has not done well, an endless summer lies in front of him, unsure of what the future holds for him but feeling that desperat sense of dread. His mother has left his depressed and unemployed father for another man, leaving Charlie with the responsibility of caring for him. He works at a petrol station where he runs a scam, socialising with his gang of three male friends. Charlie bumps into Fran Fisher, falling for her, but there is a fly in the ointment.

The only way he can get to know her is to take part in the theatre company's production of Romeo and Juliet, playing Benvolio to Fran's Juliet. This is not a picture of himself that sits easily with him, but for love, he is prepared to make a fool of himself, whilst keeping his participation a secret to avoid becoming a laughing stock amongst his friends. As Fran coaches him, a relationship develops between the two. This is a lovely, if over familiar storytelling, an enjoyable read but not one that imprints itself enough to be memorable. However, I am sure many other readers will love it. Many thanks to the publisher for an ARC.

Sweet Sorrow took me a while to get into - because it's slow-moving, and for another reason that at first I couldn't put my finger on, but by page 200 I'd finally unpicked; it reads like a memoir, and autobiography. The tone, the style, the structure, all read like a memoir - and I wonder how far the truth in that goes? The timing's out a little; Charlie is almost my age - five years older, 16 in 1997 - but it could still work... It's certainly a very honest account of how it feels to be sixteen and, frankly, lost. That strange summer between leaving school and GCSE results, not knowing who you are or who you want to be, but stuck on an inevitable trajectory from one life to the other, from one side to the other, childhood to adulthood. And Charlie, too, has a messy home life to contend with, parents separated, friendships lacking. David Nicholls pinpoints those feelings exactly, astutely, working them into an engaging narrative. What suddenly struck me about three quarters of the way into the book is that my daughter is only 5 years younger than the characters, that I was only 5 years older when she was born - a mind blown kind of moment, a sudden shock of our place in the world. I remember being 16 vividly; where have the years gone?! Sweet Sorrow is a story about first love, about the fascination with the feeling, virginity, and it's also about first friendship, the kind of friendship where you let yourself go no acts. It's about standing on the brink, a crossroads in your life, and finding something that takes your fancy, something scary and new. It's a perfect book for this time of year - bleached with summer sun and long evenings, hay bales and open countryside; groggy mornings of hangovers and regret, the sun rising too soon.