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Us

David Nicholls

3.71 · Rating details · 53,919 ratings · 5,244 reviews

Douglas Petersen may be mild-mannered, but behind his reserve lies a sense of humor that, against all odds, seduces beautiful Connie into a second date and eventually into marriage. Now, almost three decades after their relationship first blossomed in London, they live more or less happily in the suburbs with their moody seventeen-year-old son, Albie; then Connie tells him ...more

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Hardcover, 400 pages

Published September 30th 2014 by Hodder & Stoughton

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· 53,919 ratings · 5,244 reviews

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Oct 28, 2014 Jeffrey Keeten rated it really liked it

”’I was looking forward to us growing old together. Me and you, growing old and dying together.'

'Douglas, who in their right mind would look forward to that?’”

This was the conversation moments after Douglas Petersen’s wife rolls over in bed and informs him that she believes their marriage is finished. Their son Albie is a few weeks away from leaving for college and she “wants to feel this is the beginning of something new, not the beginning of the end.” For some people a conversation like this w ...more

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Aug 21, 2014 Anmiryam rated it it was amazing

Shelves: literary-2014, edelweiss, print-arc, popular-fiction, favorites

I approached this novel with some trepidation. True, it was selected for the Man Booker Prize Longlist, a prestigious honor to be sure, but in forums of readers who avidly follow the prize and try to consume the selected books, it was dismissed and denigrated. The snobbery arose from the aura left in the wake of Nicholls's previous bestseller, "One Day", which gave the book a miasma of being less than literary, a sop to populism on the prize list. I have to say, the jacket copy and blurbs from o I approached this novel with some trepidation. True, it was selected for the Man Booker Prize Longlist, a prestigious honor to be sure, but in forums of readers who avidly follow the prize and try to consume the selected books, it was dismissed and denigrated. The snobbery arose from the aura left in the wake of Nicholls's previous bestseller, "One Day", which gave the book a miasma of being less than literary, a sop to populism on the prize list. I have to say, the jacket copy and blurbs from other bestselling writers reinforced that impression.

Interesting -- what about this mainstream book destined for the bestseller list, and likely a movie adaptation, brought it to the attention of the Booker committee? It isn't the plot -- an awkward & conventional, but loving middle-aged white Englishman embarks on a trip around Europe to save his marriage and his relationship with his 17 year-old son. It isn't for literary daring -- Nicholls employs a single, reliable, first person narrative told in the past tense, to tell a story of mundane middle-class midlife transformation. No invented languages, no historical slight of hand or imagined dystopian future, or grand considerations of human nature. So what was it?

Flawless execution.

From the opening pages, Douglas's voice is engaging, warm and often funny. He is three-dimensional and alive, idiosyncratic and intelligent, able to provide insight into his motivations, but not always able to see a situation as others do. In short, he's as real a person you are likely to meet in the pages of a novel.

Nicholls manages, despite the limitations of a single point of view, to give us glimpses into Connie and Albie's perspectives on Douglas -- no one is a villain here and the tragedy of this family arises from misunderstood actions and ineffective communication. As the story progresses, Douglas inches towards greater honesty and self-knowledge as he struggles to salvage his family. The lightly comic tone progressively shades darker as the secrets and tragedies of the Petersen marriage and Douglas's failures as a parent are laid bare. You cringe at many of Douglas's actions and you get the sense that the Douglas, describing the seriocomic pilgrimage sometime after the events, cringes as well.

In some superficial ways "Us" resembles Emma Straub's "The Vacationers" -- a marriage on the brink, a child about to leave for college, a trip undertaken despite the stresses facing the family. In other respects it evokes Rachel Joyce's "The Unlikely Pilgrimage of Harold Fry" which also made the Booker list back in 2012. Fear not, "Us" stands on its own despite these resonances and in my opinion is a more satisfying read than either.

There are lots of other nice things I could say about "Us" -- it's a fabulous portrait of a marriage of opposites, a painful rendition of a father who wants to do well by his son, but can't seem to get it right, an effective use of different cities to set the mood -- but, the best I can really offer is to say, read this book when it comes out. I bet even if you don't think it deserves to be nominated for the Booker you will be surprised, impressed, engaged and entertained. As a bonus, if you care about such things, you'll discover near the end that Nicholls includes some nicely done nods to the construction of his fiction -- the stories that could have been instead of this one. It works, as so much else does in this charming and affecting novel.

Booker Prize? I doubt it. Bestseller with many fans? Absolutely.

...more

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Oct 18, 2014 Lynne King rated it it was amazing

Shelves: fiction-uk, favorites

A major error was pointed out by several GReaders for which I thank them and as a consequence I rewrote the review. I felt that my previous review did not do justice to the book.

I was looking forward to us growing old together. Me and you, growing old and dying together.

Douglas, who in their right mind would look forward to that?

Now that is indeed a strong statement and how would you, as a spouse/partner, relate to that when your fifty-four year old husband, healthy, an academic and cer ...more

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Jul 26, 2014 Dianne rated it it was amazing

Shelves: best-of-2015, booker-2014

I just finished reading this for a second time. I only do that with 5-star books and I am revising my rating accordingly. This book is wonderful!

It's the story of a marriage in peril, narrated by the husband, Douglas. He is a British biochemist - a man who is ruled by logic and scientific reason. Douglas is improbably married to Connie, an artist, who is laissez faire to the extreme. Indeed, these two could not be more polar opposites. They have a seventeen-year old son, Albie, who is of his mot ...more

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Oct 05, 2014 Ron Charles rated it really liked it

In hell, we’ll hear echoes of all the well-meaning criticism we gave our kids: every perfectly reasonable judgment on that T-shirt, that friend, that music, that mess, that earring, that homework!

But our intentions were good, right?

In David Nicholls’s new novel, “Us” — longlisted for this year’s Man Booker Prize — a father discovers just how much those intentions are worth to his hectored teenage son. This is the sort of witty book that guys should read the moment their partners say, “I’m pregna ...more

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Nov 08, 2015 Gabriela Silva rated it really liked it

Was it the happiest day of our lives? Probably not, if only because the truly happy days tend not to involve so much organisation, are rarely so public or so expensive. The happy ones sneak up, unexpected." ...more

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Sep 27, 2014 Phrynne rated it it was amazing

This is the first book I have read by this author and it will certainly not be my last. I loved it so much I ignored a million other things I should have been doing and read it from beginning to end in one day. The story is of a family breaking up and it should have been sad. In fact tears came to my eyes a few times. But overall the book is packed with humour mostly due to the lead character's inability to empathise fully with the rest of the human race. He frequently put me in mind of Don in T ...more

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Sep 24, 2014 Seemita rated it it was amazing

Shelves: uk, romance, humor, fiction, favorites, booker-sl-ll

Falling in love is a beautiful thing, more so when the love comes surreptitiously at your door which had opened many a times in past to find only empty autumns of loneliness and futile rains of solitude. Into such a heart, when love steps in, the heart does not remain the same, ever. Finding your reflection in another being becomes a hypnotic revelation, empowering you at once, to ironically, surrender your many identities to live in the nurturing shadow of your beloved. You accept sans hesitati Falling in love is a beautiful thing, more so when the love comes surreptitiously at your door which had opened many a times in past to find only empty autumns of loneliness and futile rains of solitude. Into such a heart, when love steps in, the heart does not remain the same, ever. Finding your reflection in another being becomes a hypnotic revelation, empowering you at once, to ironically, surrender your many identities to live in the nurturing shadow of your beloved. You accept sans hesitation, you relinquish without regret, you pursue without fatigue and you transform without ado. And when this spring continues to brighten your heart for seasons together, you lose track of the weather outside. You care no longer to check the forecast of the world beyond yourself, which still bears the unpredictability of floating emotional clouds. Being in love feels almost like a trance that you hope would never run out of steam.

But what if it does?

A reticent 30-year old research scientist, Douglas Petersen, meets a vivacious 28-year old artist, Connie Moore. Buoyed and drained by different drugs in life, they find a common drug that leaves them high for the next 24 years: love.

'...if only because the truly happy days tend not to involve so much organization, are rarely so public. The happy ones sneak up, unexpected."

During this long springy hangover in London, they gain and lose much. Besides togetherness and loyalty, they gain a handsome, albeit recalcitrant son, Albie. He abates the loss of their beautiful daughter, Jane, to some extent. But when it is time for the 17-year old Albie to attend university, the family decides to undertake a Grand Europe Tour as a farewell gift to Albie. Corrosively for Douglas, it also doubles up as his final bid to win Connie back who, days before the commencement of the tour, shares her long-tended contemplation of pursuing a separate, individual life after Albie’s departure.

'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 so begins a journey of epic proportions whose geographical vastness could only be countered by the stretch of emotional emptiness that Douglas had suddenly begun feeling like a lump in the rib. In the artistic corridors of Paris, on the cycling escapades of Munich, amidst the boisterous camaraderie of Amsterdam, over the splendorous rides of Venice and in the infectious effervescence of Madrid, he attempts to envelop his son in the friendship blanket by one hand while not losing grip on the love shield hoisted over his wife by the other. But are the attempts too little, too late?

'The heat and humidity were Amazonian and rubbing the skin on my perspiring forehead produced a grey scurf like the debris from a pencil eraser, the accumulated grime of seven nations.'

Is it possible to truly bask in an air of nostalgia if it does not leave the reassuring perfume of a loving present behind? How praiseworthy is a love that whisks away all our dreams because they find fulfillment in its refuge? Is wagering dreams for peace an act of cowardice? Should we pat our back if we receive eternal friendship in lieu of transient love? Who scores in the battle of unexpressed care and expressed scorn? Does communication, simply by its virtue of flowing, negate all its ill-effects? Nicholls swirls bubbles of profound thoughts towards us, which laced with witty humor, act as a mirror of life that laughs at us during our most sombre times; almost snatching control from our lives, like a perennial elder, whose children have suddenly developed the ephemeral hallucination of being their own bosses.

But again, like an elder, it senses our flights and falls and without fail, opens another window of our heart. What comes in, of course, is a criss-cross of reflected and refracted rays which, although radiantly complicated, alleviate the darkness and give us a season, yet again, to see and live in a new light. ...more

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Aug 12, 2014 Larry H rated it it was ok · review of another edition

Douglas Petersen is a mild-mannered biochemist in his early 50s. He craves order and although he thinks he has a good sense of humor and the ability to enjoy himself, he isn't one to loosen his inhibitions frequently, or give up plans for spontaneity. He and his wife, Connie, have a son, Albie, who is planning to go to college once the summer ends. And then one night, Douglas' life is upended when Connie awakens him.

"I said I think our marriage has run its course. Douglas, I think I want to leav Douglas Petersen is a mild-mannered biochemist in his early 50s. He craves order and although he thinks he has a good sense of humor and the ability to enjoy himself, he isn't one to loosen his inhibitions frequently, or give up plans for spontaneity. He and his wife, Connie, have a son, Albie, who is planning to go to college once the summer ends. And then one night, Douglas' life is upended when Connie awakens him.

"I said I think our marriage has run its course. Douglas, I think I want to leave you."

Connie's declaration throws Douglas completely for a loop. But she isn't ready to make a definitive decision on their marriage just yet. They had planned to take Albie on a European tour over the summer (which they nicknamed "The Grand Tour") in an effort to show him some of the world's greatest art, architecture, and history. Douglas has the entire trip planned down to the minute. Connie still wants to go on the trip, and not reveal their discussions to Albie, and when they return from their travels, she'll make a decision.

"To contemplate a life without her; I found it inconceivable. Literally so. I was not able to conceive of it. And so I decided that it could not be allowed to happen."

Douglas is determined to save his marriage, and approaches their trip with utter gusto. But Douglas' need to keep everyone on schedule, his obsessive reading travel and art history books and regurgitating the information at will, and his desire for order exacerbates many of the couple's problems, not to mention furthers the tension between him and Albie, whom Douglas believes has always favored his mother. And although they all try (Connie and Douglas more than Albie) to keep on trying, it isn't long before everything goes horribly awry.

Us is the story of a man always in control who finds a situation he cannot control—and one he cares about more than everything. He wants to prove to Connie that she shouldn't give up on their relationship, and he is determined to try to salvage his relationship with his son. But can a person really change their nature? Can the issues that have arisen throughout a relationship suddenly disappear?

The book switches between past and present, with Douglas chronicling The Grand Tour and the events they encounter, as well as reminiscing about their relationship from the start, when the two wholly different people met and charmed each other into eventually building a life together. Douglas certainly sees the tensions and issues that have occurred through the years, but for a man who is so intelligent, he isn't particularly observant or attuned to his emotions or others'.

David Nicholls' One Day was one of the best books I read in 2010, and the movie was one of my favorites as well. Needless to say, I was eagerly anticipating this book, but sadly, I found myself really disappointed. I thought the book went on for far too long and just kept repeating the same themes—Douglas cannot be spontaneous, Connie is frustrated by this, Douglas gets upset with Albie, etc. Even certain incidents in the plot seemed straight out of central casting—saying the wrong things when attempting to speak a foreign language, getting stoned in Amsterdam and running into prostitutes, etc.

But the biggest problem I had with Us was that the book was narrated by Douglas, and I didn't really like his character very much. Sure, he's self-deprecating, and knows what his shortcomings are, but I didn't find him particularly sympathetic—in fact, I didn't love any of the characters. I'm sad that I didn't enjoy it, but other reviews I've seen on Amazon really had, so maybe suddenly all of my sappiness disappeared... ...more

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Jul 23, 2014 Julie rated it it was amazing

Shelves: read-2014, best-of-2014, contemporary-fiction, european-setting-multiple-countries, british-isles-theme-setting

There is something marvelously cathartic about Us. David Nicholls, graced by both Thalia and Melpomene, succeeds in making a tender salad out of raw satire. Humor, whether it’s on the page or the screen, is so hard to do well. When it works, really truly works, we’re wiping away tears of hilarity mingled with tears of sadness. Because what makes us laugh most deeply, what brings on that cathartic release, is comedy and tragedy sharing the stage.

Douglas Petersen is in his early fifties and his w ...more

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Nov 16, 2014 Reeka (BoundbyWords) rated it it was ok

Shelves: adult-fiction, arc, i-dont-get-the-hype, contemporary, read-in-2014

As seen on my blog:

2.5 STARS
I tried to give love another chance. The love for David Nicholls' books that is. I will admit, I liked Us many degrees more than I enjoyed the mess that was One Day , and even laughed at loud on more than one occasion. But as a whole, Us was a self-indulgent, teeth grinder of a book. The main character was a mess, and rightly so, because his wife and son's characters were pretty much the scum of the earth.

I have never felt more inclined to throw a book ...more

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May 12, 2014 Diane S ☔ rated it liked it

3.5 Douglas, a bit of a nerd but so still in love with his wife, I immediately took to his character. Loved the dry wit in which this story is told and all the talk about art on their travels through Europe. But I had a big problem relating to the main premise of this novel. After being told his wife wants to leave him, she talks him into going on their planned trip with their son albie. I tried to picture myself or my husband going off on a major holiday after this type of discussion and just c ...more

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Apr 27, 2019 Éimhear (A Little Haze) rated it did not like it · review of another edition

Shelves: owned-or-preordered

This was a well written book with reference to the quality of the prose, its poignancy, its deconstruction of a marriage... So I can well understand how it was long listed for the Booker Prize back in whatever year that was... but my god did I hate this book. I hated it. It felt like some sort of slow torture... which admittedly might have been David Nicholls' aim because it is about the minutiae of the ugliness of family life... but I still hated it. It felt painfully repetitive to me. I mean h ...more

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Nov 25, 2015 PattyMacDotComma rated it it was amazing

Shelves: award-win-listed, chcc-library, older-folks, fiction-adult, favourites-adult

5★

Touching, funny, sad and extremely frustrating. I kept thinking “NO, Douglas! Don’t SAY that! Just stop! ARGH$#!”

But that’s the point. Connie loves Douglas in spite of his obsessive nagging and worrying, which is nothing like that of her arty-party London friends. She’s pretty and popular, he’s nerdy and not. Miss Extrovert, meet Mr Asperger. But he’s smart and can make a battery out of a lemon!

He tells us compared to his A4 sheet of past relationships, she has a three-drawer filing cabinet. ...more

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Sep 25, 2014 Kelly (and the Book Boar) rated it really liked it

Shelves: read-in-2014, arcs

Find all of my reviews at: http://52bookminimum.blogspot.com/

Douglas and Connie have been married for a small eternity. They’re about to become empty nesters once their son leaves home and Douglas is excited to start a new chapter in their lives. Connie is excited about starting a new chapter too . . . she just doesn’t want Douglas to be included in her book any longer. With a family holiday already planned and booked, Douglas sets his sights on changing Connie’s mind and winning her back. But i ...more

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Mar 07, 2021 Lisa rated it liked it · review of another edition

[3.3] Us is an assemblage of scenes from a courtship, marriage and parenthood. Witty and tender, not many novels follow a relationship and its unraveling so exhaustively. There were parts that resonated deeply with me. Unfortunately, by the halfway point, its 400 pages became plodding and repetitious. And I had only one thought for both the marriage and the book - Get it over with!

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Oct 04, 2014 Bonnie Brody rated it it was ok

I loved 'One Day' by David Nicholls and approached this book with enthusiastic anticipation. Unfortunately, I was disappointed. I found the characters dull and prosaic, lacking the ability to to garner my interest.

Douglas, the male protagonist, is a biochemist with as much personality as moss. His wife, Connie is two-dimensional. Once an artist and party animal, she now works in a gallery. As the book opens, Connie tells Douglas "I think our marriage has run its course. Douglas, I think I want t ...more

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Sep 08, 2014 Mish rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

Shelves: favourite, fiction, humour, drama, romance

US is poignant, convincing and laugh out loud hilarious novel that give us an intimate insight into a 25 year marriage – a marriage that’s run its course.

Douglas and Connie Petersen are preparing for the ‘Grand Tour’ across Europe, taking their 17-year-old son, Albie, before leaving home for university. This will be their last tour together as a whole family, and to educate, prepare Albie for his departure. However, at 4am one morning Connie drops a bombshell; she tells Douglas she can’t see the US is poignant, convincing and laugh out loud hilarious novel that give us an intimate insight into a 25 year marriage – a marriage that’s run its course.

Douglas and Connie Petersen are preparing for the ‘Grand Tour’ across Europe, taking their 17-year-old son, Albie, before leaving home for university. This will be their last tour together as a whole family, and to educate, prepare Albie for his departure. However, at 4am one morning Connie drops a bombshell; she tells Douglas she can’t see the rest of her life with him, once Albie is gone, and is thinking of a divorce. But they’ve both agreed for Albie sake, they should continue with the ‘Grand Tour’, as planned.

US is narrated by Douglas as they journey across Europe, who believes he will win back the heart of his wife and to restore the gap between his son by his meticulously planned trip. But the harder he tried, the worse it got; accidently booking an undesirable hotel in Amsterdam, being stung by jellyfish in Barcelona, a run in with irate bikers, and generalLY saying wrong things that would get up Connie’s nose, and would ultimately drive his son away to travel with an accordion busker.

At the beginning of US, I couldn’t understand why Connie would want to leave this him. Douglas seemed like a decent man, and in his own awkwardness, he does make Connie laugh. I thought her reason to ‘rediscover herself’ was a bit selfish. Why couldn’t she do it with Douglas?

Through alternative chapters, Douglas reminisces of the time they first met and the years that follow. Douglas is biochemist, and what I’d describe as plain, straight-laced type of guy, a bit pedantic and likes order. Whereas Connie is the artistic type, spontaneous and free spirited in nature but beautiful lady - and Albie’s inherited Connie’s free spirited nature. Even though they are poles apart, Connie found these traits in Douglas so appealing, and they clicked. It wasn’t until the later parts of their marriage, when they came together to make important decision - such as parenting issue, job security and home relocation - that their differing values collided; and that included Douglas relationship with his son. The entire family dynamics felt so draining for all parties, and I could see where Connie was coming from.

US is a simple story and while it’s hilarious at times it did give my heart a gentle tug. Douglas voice had appeal and honesty that was so engaging and being married for 25 years, a few of issues that were brought up felt real and relatable.

Superb novel. It has now made me want to read ONE DAY.
...more

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Sep 02, 2014 Michael Robotham rated it it was amazing

I loved ONE DAY and this book is equally good. Poignant. Funny. Moving. Surprising. David Nicholls creates fantastic characters, who are flawed and infuriating, but very easy to care about.

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Jun 24, 2021 Anne (On semi-hiatus) rated it liked it

Shelves: 2021

3.5 stars

52 year old Douglas narrates this book and it starts out hilarious. David Nicholls' wit is on full display. I was laughing out loud. As the narrative progresses there are fewer and fewer laughs and more poignancy. Douglas is a scientist while his wife Connie is an artist now working as a rep for other artists. They've been married for 20 years and have one teenage son, Albie. At the start of the book Connie wakes up Douglas to say that she thinks she wants them to separate. Douglas is d ...more

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Sep 05, 2017 Gemma rated it really liked it

Shelves: uk

Us is a novel about a marriage in crisis. It’s well-paced, humorous and contains many great insights about marital life. Connie, who works in an art gallery, tells her husband, Douglas, a biochemist, she wants to leave him. This happens just before they are about to embark on a grand tour of Europe together. Douglas persuades Connie that they need not cancel their holiday.

The narrative alternates between past and present. Nichols is particularly good at dialogue and finding the humour in typica ...more

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Mar 24, 2017 Eddie Owens rated it it was ok

This review has been hidden because it contains spoilers. To view it, click here. I think I'm done with David Nicholls.

I enjoyed Starter for Ten and One Day was ok, but The Understudy was rank, and now this.

There is a blurb on the front cover calling it "The perfect book". His mum must have written it.

This is meant to be a love story but it's really not. Douglas and Connie would never be together. She is an arty. bohemian type who hates him and only gets married to put some structure in her shitty life.

Then Connie hates herself for giving up on her dreams, so she spends her I think I'm done with David Nicholls.

I enjoyed Starter for Ten and One Day was ok, but The Understudy was rank, and now this.

There is a blurb on the front cover calling it "The perfect book". His mum must have written it.

This is meant to be a love story but it's really not. Douglas and Connie would never be together. She is an arty. bohemian type who hates him and only gets married to put some structure in her shitty life.

Then Connie hates herself for giving up on her dreams, so she spends her life belittling Douglas and winding him up.

Douglas is the scientist who can't believe that this beautiful women would deign to shag him, let alone marry him, so he is obsessed by her.

It's not impossible for different types to be together, but it's got to be based on more than one partner's schoolboy crush. See Arthur Miller and Marilyn Monroe.

On every page, Douglas bores on about how much he loves Connie and how great things were once upon a time. But then, when he tells the story in flashbacks, things were never great; they were always horrible and awkward. He hates her friends, her lifestyle, her family, her books, her music and the list is endless.

The book itself reminds me of certain other things, like Burton and Taylor in Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf, and Taylor's depiction of the mad harpy. Also, with all the navel gazing, I was reminded of Tony Parsons' book Man and Wife. Is Nicholls aware of these things when he's writing?

There are the usual contrived Nicholls' scenes of embarrassment: sunburn on one side of your face, a middle aged man wearing ridiculous clothes - don't ask - getting arrested in Italy, stung by jellyfish, eating red hot chilis and making a scene in a restaurant, etc, etc. And of course it all happens to Douglas, not the perfect Connie.

Things do happen to people, just not in the ways described by the author.

I've tried several books now and I am bored by the style and the repetition.

I only stuck with this book because I wanted to see if he mentioned any of the places that I'd been to in Italy. In the end, I wished, I'd just reviewed my holiday snaps on my phone. ...more

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Aug 12, 2015 Maria Espadinha rated it really liked it · review of another edition

Marriage and the Common Case of Unexpressed Identity

The nerd type of guy can easily fall for a glamorous artistic moody beautiful woman!
It's an obviously expected event, cos we can see it as a simple case of physics applied to human relations.
A very simple case indeed -- the one that joins protons and electrons to balance the unbalanced
That's what happenned in the Us of Connie and Doug -- individually they were unbalanced, but together they conquered some stability.

However, for the moody kind, r ...more

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Oct 02, 2014 Victoria rated it really liked it · review of another edition

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 ...more

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Nov 02, 2014 Sarah rated it it was ok

Read this and other reviews at Ampersand Read.

Ah, the Petersons. What a set of messed up hooligans. Here is the central issue with why everyone just can't quite get along: Douglas is a hapless scientist, who just wants everyone to like him. Connie is artistic, dreamy, messy, and doesn't like to be shown the concrete of things all the time. Albie, their son, takes after Connie. Plus, he's a teenager, so he's got that not going for him.

Everyone annoys each other here, and they all ganged up to ann Read this and other reviews at Ampersand Read.

Ah, the Petersons. What a set of messed up hooligans. Here is the central issue with why everyone just can't quite get along: Douglas is a hapless scientist, who just wants everyone to like him. Connie is artistic, dreamy, messy, and doesn't like to be shown the concrete of things all the time. Albie, their son, takes after Connie. Plus, he's a teenager, so he's got that not going for him.

Everyone annoys each other here, and they all ganged up to annoy me as a reader.

Now, Nicholls also wrote One Day, a heartbreaking, interestingly formatted novel about two people who just can't stay apart. It was made into a meh movie with Anne Hathaway and Jim Sturgess (that guy from Across the Universe). Nicholls was great with that one.

And in this one...I hated everyone. Which bums me out to say, but...every single one of the Petersons is awful. At first I thought it was just Connie and Albie. They were downright terrible to Douglas! And they were pretty awful people. I could give a little leeway to Albie because he was a Teenage Character going through a "Phase" (you know, the stereotypical one where one hates ones parents, although in this case he only really hates Douglas). But Connie...she looks down on her husband with derision throughout the entire novel. Any expression of affection is done in a pitying way. Even during flashbacks, where we supposedly see the days they were the most happiest, she's a stuck up woman who thinks Douglas is merely cute and clever. Whereas Douglas is just besotted, and perpetually in a can't-believe-a-woman-this-beautiful-could-be-into-me state of mind.

When Douglas messes up, Connie and Albie join in on shaking their heads, locking their doors, shutting him out. At no point in the novel did I sympathize with either of them. Why would Douglas want to keep these kind of poisonous relationships around, is what I actually thought at one point. Bad, I know.

And then I didn't like Douglas. Because he's just so darn affable. He wants so very badly to make this all right (when he's done actually very little to deserve such derision), that he steps over the line of sympathy. At just the moment I was about to give up on him (and, perhaps, the book), he does start to build up a spine. He rallies. He goes after something. Which had me cheering for him again. Okay, I thought. I could get behind this character. I could want him to be happy again, even if its with these nasty people. But even that's not enough. Because Douglas is like a sad puppy. And when someone shows that they don't like him again, he goes back to being a doormat. The ending is a sad, flat note on a family that already had a dismal outlook. ...more

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Sep 29, 2020 Ken rated it really liked it · review of another edition

Douglas has planned a trip around Europe as a perfect remedy for his failing marragie to Connie.
The Grand Tour is devised after Connie wants to leave him seeing as their son Albie also also set to depart the family home for college.
Surly this failsafe plan of bring the three together will succeed...

The trip seems to be going quite well on their first stop in Paris, though teenager Albie would quite like to do his own thing in the French capital.
It's the train journey to Amsterdam where the first ...more

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Jul 23, 2014 Rebecca rated it really liked it

Shelves: booker-longlisted, read-via-edelweiss, reviewed-bookbag

Mild-mannered biochemist Douglas Petersen hopes to reconnect with his wife and distant teenage son during an elaborate European tour. This Booker-longlisted follow-up to Nicholls’s bestselling One Day is a charming but unsentimental look at a family in crisis. The plot may sound terribly clichéd – and at first I indeed feared that that would be the case – but the deft mixture of past and present and Douglas’s endearing first-person narration save the novel from being mundane.

I found it to be a v ...more

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Jul 22, 2019 Swaroop rated it really liked it

A very well written book! humor and laughter in times of pain and heartbreak... I am not sure if I can ever be like that, but Douglas has handled this pain so well.

We, humans, endure so much of pain for love...

This book is indeed worth a re-read, maybe in few weeks. Thank you David Nicholls for Us. ...more

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Dec 26, 2014 Algernon (Darth Anyan) rated it liked it

Shelves: 2015

Thou only has taught me that I have a heart – thou only hast thrown a light deep downward and upward into my soul. Thou only hast revealed me to myself; for without thy aid my best knowledge of myself would have been merely to know my own shadow – to watch it flickering on the wall, and mistake its fantasies for my own real actions ...
Now, dearest, dost thou understand what thou hast done for me? And is it not a somewhat fearful thought, that a few slight circumstances might have prevented us f ...more

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Sep 24, 2014 Violet wells rated it it was ok

Shelves: contemporary-british-fiction, 21st-century

There was much to admire about One Day, not least of all the brilliant one-liners about contemporary relationships, so I thought maybe Nicholls might have ironed out some of the faults of that novel and come up with something more comprehensively worthy of praise. However my overriding emotion while reading this novel was exasperation. How much you enjoy Us will be hugely dependent on how much sympathy you have for its narrator, Douglas Petersen.

Douglas is an industrial biochemist (though he co There was much to admire about One Day, not least of all the brilliant one-liners about contemporary relationships, so I thought maybe Nicholls might have ironed out some of the faults of that novel and come up with something more comprehensively worthy of praise. However my overriding emotion while reading this novel was exasperation. How much you enjoy Us will be hugely dependent on how much sympathy you have for its narrator, Douglas Petersen.

Douglas is an industrial biochemist (though he comes across more as a prim and proper civil servant from the 1950s) so veers towards the cliché of the emotionally retarded scientist (except his intellect is at best mediocre and only scientific in the most humdrum manner); his wife was once an artist – yin and yang in other words. Their marriage bumbles along until one night Connie tells him she wants to leave him. Her discontent exacerbated by Douglas’ hapless antagonistic relationship with his son. Nicholls does himself no favours with the suffocating limitations imposed on him by his emotionally retarded narrator - to my mind, Nicholls unnecessarily magnifies the emotional haplessness of Douglas to the point of caricature. Douglas’ expectations are more often than not as self-righteous as they are absurd. He expects reward from pretty much his every gesture as if daily life is a scratchcard. He is left flailing and stunned by his son’s inability to see his ridiculous exhortations. He humiliates his son and wife in public and then blunders into repeating the faux pas again and again. And this is where the exasperation kicks in - there’s so little character development on his part for so long that the narrative becomes stiflingly predictable. When he goes to Florence his overriding memory is of the human statues outside the Uffizi. That alone for me would be grounds for his wife divorcing him!

It’s a really well structured novel. The now and then are seamlessly and artfully dovetailed together and the narrative also has a good easy flow to it. But it’s a very safe novel, little more than fluffy romantic comedy. Aimed, one suspects, at pleasing women, like One Day. But I’m not sure it has any new insights to offer on married life. Good novelists find largesse in the small; when Nicholls writes about the small in this novel it kind of stays small. Yes, now and again an incident of marital conflict will arouse a small smile of recognition but it’s more Coronation Street than Anna Karenina.
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About David Nicholls

David Nicholls

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David Nicholls is a British author, screenwriter, and actor. A student of Toynbee Comprehensive school and Barton Peveril Sixth Form College, he Graduated from the University of Bristol having studied English Literature and Drama.

After graduation, he won a scholarship to study at the American Musical and Dramatic Academy in New York, before returning to London in 1991 and finally earning an Equity ...more

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“From an evolutionary point of view, most emotions - fear, desire, anger - serve some practical purpose, but nostalgia is a useless, futile thing because it is a longing for something that is permanently lost . . . .” — 61 likes

“Was it the happiest day of our lives? Probably not, if only because the truly happy days tend not to involve so much organisation, are rarely so public or so expensive. The happy ones sneak up, unexpected.” — 35 likes

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