Sweet Sorrow

February 10, 2020
A teenager experiences heady first love amid an amateur Shakespeare production in this amusing coming-of-age novel from Nicholls (One Day). Sixteen-year-old Charlie Lewis, certain he failed his school exams, spends the summer of 1997 working under the table at a small-town gas station, “too far away from London to be a suburb” and “too developed to count as countryside.” There, he avoids caring for his unemployed father while stealing small sums of cash to cover household expenses. When he meets Fran Fisher, a girl his age from a much nicer private school, he gets swept into participating in a production of Romeo and Juliet. Fran and Charlie have delightful banter as their attraction blooms, and he builds rapport with the other actors while hiding his participation from his boorish school friends. After his boss uncovers his gas station thefts, the fallout has consequences, not the least being the ruin of a carefully planned weekend of sexual exploration with Fran. While the story lopes along fairly predictably, Nicholls excels at capturing Charlie’s insecurity, the messy exuberance of first love, and the coarseness of teenage male friendships. This doesn’t quite reach the heights of Nicholls’s previous work, but it is a good deal of fun. Agent: Deborah Schneider, Gelfman Schneider Literary Agents.

This audiobook is an absolute delight. Rory Kinnear's performance is smart, observant, and incredibly funny. Portraying Charlie, a teenage boy who is wrestling with an unstable family, an uncertain future, and an all-consuming love for Fran, the girl of his dreams, Kinnear walks the line between perfect comedy and astute empathy. His comfort with Charlie's awkwardness and his ability to leap headlong into all kinds of lively dialogue make the plot irresistible. Set against the backdrop of a summer stage production of--what else?--ROMEO AND JULIET, the novel is compassionate and charming. Kinnear takes Nicholls's clever story and brings it to three-dimensional life. No matter how many characters fill a scene, Kinnear gives each one a distinct spotlight. Indeed, SWEET SORROW deserves the same attention from listeners. L.B.F. Winner of AudioFile Earphones Award � AudioFile 2020, Portland, Maine