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Sweet Sorrow

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Sweet Sorrow

By: David Nicholls
Narrated by: Rory Kinnear
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About this listen

One life-changing summer, Charlie meets Fran...David Nicholls’s highly anticipated new novel, narrated by Rory Kinnear.

In 1997, Charlie Lewis is the kind of boy you don't remember in the school photograph. His exams have not gone well. At home he is looking after his father, when surely it should be the other way round, and if he thinks about the future at all, it is with a kind of dread.

Then Fran Fisher bursts into his life and despite himself, Charlie begins to hope.

But if Charlie wants to be with Fran, he must take on a challenge that could lose him the respect of his friends and require him to become a different person. He must join the Company. And if the Company sounds like a cult, the truth is even more appalling.

The price of hope, it seems, is Shakespeare. Poignant, funny, enchanting, devastating, Sweet Sorrow is a tragicomedy about the rocky path to adulthood and the confusion of family life, a celebration of the reviving power of friendship and that brief, searing explosion of first love that can only be looked at directly after it has burned out.

©2019 David Nicholls (P)2019 W. F. Howes Ltd Family Life Fiction Genre Fiction Romance Feel-Good Tear-jerking Heartfelt Witty

Critic reviews

"Nicholls is fabulous on first love and Kinnear’s narration strikes the perfect balance between teenage defiance and vulnerability." (Daily Mail)

"Such a beautiful book. Captures perfectly a moment in time we've all experienced." (Graham Norton)

"He's such a genius. His novels are relatable and recognizable, but also surprising, breath-taking and life-enhancing." (Nina Stibbe)
All stars
Most relevant
I love this new novel from David Nicholls. Beautiful storytelling, as always, and so wonderfully evocative of teenage summer holidays.

Very relatable characters and some very funny and heartwarming moments too.

Just lovely!

Nostalgic and poignant

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Flawless writing. Superb narration. The evocation of school, falling in love for the first time, everything to do with being sixteen was beyond brilliant. It was an incredible piece of story telling, loveable characters and laugh out loud humour at times. Highly, highly recommend and we listen to a lot of audibles. This is one of the best.

Absolutely outstanding

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My first experience of David Nicholls - apart from the screen adaptations - and I really enjoyed it. He has a real knack for authentically conveying teenage angst, the trials of first love, and the experience of being in a theatre company. It often had me smiling or laughing in recognition. I also admired the way the book 'grows up' with its protagonist and ends with just the right feeling of affection and nostalgia. It's a life-affirming book but in the best sense, and rigorously unsentimental. And Rory Kinnear is exactly the right reader for this - a master of off-handedness and diffidence. It does help to have a really accomplished actor and this was the best reading I've heard since Michael Sheen tackled the new Philip Pullman

Teen spirit

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I normally read detective/crime novels but have tried, lately, to branch out into all types of literature.
This book grabbed me almost straight away, I loved the characters and David Nicholl’s writing of teenagers is perfect (not an easy task!)
Highly recommended

Not normally my thing but I loved it

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Torn between wanting to know what happens, and not wanting it to end. And now I know.

Outstanding

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