You Are Here by David Nicholls

From Goodreads

From the internationally bestselling and Booker Prize-longlisted author of One Day, one of the most enduring love stories of its generation, comes an uplifting and unputdownable love story about second chances.

Sometimes you need to get lost to find your way...

Michael is coming undone. Adrift after his wife's departure, he has begun taking himself on long, solitary walks across the English countryside. Becoming ever more reclusive, he’ll do anything to avoid his empty house.

Marnie, on the other hand, is stuck. Hiding alone in her London flat, she avoids old friends and any reminders of her rotten, selfish ex-husband. Curled up with a good book, she’s battling the long afternoons of a life that feels like it’s passing her by.

When a persistent mutual friend and some very unpredictable weather conspire to toss Michael and Marnie together on the most epic of ten-day hikes, neither of them can think of anything worse. Until, of course, they discover exactly what they’ve been looking for.

Michael and Marnie are on the precipice of a bright future ... if they can survive the journey.

A hilarious, hopeful, and heartwarming love story—the novel beloved New York Times bestselling author David Nicholls calls “my funniest book yet”—You Are Here is a bittersweet and hopeful story of first encounters, second chances, and finding the way home.

My thoughts

I am not sure how I came across this book.  Whether I saw that someone was reading it and thought it looked good or whether I just saw the cover and synopsis of it and thought I need to read that.  Anyway this is where I was at, when I was sat with a Library copy in my hands to read.

This is not the first David Nicholls book that I have read.  I have previously read One Day by him.  I approached reading this book with an open mind, as you don't always get on with other books written by the same author that you may have previously read.  

Who would fancy tackling doing what Michael and Marnie have been coerced into doing by a mutual friend?  A hike across England starting off on the North West Coast and finishing off North East Coast, taking in parts of the Lake District and the Pennines.  It's one hell of a hike and not one that everyone will complete, as we find out when parts of the group that they are with fall by the wayside for various reasons.

Michael and Marnie, both have mixed troubled relationships in their pasts, they could be anyone as most people have secrets and issues in their pasts.  How will these two get along?  It's the plan of a mutual friend of theirs, that they may get along in such a way that they may find things in common that may align them as a couple.  Will this plan that their mutual friend has work or not?   Only the pages contained within this book will tell you the answer.

I enjoyed this story and the developing friendships and relationships between the group.  The story was even more poignant as some of the hikes were carried out not far from where I live and are places that I have been to in the past. 

The last paragraph of the chapter titled 'Hotel du Lac', made me laugh to myself.  If you've read the book you may know what I am talking about, BUT if you've yet to read the book then keep your eyes peeled for it. It features a copper bath!