Us: A Novel / David Nicholls

Douglas is the nerdy scientist-type and displays all the stereotypes that go along with that. Connie is a Bohemian artist-type on the rebound, and Douglas seems to be everything her last boyfriend was not. This book charts their unlikely romance, the uneasy marriage, the dysfunctional family, and finally the inevitable but nevertheless reluctant separation.

Connie decides to inform Douglas that she’s through with their marriage just before their son is off to university and right before they’ve planned to depart en famille on a grand tour of the continent. Against common sense, they decide to go forward with the plan, which results in predictably unpredictable consequences.

I’m not sure that in real life the ill-fated grand tour would really have made it to the first hotel, but as a plot device it was pretty clever. Perfect for the armchair traveler, there is wonderful description of some of the great art museums of Europe sandwiched in between the frequent episodes of family discord.

I found this book to be humorous to the point of being laugh-out-loud funny. David Nicholls has such a knack for creating real-life characters and situations that seem very familiar and very human.

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