Blog

After six volumes of friendship, first love, family conflict, mental illness and queer self-discovery, Alice Oseman brings Nick and Charlie’s school years to a close in this last book, which is a gentle and reassuring conclusion, filled with the affection and emotional openness that have defined the series from its beginning.

Readers deeply invested in Nick and Charlie will probably enjoy returning to their gentle world because their affection remains convincing, and their future matters because the previous volumes have made them so easy to care about. This instalment offers a comforting visit and an important stage in their development, but it again feels more like a bridge towards the conclusion than one of the series’ defining volumes.

Moving on in the series, volume four takes us beyond Nick and Charlie's nervous exchanges and affection into much more complicated territory.

Alice Oseman sends the boys and their friends to Paris for a school trip filled with sightseeing, birthday celebrations, romantic tension and very little privacy. It's an ideal setting for a young romance, and it's also the place where the problems they've been quietly carrying become harder to hide.

At the same time, Nick and Charlie begin navigating their first relationship through private kisses, nervous text messages, a birthday celebration and a day at the beach. Their happiness is genuine, but so is the pressure created by secrecy. Nick wants to be with Charlie but remains terrified of being seen, especially by the rugby players with whom he's spent much of his school life.