With his usual grace, Nicholls (Us; One Day) plumbs human relationships, this time offering a singular reading experience about one young man's fraught coming of age. At age 38 and on the verge of marriage, Charlie Lewis looks back at his hapless 16-year-old self: His mother has left, taking only his younger sister, and he's stuck tending his depressed, heavy-drinking, financially floundering dad, which brings on a funk that wrecks Charlie's academic career and likely any chance of attending college. Then he meets the seemingly unreachable Fran, not rich but from a more established family, and he overcomes his class self-consciousness and apprehension of Shakespeare to join a production of Romeo and Juliet in which she's starring, just to be near her. He's no Olivier, but his life is subtly reshaped by the camaraderie of the acting life, which former actor Nicholls articulates beautifully. Meanwhile, Charlie and Fran spar wittily as they build toward a relationship that feels fresh and unexpected when it arrives. VERDICT As Charlie notes, displaying a growing understanding of Shakespeare, Romeo and Juliet "[is] stuffed with anticipation," and readers will be, too, as Nicholls masterfully unfolds events. The depth of feeling between friends, family members, and lovers, first time or not—Nicholls captures it all. Highly recommended.—Barbara Hoffert, Library Journal

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.(May)