“The beginning and the end [of love], the anticipation and the despair, that’s where the story lies…” (255).

Sweet Sorrow is the perfect coming-of-age novel, and perfect for someone like me since it’s also set during the same time I came of age. While the novel moves between the adult voice on the brink of marriage and the sixteen-year-old voice on the brink of adulthood, it’s about so much more than the three short months when Charlie joins an amateur acting troupe taking on the role of Benvolio.

It’s about family: “Perhaps all families have these fleeting moments when, without ever saying as much, they take each other in and think, we work and we fit together and we love each other, and if we can remain like this, all will be fine” (179).

It’s about friendship: “And I remember, too, my surprise at taking part rather than watching with the others. It’s with these small moments of inclusion that immense friendships start” (135).

It’s about fears: “And now this possibility joined the roster of terrors and anxieties that accompanied me through the night and on until morning, and it occurred to me then, just as it does now, that the greatest lie that age tells about youth is that it’s somehow free of care, worry or fear. Good God, doesn’t anyone remember” (165)?
“Benvolio was a sidekick, a conformist and observer; characters confided in him but felt no need to listen in return. Amazing, really, that people I barely knew had cast me so well” (136).

It’s about first love: “Assume that we never wanted to be anywhere else or with anyone else, that time apart was time wasted, and it was impossible to imagine the circumstances when we might not feel this way. There’s some of this to come, not much more than a pamphlet, and it can’t be helped. The greater part of it will go unmentioned, but also unforgotten” (256).

It’s about all these freeze-framed moments frozen in our memories. Parting with those moments on the cusp of adulthood is such sweet sorrow. There’s a particular nostalgia that comes from those moments, those memories—everything full of color and intensity and newness. There will never be another time like that time, a time when it seems we’re players trying on roles we’ve only watched as young audience members. Yet, the remembered intensity is not only rose-colored; there were hard lessons and dark understandings that shaped those times. Moving on is sweet sorrow—good riddance to the sorrow but aching for the sweet. As I was reading, I couldn’t help but think of my own sweet-sorrow time on the precipice of adulthood. And I found myself wishing for the nostalgic and curious satisfaction that Fran and Charlie get at the twenty-year reunion, the safety of seeing, questioning, getting a glimpse behind the curtain, only to run back (2 stairs at a time) to the real world beyond the stage: “I ran for the bus and willed it onwards. I’d given in to nostalgia and curiosity when the present, the future were what really mattered…. I took our stairs two at a time, opened the door to find her asleep on the sofa” (404). ( )

His writing is beautiful ( )

First love in Shakespeare's Romeo and Juliet and between two 16-year old players with The Full Fathom Five Theatre Co-operative during a warm summer. The highs and lows of a romance are highlighted and how family life interfers with the lovers bubble. The narrator, Charlie, is looking back at this summer that was so important for him. His family is breaking up, he has walked out of some of his GCSEs and his friends have rejected him. There is a lot to like here. ( )

Love Nicholl's intelligence and sense of humor. Charming, insightful, touching. ( )

audiobook fiction (bildungsroman=coming of age - child of divorce left to take care of father with severe depression, teen boy develops a crush on a girl in a youth theater group in late 1990s)

This is so beautifully written I kept thinking, wait--is this a true story? But then had to remind myself it's a novel with very lifelike characters. The narrator's ([a:Rory Kinnear|4503082|Rory Kinnear|https://s.gr-assets.com/assets/nophoto/user/u_50x66-632230dc9882b4352d753eedf9396530.png]) delivery made me chuckle out loud, though the story does drag a wee bit towards the end after the couple has broken up (hence the title). I would listen to this book more than once, and I will be recommending it to others. ( )