Love, Unscripted

Starred review from December 1, 2019
A movie-obsessed projectionist looks back at his relationship and wonders where it all went wrong in this debut from Nicholls. Nick and Ellie meet under auspicious circumstances: at an election-viewing party the night that Barack Obama is chosen as the next president of the United States. Nick, who loves nothing more than films and works as a projectionist at a theater, instantly falls for Ellie and sees the entire movie of their relationship play out in his mind. Now it's four years later, Obama is about to be elected president once again, and Ellie's moved out of their apartment. Forlorn and desperate to figure out where it all went wrong, Nick retraces their entire relationship as the plot jumps back and forth among the night they met, the present day, and the challenges the couple faced along the way. Meanwhile, Nick finds himself falling further and further into despair as he loses his apartment, his parents move away, and his theater switches from film to digital, rendering his job obsolete. With his entire life in shambles, Nick must finally look inward to figure out why things with Ellie really didn't work out. Nick tends to think in movie references, many of which are very clever, particularly an oft-remembered argument with Ellie about Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind. Unlike in many books and movies with similar plots, Nicholls doesn't treat his female character like the bad guy for stomping on the male character's heart and ego. Instead, he examines her point of view as she reminds Nick that life is more than just movies--or, at least, life doesn't turn out like the movies sometimes, and Nick may have to make some big changes if he wants a Hollywood ending. Their relationship has cinematic highs and believable lows, with fully rounded characters and smart, snappy, romantic comedy-worthy dialogue. Nick's and Ellie's real lives aren't a movie, but as Nicholls tells it, they might have a happily-ever-after anyway. A delightfully sweet, funny, and heartbreaking ode to love stories, both onscreen and off-.

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January 20, 2020
Nicholls’s inventive, clever debut follows a lovelorn London film projectionist between the 2008 and 2012 U.S. presidential elections. In 2012, cinephile Nick Marcet recounts his erstwhile relationship with Ellie Brown, a budding journalist with the “same quizzical eyebrows and flawless skin” as “Broadcast News–era Holly Hunter.” Nick met Ellie on the night Barack Obama was first elected president, at a mutual friend’s party as the gathered Londoners eagerly await the vote count and quaintly debate Obama’s leftist bona fides in relation to their own country’s politicians. Occasional omniscient “intermissions” offer poignant snapshots of their love’s growth and limitations, due to Nick’s obsessive digressions into film references and Ellie’s unhealed childhood trauma over the avoidable loss of her brother to appendicitis. As Nick struggles to piece together an explanation for the breakup, he wonders what someone of Ellie’s “caliber” ever saw in someone so “bog standard” as himself. He replays the scenes of their fights, still unable to see how Ellie’s decision to leave London for a career opportunity with the Associated Press in New York could have benefited both of them. Nicholls writes with verve and wit, elevating the unsurprising plot with infectious film commentary, the pratfalls of young love, and a time capsule of London life before Brexit. Nick Hornby fans will appreciate this.

January 1, 2020
It all began the night of Barack Obama's 2008 election. At a watch party with several other Londoners, film aficionado Nick meets the smart and gorgeous Ellie. He knows if his life were a romantic comedy, they would be the stars. But four years later, around the time of Obama's second election, Ellie moves out and Nick is left wondering where it all went wrong. Nicholls' tale switches back and forth between 2008 and 2012, with several intermissions recounting snippets of time in the middle as Nick reflects on the ups and downs of their relationship. Nick is oftentimes insufferable; he makes one poor decision after another. This makes his character realistic, but can also make it hard to root for him as a romantic hero. Secondary characters, including coworkers, friends, and family members, are well crafted and memorable. Peppered with film and pop-culture references, this smartly written debut reminds us that romance might not be like it is in the movies, but we can still hope for and believe in true love.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2020, American Library Association.)