Starter For Ten by David Nicholls
“Looking for answers to life’s big questions…”
One of the best things about this book (possibly apart from the fantastic humour) was that it was a bit of a twist on this kind of thing. Sometimes these sort of “coming of age” or “learning harsh lessons about life” books can come across quite cheesy and predictable and trying a bit too hard to be “deep” about life and growing up, but this doesn’t do that at all because it’s written so well.
The theme around knowledge (or maybe in highlighting the difference between knowledge and wisdom) is wonderful. Each chapter starts with a little University Challenge style question and answer that sets up the chapter to come – a fun little feature.
Our main character is Brian Jackson, the book is written from his point of view. He’s certainly worthy of our lead character. He has such a wondrous innocence and optimistic expectation that can be found in someone entering their first year of university. But again this isn’t done to the point of cheesy naivety, he’s very relate-able and very aware of just how awkward he is. All we can do is helplessly watch as he stumbles through life one cringe-worthy situation after another. You really do want better for him than he earns for himself.
It’s quite difficult to describe the style of the book but you’ll understand if you read it. Maybe the exclamation “oh Brian…*shakes head in somewhat amused second-hand embarrassment*” helps. It’s also filled with lots of laugh out loud moments, the humour is really, really fantastic! Caused a couple of awkward moment when reading this book in public.
The rest of the characters are equally brilliant. Quite a range of people and lots of strong personalities but (and i know this point is repeated a lot here) not unrealistic. Which makes them entertaining and interesting and of course invites a lot of unlikely friendships and maybe less unlikely clashes.
From personal experience it seems a lot of us Cumberfans are more familiar with the film than the book so just to mention some bits of film comparisons quickly.
It’s fun to have seen the film before reading the book as it lets us visualise the characters in a way we’re was familiar with but in fairness each of them are described very clearly, so they are easy to visualise on their own. All of the character translations from book to screen are pretty much spot on which can be a rarity at times. The biggest difference you may notice is in the character of Rebecca who is wonderfully portrayed by Rebecca Hall. Not in personality, but she seems to have quite a different look to her character on the page. Also she’s supposed to be Glaswegian. Not sure why that changed but *shrugs*.
The rest of your changes are that of your classic ‘book to screen’ adaptation. If you are familiar with the film there may be moments reading when you think “gosh are they really going to change this that much?” but then reading further will find they haven’t really changed things at all, just made things a bit more convenient. Cutting bits of different events into one event, merging some smaller characters together, dropping of a few non plot essential story-lines and moments etc. But nothing that leaves you totally outraged.
Do give this book a read if you get the chance! Highly recommend. It has a really great structure to it that made it a really comfortable read and it’s amazingly real and entertaining!
The book can be found on amazon.com HERE.
It’s also available on other sites/in shops/on regional amazon sites.
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