A brilliant, bittersweet novel about love and family, husbands and wives, parents and children.
From beloved bestselling author David Nicholls.

Those who loved Nicholls's last novel, One Day, will not be disappointed. Us has many of the same qualities, including an almost magical readability. Though it is an ambitious novel, intricately patterned, which tackles complex and subtle themes, it has the furious pace of a thriller . . . I was having to ration myself for fear of coming to the end too soon

I loved this book. Funny, sad, tender: for anyone who wants to know what happens after the Happy Ever After

A literary and anthropological tour de force . . . astute and packed with brilliant observations, about life, art, culture and the infinite possibilities for human disappointment. I honestly can't imagine loving a novel much more

Us is a work of Cheever-esque perfection that absolutely captures the exquisite horror of not being able to do right for wrong

A perfect book

Nicholls, it seems, was born to write about love, in all its sweetness and bitterness . . . thoughtful, funny, authentic . . . Us begins as a sweet read, but evolves into an examination of love's complexities - the battle between the heart and the brain . . . The kind of book that reminds us what it means to be alive

Nicholls writes with such tender precision about love, this time about a type of relationship often neglected as unsexy - the long-married couple . . . wry, plaintive but ever hopeful

Very funny, wise and bittersweet

As he proved in One Day, Nicholls is brilliant at picking apart modern life with all its hopes, disillusionments and regrets, and marrying it to a gently heartbreaking narrative

He doesn't just have a sharp eye for a story, his characters also have real depth and his books are a delicate balance between warmth and edge. No-one ever gets too easy a ride. Us . . . is no exception

Even better than One Day

A compulsively readable, formally inventive, extremely funny yet achingly melancholy love story

Nicholls has raised his game . . . the clear writing often dazzles with truth . . . a sad, funny, soulful joy of a book

I read it through tears in maybe two sittings . . . at the heart of the book is one man's plight to just get things right. And whoever you are, however logical, or practical with your emotions, most of us just want to get things right when it comes to the people we love

I read it through tears in maybe two sittings . . . at the heart of the book is one man's plight to just get things right. And whoever you are, however logical, or practical with your emotions, most of us just want to get things right when it comes to the people we love

An emotive romantic comedy, ingeniously structured

Us is a quiet joy, written with an undemonstrative simplicity that is hard to achieve

Wonderful. A novel that manages to be both truly hilarious and deeply affecting. I loved it

A wrenching examination of a journey through Europe that goes terribly wrong and a consideration of what it means to be a parent today

It's the perfect follow-up to One Day because it takes romance to a middle-aged place. It's funny and sweet - a lovely, lovely book

Few authors do messed-up relationships better than Nicholls

Bittersweet, beautifully rendered

I enjoyed Us immensely. David has a sublime talent for illuminating the murky causeway that most of us have to navigate between darkness and light, happiness and sadness; the place where fatigue is, and restlessness, where love is tested and strained and sometimes broken

Beautiful, funny and brilliant

Nicholls has captured, with rare accuracy, the hopes, fears, compromises and silly jokes that make up our lives. The title says it all: he really is writing about Us

Never has a book about the end of a love affair been so heartrendingly romantic and bittersweet. Rich in pathos, humour and steeped in the wisdom of maturity

Us is an entertaining and clever crossover read . . . one of the best portrayals of the complexities of a long-term relationship I've seen in a contemporary novel

Nicholls is a delightfully funny writer . . . Us evolves into a poignant consideration of how a marriage ages, how parents mess up and what survives despite all those challenges

Nicholls is a master of the braided narrative, weaving the past and present to create an intricate whole, one that is at times deceptively light and unexpectedly devastating . . . this is a funny and moving novel perfect for a long journey

His organisation of the story is impeccable . . . The narrative neatly weaves present and past with a perfect rhythmic sense of when to leave or revisit a particular strand. The dialogue is always bouncy . . . acute and astute about the dynamics of relationships

Nicholls's superior brand of romantic comedy, shot through with dark shards of truth, gets under the skin

Nicholls's ability to create and then subvert the traditional plot for a comedy is the secret of his success. It makes us confront the gap between what we expect from storytelling and what happens in real life . . . it is this frank exploration of some of the unromantic realities of marriage and growing old that makes this book moving and thought-provoking

A spectacularly well observed, funny and often heartbreaking account of the difficulties of marriage and parenting

Clever and likeable

It's funny, moving and, of course, wonderfully written

A great combination of laughs and heart

A happier, lighter, more well-adjusted version of Gone Girl . . . For all of their burdens and battles, Douglas and Connie have moments of real joy in their marriage and while it doesn't always seem like a pleasure, reading about it sure is

Nicholls again deals with love lost and possibility found, offering an unpredictable ending . . . a poignant story of regret in middle age

Peerless at mixing eye-smarting tragedy with ebullient comedy

Well worth the wait . . . A poignant and acutely observed portrayal of a marriage that's lost its way

A stylish comedy delivered with all of Nicholls's customary aplomb

David Nicholls has such finesse with character that he can create two central figures who are self-deceiving, funny, awful and touching - and who pull you through the narrative like magnets

A great novel . . . Nicholls is a master of nuanced relationships. He's also a pro at delivering a tight, clever structural narrative

Us is the tender, sometimes funny, often heartbreaking journey of two adults experiencing one of those growing-up moments in life that is somehow all the more poignant because they think they're too old to grow up

David Nicholls is the bestselling author of Starter for Ten, The Understudy, One Day, Us and Sweet Sorrow. One Day was published in 2009 to extraordinary critical acclaim: translated into 40 languages, it became a global bestseller, selling millions of copies worldwide. His fourth novel, Us, was longlisted for the Booker Prize for Fiction. On screen, David has written adaptations of Far from the Madding Crowd, When Did You Last See Your Father? and Great Expectations, as well as of his own novels, Starter for Ten, One Day and Us. His adaptation of Edward St Aubyn's Patrick Melrose, starring Benedict Cumberbatch, was nominated for an Emmy and won him a BAFTA for best writer. The Netflix adaptation of One Day was executive-produced by David. David's latest novel, You Are Here, will be published in April 2024 and is available for pre-order now.