Changes

As in his best-selling ''One Day'', Nicholls shrewdly avoids making this a purely idealized romance story. Douglas acknowledges that 'in real life lost souls don't meet, they just wander about' and 'The notion that what doesn't kill you makes you stronger is patently nonsense'. This is a determinedly realist novel, less formulaic and sentimental than ''One Day'', and with an ending that just might surprise you. I found it to be a very touching picture of a marriage in decline, and of a father's realisation that he needs to change his ways if he is not to lose his son forever. It is a gently tragicomic tale, with the madcap humour of the travel scenes tempering the sadness of this one family's dysfunction. As Douglas muses, 'perhaps grief is as much regret for what we have never had as sorrow for what we have lost.'

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