"I'm aware that the transition into adulthood is a difficult and sometimes painful one. I'm familiar with the conventions of the rites of passage, I know what the literary term bildungsroman means, I realise that it's inevitable that I'll look back at things that happened in my youth and give a wry, knowing smile. But surely there's no reason why I should be embarrassed and ashamed about things that happened thirty seconds ago? No reason why life should just be this endless rolling panorama of bodged friendships, fumbled opportunities, fatuous conversations, wasted days, idiotic remarks and ill-judged unfunny jokes that just lie on the floor in front of me, flipping about like dying fish?"Starter For Ten is the first novel by British author, David Nicholls. Almost-nineteen-year-old Brian Jackson is starting University. He sees "reading English" as the opportunity to become independent of his widowed mother, meet girls, make new friends, and, who knows, maybe appear on University Challenge (something his Dad would have been thrilled about). He hopes his recently-purchased clothing, his professed hobbies and his conversation will make him seem cool, but knows he is at a disadvantage: "It's not that I'm anti-fashion, it's just that all of the major youth movements I've lived through so far, none have really fitted. At the end of the day, the harsh reality is that if you're a fan of Kate Bush, Charles Dickens, Scrabble, David Attenborough and University "Challenge, then there's not much out there for you in terms of a youth movement." and "When I say I'm interested in badminton what I really mean is that if someone held a gun to my head and forced me, on pain of death, to play one sport, and they were refusing to accept Scrabble as a sport, then that sport would be badminton."His room in his share house will be familiar to many who experienced University during this era: "The room has the appeal and ambience of a murder scene; a single mattress on a metal frame, a matching plywood wardrobe and desk, and two small wood-effect Formica shelves. The carpets are mud-brown and seem to have been woven from compacted pubic hair. A dirty window above the desk looks out onto the dustbins below, whilst a framed sign warns that using Blu-Tack on the walls is punishable by death". Soon after he meets the beautiful Alice Harbinson, also trying out for the University Challenge team, everything he says and does is designed to impress her. He eventually manages to ask her out on a date: "...I check my wallet for the condom that I always carry with me in case of a miracle. This particular condom ....has been in my wallet for so long now that it's stuck to the lining, and the foil wrapper has started to tarnish round the outline of the condom., like some grotesque brass rubbing. Still, I like to carry it with me, in the same way some people carry a St Christopher's medal, despite the fact that I have about as much chance of using the thing tonight as I have of carrying the infant Jesus across a river"Even in his first novel, Nicholls demonstrates his expertise in capturing the era (fashion, popular music, TV programs, ) and in portraying the awkward, hopeful but hopelessly inept protagonist. Readers will wince at Brian's faux pas, cringe at his attempts to impress the girl and laugh out loud at his misfortunes and his self-deprecation, all the while nodding in agreement with his (perhaps naive) reasoning or groaning at his less intelligent decisions. Each chapter is prefaced with a University Challenge question that is loosely related to that chapter.Nicholls evokes the mood with skill: "The four days in between Boxing Day and New Year's Eve are surely the longest and nastiest in the year- a sort of bloated, bastard Sunday. August Bank Holiday's the worst, though. I fully expect to die at about two-thirty in the afternoon on an August Bank Holiday. Terminal ennui". His descriptive prose is wonderfully original: Giggling, she prods me in the chest with the whisky bottle, and I realise she's very drunk; not gloomy drunk or surly drunk, but frisky drunk, playful drunk, which is a good sign, I suppose, but still a little strange and unsettling, like seeing Stalin on a skateboard". He can be succinct and wise: "'Independence' is the luxury of all those people who are too confident, and busy, and popular, and attractive to be just plain old 'lonely'". Laugh-out-loud funny, this entertaining novel is a brilliant debut.
Originally Published On My Review BlogIn David Nicholls' "Starter For Ten" we meet Brian, a first-class pretentious dude that is hopelessly friendzoned and doesn't quite get the hint.After watching the movie version of "One Day", I got quite interested in David Nicholls and thought that I should try reading one of his novels. When my local bookstore had a ridiculously cheap offer for this one, I couldn't pass. Maybe I should have.What plays the biggest part in me disliking this one - yes, I'm starting my review off by just telling it like it is - is that he tries way too hard to make the characters relatable. Since the main character Brian just finished high school. we are obviously dealing with a New Adult story. but honestly. the characters are extremely off. You can tell immediately that this is a grown man writing, trying to sound hip and cool and totally missing the essence of what it is like to be eighteen. Yes, you might argue that the novel is set in the 1980s, but if I met a guy like Brian who just won't stop bragging about how smart and sophisticated he is while just thinking he's having a normal conversation - uhm. You get the picture.Nicholls even tries to use this as a stylistic device. Brian is an annoying person to befriend and therefore nobody wants to hang out with him. He is basically a slightly older version of Dash from "Dash and Lily's Book of Dares". Except Brian is also not very good-looking, which Nicholls makes sure to emphasize at least fifteen times throughout the novel.While I do encourage to have ugly, unpopular characters instead of having everyone look like the archetypical greek god models, this is taking it too far. It's not relatable. It's not funny. You're trying to hard. Maybe, given the fact that I am not a teenage boy, I just don't relate to this, but this isn't the kind of novel an author wants to create, right? Everyone should be able to enjoy this, your target audience shouldn't be only boys like Brian.Another problem with the characters is that they are only characterized by how they feel about Brian. there's hardly anyone who can stand him unless they want something from him. While the protagonist is explored thoroughly, everyone else remains pretty flat. Especially love interest Alice, who is just interesting because she's hot. (CHaracters 1/5)Usually I would have continued and forced myself to finsish this, had there been an interesting plot. The novel revolves around five university students applying to a quiz show called University Challenge. Except this isn't even the focus. There are random bits of more or less unconnected events that are supposed to illustrate what a loser Brian is (e.g. girls rejecting/arguing/insulting him 24/7), and then after another three chapters something relevant to the plot happens. As a reader, I got bored pretty easily, because the plot is just so inconsistent. And hell, I could have not cared less about that annoying game show. There's nothing keeping me to want to continue reading!After about 150 pages I was done, completely and utterly through with this. Neither could I stand another second of Brian talking, nor of Nicholls trying to speak the "lingo". And actually, this whole business of Alice rejectign him times and times over and him not understanding it - just - as a woman about her age I know this too well. Dudes who won't back off no matter what you do. No, I don't want to read a novel about it. No, I don't want to sympathize with poor Brian who does everything for her but still doesn't get laid. Women don't owe you shit. Not even when they're hot.Overall: Do I recommend?No. Absolutely not. I think it's a pretty misogynistic read. I have enough of that in daily life already, thanks but no.Rating: ★☆☆☆☆
What do You think about Starter For Ten (2007)?
Starter for Ten started out to be the prose equivalent of a British John Hughes film. The year is perfect; The Breakfast Club year of 1985. Something like this book had been badly needed and I was so grateful to Mr. Nicholls for having written a deliciously long book. Like his protagonist( and himself), I read English in college. Accordingly, I developed all the pretentiousness and affectations of a literature student. I cannot remember any other reading experience that made me feel so profoundly embarrassed and yet pleasingly forgiving towards myself. I found myself frequently closing the book out of sheer reminiscence and at the same time longing to pick it up and continue with the foibles of Brian Jackson. I have been a Brian Jackson, a Rebecca Epstein, briefly an Alice Harbinson, sometimes a Spencer Lewis, never Tone as far as I believe(but then someone may have thought otherwise), a Patrick, a Lucy Chang and maybe even a weird as hell Chris(though I am Indian and my opinions on toilet paper are strictly private). I remember 'acting' the part of an ingenious yet indifferent literary miracle in class and always getting away with it. I am doing my M.Phil now, and I still have piles of thick books that only literature students would care to know of and display, and sometimes read. Talking about books I have never read but KNOW of( and isn't that what English studies is really about?) is second nature to me, and I know it is a skill that will last me a lifetime. Dropping quotes in conversations to prove a point is also another habit. Wanting the beautiful thing that I have only read of in great literature who in real life is nice and all, but just a great big tease, is also something I have experienced. I LOVE Mr.Nicholls's 6 ages of reading and I wish that the system would be introduced in English departments, so that upper-second class idiots like me can still live without Jacques Derrida and be proper postgraduates of English. In fact, I wish that there were 4 more sequels to Starter for Ten, like a series called 'University Years' or something, so that Mr. Nicholls would help me forgive the rest of my student years too. Having dabbled in student politics and student quizzes, I have to say that everything 'studenty' that Mr.Nicholls says is the real truth. And it makes it a little more easier to live with the Alices and Patricks of the world, if only in retrospect. I especially love his views on what is 'lonely' and 'the real me' which already shows signs of that great understanding of the human nature he displays in One Day. Shakespeare speaks subliminally through Mr.Nicholls and I hope that such a comment would not inspire ironic laughter and disbelief in him though of course something this 'studenty'obviously should.I wish that I had the genius of Mr. Nicholls to write something on what is current with me, 'the lost year' at age 23 where I find myself a postgraduate in English, hopelessly unemployed, irritatingly stupid when it comes to her M.Phil thesis, just basically going through what one critic calls "postgraduation ennui". But Mr. Nicholls has already done it. It is called One Day.
—Amrita
Post-One Day, I wanted to have at some more of David Nicholls' work. Starter for 10 is his first novel, and well....I finished it underwhelmed.A few reasons why this one tripped me up when One Day (for me anyway) was so lovely:1) The protagonist, Brian Jackson: A college freshman, Brian has fancy notions of what it means to head off to university. But he's nerdy and his face is pock-marked with acne and he's awkward. So, SO awkward. Every scene becomes slightly painful to read because it's Brian tripping over his words to be funny. Brian trying to sound smarter than he is. Brian thinking a girl—like the gorgeous Alice Harbinson—is in to him when, well, really she's not. 2) The storyline: I'm far enough removed from the college scene now that reading about the days of "getting pissed" every night and being hung over every morning make me feel old. The book's plot builds up to Brian and his team's participation in the University Challenge (think Jeopardy for the college set) and while these bits of the book are pretty solid ... it's the everyday life of the 19-year-old that gets old. Oh, and a bit of a pet peeve — Nicholls begins and ends his story here using the same lines (bit of a literary cop-out, eh?)3) The British divide: We all speak English. How bad could it be? Turns out, there are enough differences in our countries' vernaculars that I found myself tripping over certain words or puzzling over phrases because of it. Made it more of a challenge to really get in to this one. Compelled to watch the film version of this after reading (because, after all, it has James McAvoy and Rebecca Hall) but even that didn't sell me. Just an OK read (and film) for me....
—Gail
3.5 stars. “I admit it. I'd made some mistakes. Okay, some big mistakes. Loads of them. But you can't hide in your room forever feeling sorry for yourself. It's not practical. At some point, you've got to get back out there, face up to things, and confront your demons. Ever since I can remember, I'd wanted to be clever. Some people are born clever, same way some people are born beautiful. I'm not one of those people. I'm going to have to work at it, put in the effort, and if I mess it up, I'll learn from it. Besides, sometimes it's not about knowing the right answer. Sometimes it's about asking the right questions."This humourous coming-of-age story is about a socially-awkward guy named Brian starting University for the first time. Almost immediately he falls head-over-heels for smart, confident, beautiful Alice whose league is so far from his that they don't even touch. When he discovers that they're both applying for the University Challenge (a quiz game on TV), it seems the perfect excuse to get to know her better.Set in the '80s, Brian comes from a poor background and is the only one of his friends to go to Uni. Predictably he ignores his previous friends as he gets swept up in Uni life and makes a great deal of humourous, cringe-worthy mistakes. Personally, I found that some of these mistakes were a little too cringy for me. A couple of times I put down the book as I couldn't simply bear to read on. Here's an example of how seriously Brian could mess up even the most basic of social ettiquettes. "'Well...' says Alice '...we had some friends round, like we always do on Boxing Day, and we were playing charades, and it was my turn, and I was trying to do 'Last Year At Marienbad' for Mummy, and she was getting so frantic and over-excited, and shouting so hard, that her cap popped out and landed right in our next-door neighbour's glass of wine!'And everyone's laughing, even Mr Harbinson, and the atmosphere is so funny and adult and amusing and irreverent that I say, 'You mean you weren't wearing any underwear?!?'Everyone is silent.'I'm sorry?' asks Rose.'Your cap. When it popped out. How did it get past your... underpants?'Mr Harbinson puts down his knife and fork, swallows his mouthful, turns to me and says, very slowly, 'Actually, Brian, I think Alice was referring to her mother's dental cap.'Shortly afterwards, we all go up to bed."Brian can be a bit irritating but almost lovably so. You want him to succeed even though it's likely he won't. If you've been to University yourself maybe you'll notice some of those awkward first situations, though hopefully your experiences weren't as disastrous as Brian's. As a British reader, it was kind of nice to read about how things were in England for late teens around five years before I was born. I enjoyed Starter For Ten even though it wasn't quite my sort of novel. Whatever your opinion of it, it's certainly guaranteed to make you laugh.
—Katie.g
