This boom is just adorable. I read it last year in spain i couldn't put the book down it was so good.

This book is just adorable. I read it last year in spain i couldn't put the book down it was so good. It was hugely enjoyable and. I recommend the book

Oh my goodness! Kate Eberlen swept me up, introduced me to Tess and Gus, involved me in every aspect of their lives, made me love them, had me crying with them and left me bereft as I closed the book and left them behind. It's been a long time since I fell so in love with two lead characters. Quite often I'll be fond of one character whilst feeling a little bit meh about the other, but Tess and Gus are both divine. I adore them. We meet Tess and Gus in Florence in 1997, they are there, separately, on holiday. Tess is interrailing with her best friend whilst Gus is, not very enthusiastically, accompanying his parents. The reader meets them and they briefly meet each other. Tess has achieved the grades that she needs to go to university and Gus is about to begin his medical training, both of them are apprehensive, but determined for their future. Gus desperately wants to break away from parents that are grief stricken whilst Tess is determined to leave behind the small town that does nothing to inspire her and to live the dream in London. Tess has spent years gazing at a colourful plate hanging in the kitchen at home; a cheap souvenir from Tenerife, it has the words "Today is the first day of the rest of your life" written across it ... and that day in Florence, really is the first day of lives that neither of them expected. The reader then accompanies Tess and Gus as they live out the next sixteen years of their lives. The chapters are narrated alternately and this could almost be two books in one, except for the very subtle and gentle overlapping that is almost, just almost missed, but essentially binds both parts together to create what I am sure is going to be one of my top books of the year. Kate Eberlen deals with serious issues, her characters face some of the most challenging things that life can throw at them. She does it so well, she's created not just our two leads but a cast of fully-formed supporting characters who each play an integral part in the story. From Tess's mother, to Gus's brother, from Dolly to Nash .... and the youngsters: Hope and Flora and Bella. Every single one of them are vibrant, not just bit-players but characters who are as much loved as Tess and Gus. Miss You is a truly wonderful story, an absolute joy to read. It's so cleverly structured and whilst it deals with themes that include terminal illness, mental health, grief and loss, it is also full of sparkling wit and evocative locations. London city stars and Italy takes equal billing, both brought to life; the hustle, the bustle, the culture, the people. I have already bought copies of Miss You for friends, I will buy more. I have already told every person that I've met since I finished reading it that they really MUST READ IT. I will continue to do so. I adored Miss You. Adored. Every. Single. Page

Given that the paper back edition I had {a 2017 Pan Books} had no synopsis but rather endorsement after endorsement after endorsement both on the back cover, the front inner cover and the first four pages experience told me that Miss You was probably going to be all hype and very little else. How wrong I was. Told over a period of 16 years, the story of two people who share the briefest moment in time in Italy before going back home to England alone. What follows next is a series of should of beens and could of beens, of fleeting encounters and near misses until ... A beautiful emotional, roller-coaster of a read that is quite different from your typical romance. The chapters alternate between Tess' and Gus'; Tess and Gus being characters who whilst unlikeable at times have such redeeming qualities that you can't help but relate to them if nothing else.

This could easily have been a fairly standard ‘will they, won’t they?’ tale, the kind of plot that so many contemporary romance novels follow: 300-odd pages of 'boy never quite meets girl, but wow, look at that – the perfect happy ending'. However, Kate Eberlen rises above this and has cleverly crafted two almost perfect plots, with two entirely separate characters whose lives follow their own messy trajectories, much like the rest of us. The ‘will they, won’t they’ moments merely feel like natural steps along the way. And each story line drew me into the separate worlds of Gus and Tess, as they navigate their way from teenager to adult whilst making the same mistakes as the rest of us. There are echoes of David Nicholls, which is no bad thing, but far from being derivative this is a fantastic and original novel, and I’m very grateful for Pan Macmillan for letting me read it early. I loved it.