Book Review: Starter for Ten

I came home to find a bag full of books—definitely not new. Some of the book covers were folded and the pages were turning a tad bit yellow. Apparently, my mother had brought home random books from my sister’s apartment in Singapore. I suddenly had large Anime eyes and poured the books out from the bag and rubbed my palms together in delight. I had turned into Mr. Burns from The Simpsons. I took two books by Roald Dahl, which were a collection of sinister short stories for a more adult audience (sidenote: they are disturbing). After I gobbled those up, I took David Nicholl’s Starter For Ten, because I loved One Day, more so than the film. I will always try to read the book before watching the film adaptation, even though the film has already come out. I did that with Twilight, The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo, and a lot more, really. Just so I can sound really pretentious by going, “the movie is not as good as the book!” as I stir my tea and stick my nose up in the air in the snobbiest way.

Let’s get to it:

Spoiler alert.

If you haven’t read the book, I suggest you do. The book is about an acne-ridden eighteen year-old boy named Brian, reading first-year English in a university. He falls in love with University Challenge teammate, Alice, who happens to be the most beautiful girl on campus and everyone’s object of affection. However, Brian is determined that he will get a shot, despite his gawkiness and cystic acne. It’s a comedy about love, class, growing-up and the all-important difference between knowledge and wisdom.

First off, I read the book having had no idea there was a film adaptation about it. But literally five minutes ago I have discovered that there is, indeed, a 2006 movie about this book, starring James McAvoy as Brian and Alice Eve as Alice. What’s more surprising is that when I read the book, I had Alice Eve star in my head as Alice. So it was a pleasant surprise to see her play the character in the actual film. For Brian, however, I had Jay Baruchel play it. Because Alice Eve and Jay Baruchel had such good chemistry in the film She’s Out Of My League.

David Nicholls has a knack for writing fiction as if it was non-fiction. He gets into the head of the character in such a way that makes him seem...real. Most authors will write a dorky character and you root for them because, well, they have something to root for. Either he is incredibly smart, or incredibly kind, or extremely funny, or his father owns half of the Bahamas. But Brian, he's such an average teenager with average wit and average intelligence. But I find myself rooting for him anyway, because he reminds me of the typical John Doe that doesn't have an amazing character trait but is likeable anyway. And you know how in films and books, they take out the mundane things and gestures so the story will flow better? Nicholls writes about everything so reading this book is like reading a memoir. All the imperfections and the misadventures are all written brilliantly. I mean, come on, what kind of author would write a heavy, romantic, relationship climax like this:

And then I’m kissing her, actually kissing her properly, on the mouth and everything. Her lips are warm but dry at first, and very slightly chapped, so that I can feel a little hard, sharp spur of dead skin on her bottom lip, which I contemplate biting off, but wonder if maybe that’s perhaps a bit audaciously sensual, biting, within the first few seconds. Maybe I could kiss it off, might that be possible? Can you kiss off dead skin? What might that involve? I’m just about to try when Alice pulls her head away, and I think maybe I’ve blow it, but instead she just smiles and reaches up and pulls the little flap of dead skin off her own lip and drops it down the side of the bed. Then she blots her lip with the back of her hand, glances at it to check she’s not bleeding, licks her lips and we’re kissing again, and it’s heaven.

That is David Nicholls for you. The most realistic fiction writer. A book with a similar style (hyper realistic fiction, I mean, and by the way I just made up that term so feel free to use it) would be Prep by Curtis Sittenfeld. Which is very slow paced but it’s all about making realistic adventures interesting.

A big spoiler is that Alice doesn’t end up with him. 469 pages of Alice and Brian and Alice doesn’t actually end up with him because she is a slutbag. Alice, like a lot of girls, likes the attention from guys, no matter how big or how small, and no matter if it’s from a hunk or an ugly fella. Attention is attention. Nicholls used this flaw in Alice and played it out beautifully. It’s very realistic that a girl would lead a guy on just because she likes the attention, and then drop him when she finds someone worthy of giving 100% of her affection to.

At first I was appalled. There is no, zero, possible way that someone who is a solid 10/10 would go out with Brian, who is not funny and is at best a 2/10 (we’ll give him props for standing up and breathing). I thought, oh man, this is going to be just another story about hot girl and ugly guy. But nope! And I love it. I love how it doesn’t conform to the Beauty and the Beast concept. Because that is hardly ever true.

I read books and watch movies about attractive girls going for the ugly yet cute and awkward guy, but never once have I watched and believed that an attractive guy would fall for the ugly awkward or obese girl. Never.  I’ve asked my guy friends about it, and they all seem to answer the same way. One of them said, “because I don’t want to wake up next to a girl and not like what I see.” Well, that’s a pretty shallow response.

A lot of my friends pointed out that it’s because most girls (exclude the superficial and the gold diggers) weigh the personality more than the looks. Whilst guys make physical attraction as the basis of their relationship in the beginning, and then build it up. Sometimes pardoning the girl’s major personality flaws because their appearance balances it out. That’s why you see a lot of guys with hot, airhead, good-for-sex girls.

Hey, don’t get me wrong; girls can be huge pricks too. But you have to admit that there are more hot girls with ugly guys than there are hot guys with ugly girls. Think about it. I still don’t fully understand why either.

Whoops I went off tangent. Getting back to the point, I give Starter For Ten an 8.2/10. That’s pretty good considering it’s a light-hearted rom-com. David Nicholls has just placed himself on my list of favorite authors, wedged in between Khaled Hosseini and Dan Brown.