Reacting to "Nick and Charlie" - A Heartstopper Novella
Added 2023-07-05 22:27:15 +0000 UTCHey beautiful people.
So sorry this is so late. The Mason Holgate video has been sent back so many times for revisions today so this has been push back and back and back!
I'm excited to start this conversation around one of my favourite books currently!
Love, always ♥️
Comments
you're welcome, lovely ♥️
Jackie-Ross Lavender
2023-07-10 07:32:36 +0000 UTCNick and Charlie for all the senses! The audio book is very special I have to admit.
Jackie-Ross Lavender
2023-07-10 07:32:02 +0000 UTCThis was such a beautiful and eloquent comment to read. Thank you so much KT. It's wonderful to hear another perspective on the alcohol front. And, as far as the using the phones as phones thing... I would go to any length to not call someone but that's just me 🤣 also, I don't actually know if I did know about the novella's being published first. So that's just blown my mind a little!
Jackie-Ross Lavender
2023-07-10 07:31:28 +0000 UTCThank you for being so open here about the very personal ways in which you related to the story. I have a few thoughts. 1) Most people acknowledge that alcohol lowers inhibitions, but there are two schools of thought about it. One is that alcohol makes you do and say crazy things that you wouldn’t have dreamed of doing otherwise, and if you believe this, you’re more likely to forgive someone for what they’ve done while drunk. The second feels that alcohol acts like a truth serum, and that it removes the mask and reveals who you really are at your core that your sober self has been repressing. If you belong to this group, you will be devastated by what someone has done when they’re drunk. I think Nick falls into the latter group. He’s been picking up on all these little passive aggressive hints that Charlie is mad at him, but it isn’t until Charlie is drunk that Charlie actually starts to reveal what’s been on his mind. It comes out all twisted and wrong, but for Nick, it looks like a truth that Charlie had been trying to mask and now feels ready to let free. I think that’s why Nick takes what he says at face value and doesn’t consider the alcohol a mitigating factor. For him, Charlie is being the most real and open he’s been all day, and that’s not something he’s prepared to tease apart in the moment. 2) I know it’s a generational thing, but it frustrates me that these boys forget that their phones actually work as phones. Neither one calls the other. Nick ran through the rain to talk to Charlie in person after their first kiss, but neither one has the courage to knock on a door and tell the other that life is unbearable without another chance to talk things through? Nobody said, “I don’t ever want to see you again,” or “I regret my ever having met you” or “don’t you dare try to contact me,” and yet years of intimate connectedness become brittle and frozen in the days and days and days that stretch on where neither one is willing to even send a single text with the words “I can’t bear to think this is the end without a chance to talk it through.” I was disappointed that Sarah Nelson at least didn’t admonish her son to reach out after learning the details, knowing all she knows about Charlie’s mental health issues and tendency to self-sabotage, because she has been so wise so far. And the blank texts thing? Seriously, he never thought to try texting back to just see what happens or to take his phone to the store to get it fixed because he keeps getting painful ghost texts from his ex? I was just raised in a different world. If I was in that much pain, I wouldn’t have been able to stop myself from reaching out, even if I was told not to. That part was hard to relate to. 3) I’m sure you already know this, but “This Winter” and “Nick and Charlie” were published as e-books before Alice properly started drawing Heartstopper. In fact, Alice said they were inspired by the way Nick and Charlie came to life so compellingly in Solitaire, and it was through further exploring their story using the novelas that Alice realized long-form prose didn’t actually provide a satisfying format to show the progression of their relationship because Alice realized that their relationship was going to be a series of moments that accumulated into a deep bond, more like in real life. Alice felt that the structure of a novel, requiring a plot with a clear beginning, middle, and end and an arc that ties to specific themes, was too restrictive to impose on their journey. Alice realized that a serial format was much more suited to the task, and that illustrating their relationship gave more flexibility than trying to paint it in words. I learned all that a while ago by listening to an interview, but I don’t remember which one. At any rate, it boggles my mind that before we got Nick standing up to bully Harry in the cinema, we got Harry taking one of the sweetest photos on Nick’s disposable camera of Nick and Charlie together. Before Charlie comes to Nick’s house to meet Nellie, her darling pug puppy companion has already won everyone’s hearts. Before the first kiss at Harry’s party, Nick and Charlie have their deeply intimate reunion at 3 am, which was described with such emotion and finesse. Before we ever learn how Nick and Charlie came to say “Hi” to each other for the first time, we learn that they’ve committed to never saying goodbye permanently again. I find it all very intriguing and kinda comforting. Anyway, sorry for the tome. Thanks for giving us a platform to share our thoughts.
Kt B
2023-07-10 05:01:40 +0000 UTCMy multi-media adventure. I started to listen to Jackie's video, stopped when he recommended reading the book first (spoilers alert). So I bought the e-book and read it yesterday. Okay, ready. I listened to the reaction video, and there were several references to the audio book. So after the video, I download the audio book, and listen through the 2 hours, third time through. I am a visual/audio/tactile sort of person, so I have to admit, the audio book was my favorite of the other media.
Douglas Rayner
2023-07-10 04:05:24 +0000 UTCI didn’t expect this book reaction would have me reflecting on my past relationship with alcohol. Thank you so much for sharing. x
Kim Engel
2023-07-07 15:28:13 +0000 UTChttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pt56IC8gDZ4 Official trailer for Red, White and Royal Blue, which Ingrid sent me the link for. Looks promising!
Graham & Ruth May
2023-07-06 15:34:47 +0000 UTCI agree with just about everything you said about this wonderful book. One thing that struck me was when you said that you were taken aback that Nick reacted in the way that he did when Charlie was drunk. When I read that section, it seemed to me that Nick was just as afraid as Charlie was and that he was responding out of fear. He is struggling to understand why Charlie is behaving like this and not communicating reasonably by talking it through but he’s also conscious of his impending departure to university as he is remembering, ‘I’ve only got a few months left with Charlie’, page 80. He’s afraid of losing him too.
Graham & Ruth May
2023-07-06 15:27:40 +0000 UTCI can’t wait to see this but I will have to because I’m going to be busy until this evening.. but then I can reward myself with this! My favourite of Alice’s books. Thanks in anticipation..x❤️
Graham & Ruth May
2023-07-06 07:15:24 +0000 UTCThis was a wonderful review Jackie! First of all: Kit and Joe doing the audio for this book?!! That would be so amazing!!! I relate to your feelings about the book so much. Nick&Charlie is definitely one of my favorite books of all time… Their love story is one of a kind and I also love the mature aspect of this storyline. I think it’s wonderful that Alice gives the reader the opportunity to see Nick and Charlie’s perspective chapter by chapter. Which is not very common I feel like…At least I only read books with only one POV before. I was very close to tears when I read their break up scene for the first time. But the audio book actually had me sobbing… My favorite moment is at the end when they were joking around about Nick loving Charlie more than his dogs because he wants to set their most recent pic as his wallpaper. But then Nick gets very serious (at least you can hear it in the audiobook) and says: “ I love you more than anyone actually.” ♥️ And than Charlie’s monologue afterwards.. 🥹 my heart was so full after reading/hearing that… Yeah, it’s just a wonderful, wonderful story and this as a movie or short film would “kill” me 😭. Thank you for this beautiful video 🫶🏽 And thank you for sharing your personal experiences with us!
Frances
2023-07-06 04:08:08 +0000 UTCGood morning… I just woke up.. the kids are still sleeping..still got some time until I have to get up, so I’m gonna watch this now 😍🤩
Frances
2023-07-06 03:11:21 +0000 UTCIt’s been a little while since I read the book, so I don’t remember my reactions to every bit of it, but I always felt sure that whatever happened they would get back together because I had developed enough trust in Alice to know they wouldn’t steer the story in the wrong direction. I do think Alice has said that the sixth book of Heartstopper will be the last book dealing with these characters (though Becky Albertalli said the same thing at one point about the Simonverse, and then wrote “Love, Creekwood,” so I guess never say never). It’s easy to see Nick as this impossibly mature teenager, and one thing I think “Nick and Charlie“ does is remind us that he is only at this point 18 years old. I think I personally enjoyed “This Winter” a bit more, but only by a little bit, and some of that may be because I listened to it rather than reading it. Anyway, I enjoyed everything you had to say here, as always. By the way, I watched another analysis of the first season of Heartstopper that I really enjoyed. It says a lot about what makes the show different from other YA-themed TV shows. Here is a link to it: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7cDB-YzFl1I
Lane Wright
2023-07-06 00:32:20 +0000 UTC
