Praise for All About Us
‘Prepare to fall head over heels in love with this book.’
HELLO!
‘Magical and beautiful.’ Josie Silver
‘An insightful, nuanced look at modern relationships, I LOVED it. A Christmas Carol meets Love Actually.’ Holly Bourne
‘A heart-warming and surprisingly feminist novel of “what if”.’ Laura Jane Williams
‘Has all of the feels – the messy complexities of family and friends, the power of love and a sprinkling of magic. Gorgeous.’ Clare Pooley
‘Sharp, funny and poignant.’ Rachel Winters
‘A warm, cosy, Christmassy delight. It’s SO honest, funny and sad, and most of all it is full of hope. It tugged at ALL of my heartstrings, and I loved it to bits.’ Cressida McLaughlin
‘Romantic and gloriously life-affirming.’ Rachel Marks
‘So captivating I couldn’t put it down.
A gorgeously festive story.’ Emma Cooper
‘An outstanding story about regrets, self-reflection and love, littered with relatable situations and fabulous humour. I LOVED IT!’ Roxie Cooper
‘A magical, compelling and thought-provoking story, full of depth and heart.’ C.J. Skuse
‘Clever, funny and romantic. I hope the Netflix adaptation comes swiftly after.’ Melinda Salisbury
‘Oh my gosh, it’s wonderful! I cried so much!’ Polly Crosby
TOM ELLEN is the co-author of three critically acclaimed Young Adult novels: Lobsters (which was shortlisted for The Bookseller’s inaugural YA Book Prize), Never Evers and Freshers. His books have been widely translated and are published in 15 countries. He is a regular contributor to Viz magazine, and as a journalist he has written for Cosmopolitan, Empire, Evening Standard Magazine, Glamour, NME, ShortList, Time Out, Vice and many more. All About Us is his debut adult novel.
Copyright
An imprint of HarperCollins Publishers Ltd
1 London Bridge Street
London SE1 9GF
First published in Great Britain by HQ in 2020
Copyright © Tom Ellen 2020
Tom Ellen asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of this work.
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.
All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the non-exclusive, non-transferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on-screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, downloaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins.
Ebook Edition © August 2020 ISBN: 9780008336042
Version 2020-08-04
Note to Readers
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Page numbers taken from the following print edition: ISBN 9780008336035
To Carolina
Contents
Cover
Praise
About the Author
Title Page
Copyright
Note to Readers
Dedication
Prologue
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
Chapter Eleven
Chapter Twelve
Chapter Thirteen
Chapter Fourteen
Chapter Fifteen
Chapter Sixteen
Chapter Seventeen
Chapter Eighteen
Chapter Nineteen
Chapter Twenty
Chapter Twenty-One
Chapter Twenty-Two
Chapter Twenty-Three
Chapter Twenty-Four
Chapter Twenty-Five
Chapter Twenty-Six
Chapter Twenty-Seven
Chapter Twenty-Eight
Chapter Twenty-Nine
Chapter Thirty
Chapter Thirty-One
Chapter Thirty-Two
Chapter Thirty-Three
Chapter Thirty-Four
Chapter Thirty-Five
Chapter Thirty-Six
Chapter Thirty-Seven
Chapter Thirty-Eight
Chapter Thirty-Nine
Chapter Forty
Chapter Forty-One
Chapter Forty-Two
Chapter Forty-Three
Chapter Forty-Four
Chapter Forty-Five
Chapter Forty-Six
Chapter Forty-Seven
Chapter Forty-Eight
Chapter Forty-Nine
Chapter Fifty
Epilogue
Acknowledgements
Author Q&A with Tom Ellen
Extract
About the Publisher
Prologue
University of York, 5 December 2005
Running was a bad idea.
I can see that now. There was no need to run. It’s a game of Sardines, not the Olympic 100m. Plus, they haven’t even started looking for me yet. I can still hear them all outside the maze, shouting to fifty in unison. It sounds like a weirdly raucous episode of Sesame Street.
I could’ve taken my time, strolled about leisurely in search of the perfect hiding place, but no: drunk logic told me that fifty seconds was no time at all and that the best option would be to peg it into the campus maze at top speed until I was safely camouflaged. Now, as I slow down to a stumble in the darkness, I can feel six snakebite blacks, four sambuca shots and that doner calzone I split with Harv all roiling ominously in my stomach.
I stop for a second to catch my breath, which immediately explodes back out of me. I put a hand to the wall to steady myself, remembering too late that the wall is not actually a wall, but a hedge. I fall through it with the slapstick dexterity of a young Buster Keaton, miraculously avoiding being blinded or castrated by a million scratchy branches. I try to get up, fail miserably, and then decide that this is probably as good a hiding spot as any.
The leaves settle around me. The counting has stopped now, and I can feel the maze bristle and creak as a dozen drunken bodies stagger into it, yelling, ‘We’re coming to ge-et you!’
I sit there in silence, trying to work some moisture into my parched mouth and listening to my heart galloping in my chest. I reach up to wipe my forehead, and my hand comes back covered in foundation and fake blood – souvenirs from tonight’s stellar theatrical performance.
The play went about as well as any first-year uni play could be expected to, which is to say we probably won’t be nominated for any Olivier awards, but no one fluffed their lines or vomited nervously on the audience. It was in the bar afterwards, though, where everything really kicked into gear: everyone gabbling at a hundred miles an hour about what we all want to write or direct or act in next. Maybe it was the adrenalin – or more likely the sambuca – but the world suddenly seemed alive with possibility, like I could actually see the future spooling out endlessly ahead of me, beckoning me in. Mad, really, to think that I can do anything I want with it.
It’s funny, though. As weird and brilliant as tonight has been, I always thought it would be me and Alice’s night. The night we finally got it together after a whole term of awkwardly not quite managing to. It’s my fault, really: I’ve never been very good at ‘making the move’ (in fact, just
