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2021 read: Lou, 27, unemployed, with a fitness-fanatic, decent but going-through-the-motions boyfriend lives in a crowded home with her family, when she gets an unlikely six-month contract as a carer for the quadriplegic Will, good-looking, one-time city big-shot, alpha male who has purposefully and ruthlessly scared his previous carers away. This book tells the story of those six months, a story centred around their friendship, their relationship even, and also the reason why the contract is for six months.

Let's not beat around the bush, this is an utterly mainstream commercially viable book, but it also helped expose millions of readers and viewers to the high-concept (view spoiler)[ look at assisted suicide, the lives of those that become disabled and how they consider their own dignity etc. (hide spoiler)] themes and ideas. A commercially successful, but also highly readable and accessible book that needed to be written. As for me, I've been aware of it for years, but felt it wasn't for me, and was duly surprised and indeed entertained and educated by this very well conceived and presented read that also took the time to illustrate what families can go through with a member being disabled; how lives are eked out in small communities and above all, provided a well rounded, believable quadriplegic protagonist, despite him being an idealised character. I enjoyed it enough to want to read the sequel. 8 out of 12.