I absolutely adored this cover and had to read it! The book didn’t not disappoint! I can’t wait to get a hold of a physical copy to add to my bookshelf

Love how the book takes you through Jen and Nick relationship over the years. Loved reading about their individual experiences! A good read by the author.

Sadly I fall into the group of 'too old' for this book. It just didnt appeal to me, although I would say it is a well written story. For me there was too much to-ing and fro-ing with two young people who took their time getting anywhwere.
But my thanks for the chance ot read and review the book. I'm sorry it wasnt for me.

A passionate and enticing read. Loved how it spanned the decades.
Realistic characters and times where you just want to shake the pair of them!
Enjoyable read.

A truly beautiful story about friendship, love and what’s meant to be. I really enjoyed this book, the events in it were those we all remember living through and so it made it feel more real. In 1986 I was just a couple of years older than the main characters and so I really related to this story and the timeline. I didn’t just read this book, I felt it.

Thanks to NetGalley and the publishers for the ARC in return for an honest and unbiased opinion.

Given the plethora of 5 star reviews, I suspect that this is a Me Problem, but I just didn't engage with this book at all. Being only 8 years younger than Jenny/Jen/Jennifer, there was a lot that felt similar to my own experiences - the mid 90s Britpop scene, the prevalence of party drugs (particularly MDMA), the big news event which form a backdrop to several sections, such as the death of Princess Diana and 9/11.

For all that, though, I couldn't relate to the characters. Jenny/Jen/Jennifer's ever-changing name is symptomatic of the fact that she doesn't really know who she is for much of the book (beyond 'wears red lipstick and winged eyeliner', which isn't actually an identity no matter how much she wants it to be). Such identity crisis and rootlessness is, of course, typical of one's late teens and 20s, but as a result, the reader can't know or understand who she truly is either, and I therefore found it difficult to care about her as a protagonist.

Meanwhile, Nick - after whom Jenny/Jen/Jennifer spends the book pining, and whom the reader is obviously meant to fall for too - has virtually no personality at all beyond the first word used to describe him: pretentious. It's easy to see why he has a hold over Jenny/Jen/Jennifer at 16; harder to understand it at 28, 30, etc.

The most shocking part of the book (not counting the almost total lack of people of colour in this version of London) is when Jenny/Jen/Jennifer buys a two bedroom flat in Kentish Town for £68,000, which is truly terrifying and depressing!

2.5 stars rounded up to 3

I thoroughly enjoyed the 'London' part of this book, it was almost like the city was an extra character and as someone born and raised there it was all so familiar. I found the on/off romance/friendship really fun to start with and Jen's depiction as an anguished, insecure teen was perfect but the will they/won't they began to drag after a while. To me it came across as not the 'one true love' idea but as an obsession with reliving their teen years. Perhaps it's because I'm a bit of an old cynic and should just let myself go with the true romance...

Nevertheless it was an enjoyable read which I'm happy to recommend.

Twenty years, a series of snapshots of Jenny and Nick's relationship - from college acquaintances, to friends, to possibly lovers, with periods of estrangement and growth in between. They meet at college initially, then again in a chance encounter after university and their lives are woven together. Each different encounter is based around a London tube station -from chance encounters in Old Street to a spectacular Circle Line party, and with major events like 9/11 and 7/7 woven in, as well as 90s London parties and so much more. They have other friends, other relationships, but they keep coming back to each other, and to London.

I l oved this. They're both believable characters - no perfect leading man here, Nick is sometimes terrible and Jenny isn't always perfect either - and they have a realistic group of friends around them. As well as their romantic lives the book covers that feeling of everyone else having incredible career success whilst you seem to be in a dead end job that isn't getting you anywhere, and not knowing if that's really what you should do. I would definitely recommend it!

What a heartwarming, frustrating and sweet book, this gave me all the feels. I love a good friendship to lovers story. However, I’m not usually a fan of a long timeline and was a bit sceptical how the author could cram 20 years of friendship into one book. She handled it beautifully though, the characters were well fleshed out, and felt so realistic - even the ones who only appear during certain time periods.

However, this wasn’t a perfect read for me, while I love how real the characters were, they were also pretty annoying for large chunks of the book - but at opposite times! I feel for most people they may not be an issue, but it was pretty frustrating at times. Despite this, I would definitely still recommend this book!

This follows Jennifer and Nick, who live in North London and have a tumultuous relationship over ~20 years. We see them first as they meet as teenagers and it follows their relationship over the course of those years. It was a cute story and fun to read about the area of London I live, but it just felt like there were long periods of time where I wish more happened. To me, it could have been a bit shorter. I enjoyed reading about major events that happened IRL during the years, and the author did a great job of describing London and bringing that piece to life, but I just felt a bit disappointed with the development of the plot.

Separately, I also got super confused by this and another book coming out this year. The other book is 'With Love From London' by Sarah Jio. The book takes place in North London and the cover is super similar, too!

Thank you to NetGalley for the chance to read this ahead of publication!

I received a free advanced reader copy of London, With Love in return for my honest opinion of this book. Thank you to Hodder & Stoughton and Sarra Manning for allowing me to read this before it’s release date of 5th May 2022.
London, With Love follows the story of Jennifer and Nick over a thirty five year period, encapsulating the highs and lows of life throughout a tumultuous period of history. Manning does not shy away from tackling events such as the tragedy of 9/11, which only serves to add to the depth of her characters as they respond to key historical moments from the past.
Throughout the book we see Jennifer grow up on the streets of London, a city which is portrayed in the most beautiful manner, highlighting the authors love of the city. I found it easy to follow the flow of time throughout, capturing the essence of each decade well as Jennifer and Nick navigated life. Though their relationship was in no way easy, their struggles and development throughout the years made for excellent reading.
I connected well with Jennifer whilst reading and particularly enjoyed the progression of her career, finding it natural and a realistic portrayal, not everyone instantly achieves their ideal career, and it does not always pan out exactly how anyone plans. I enjoyed the friendships she formed over time, and I empathised with her struggles.
For me, I felt Nick had more flaws than endearing characteristics, and while he did grow as a person, I feel it took a long time and I did not fully connect with him. There were moments where I began to warm to him, but he would then make a choice that showed he had not grown as much as I hoped. It takes a drastic decision from Jen for Nick to grow up and stop acting like a teenage boy. However, I enjoyed seeing him progress through the years, even if his actions frustrated me at times!
Unfortunately, the one character I was not struck on was George, I personally found him to be stereotypical and he fell flat compared to the rest of the characters.
I will note, this book does feature M/C’s cheating on their partners at one point in the book, as I know this can be off-putting for some people.
Overall, I enjoyed this book and it was a pleasant read, this was my first book by Sarra Manning and I will definitely be giving some of her other books a try.

I really like Sarra Manning's books, and I love London, it's a beautiful, vibrant city. This book has a very similar plot to One Day, but includes London and its public transport system practically as characters in the book. It's a quick, if not particularly satisfying, read. There are some passages that are very relatable, and very well written.

As the title states, this book is based in London and having grown up and still living here made this all the more real for me. I could picture all the different places & events mentioned in the book as I lived them through our two main characters Jen & Nick - two star-crossed lovers who just can’t seem to be in the same place emotionally at the same time. I could feel, sympathise & associate myself with Jen while loving Nick. Their love story was so gripping I couldn’t wait to get to the end but then was so disappointed that it had finished!!

This book is my most favourite book this year thus far!
I read it in two sittings and now want to read it again!!

I love love loved this book! When began it I did remind me slightly of Sally Romney’s Normal People which whilst well written is a bit too angsty for me. But London, With Love is not like this at all.

When Jen and Nick first meet they are both completely different people, young and trying to find their place in the world. And Sarra Manning does a brilliant job at telling Jen’s life story, showing how she grows and changes and why it is never quite the right time for her and Nick to finally get together, rather than just imply it’s a missed opportunity. I loved how big world events featured throughout, and without giving too much away, the events in New York were almost like you were there with Jen. I’d lost track of the year so when that happened it was really shocking to read.

The snapshots of both Nick and Jen’s lives were so realistic, I was almost expecting the end of the book to resolve in a way that was likely but also not what I was hoping. So I was genuinely pleased that not only did it end exactly as I wanted it to, but it also finished right after lockdown 2021 which was a pleasant surprise. Almost as if I knew Nick and Jen in real life and I had just left them recently.

I devoured this book in one sitting and it is without a doubt the best book I have read on Net Galley.

Source of book: NetGalley (thank you)
Relevant disclaimers: none
Please note: This review may not be reproduced or quoted, in whole or in part, without explicit consent from the author.
And remember: I am not here to judge your drag, I mean your book. Books are art and art is subjective. These are just my personal thoughts. They are not meant to be taken as broader commentary on the general quality of the work. Believe me, I have not enjoyed many an excellent book, and my individual lack of enjoyment has not made any of those books less excellent or (more relevantly) less successful.

*eyes collection of 5-star reviews*

Sooooo…this is a me problem, then? Basically this is a very good book—ambitious, well-written, full of meaningful emosh and top-class bants—that just didn’t happen to work for me. I picked it up because I liked, um, the name? And to give it credit, it really does deliver on the “evoke thirty years of London” vibe.

The basic premise is that Jen and Nick meet at school when they’re sixteen. Jen is desperately insecure and Nick is desperately pretentious, but they strike up an unlikely friendship. Jen, of course, is secretly in love with Nick—a truth that comes out in with what felt to me like authentic teenage messiness. From there, they proceed with their lives, although emotion and geography keep drawing them back together, until eventually, in their early thirties, having lived through various significant life events, both personal and global, found friends and lovers, made mistakes and grown as people, they confess their mutual love and commit to being together.

So, theoretically, I like the whole love story told over twenty years thing and I liked the heroine. It was a pleasure to watch her grow from a confused adolescent to a confident adult, her missteps and anxieties felt understandable, and I kind of hardcore related to her attempts to navigate a middle-class world from a working-class background. But where the wheels came off for me was … uh. Nick. I mean, he’s fine? I think he’s fine? I just kind of think maybe a man needs more than a leather jacket and beauty mark next to his mouth to earn the love-of-your-life trophy? For me, while Jen changed and grew and learned who she wanted to be and how to be it, Nick was essentially static for 80% of the book.

As an adolescent, his primary character trait is “pretentious”. We first meet him at an English class where the students have been asked to pick a poem that spoke to him from a collection, and he insists on playing ‘I’ll Be Your Mirror’ by The Velvet Underground: this was probably, for me, his most charming moment in the entire book. Because, yes, this is infuriating and pretentious, and his teacher must have been rolling her eyes so hard, but I mean. Can’t argue with his taste? Except “pretentious” sort of remains his primary character trait. He really doesn’t seem to be able to make up his mind about Jen (right to the end, he’s telling her that he’s in love with her but wishes he hasn’t – dude, that’s Mr Darcy at the 40% mark not Mr Darcy at the end of the book). And kind of the point is sort of … he hasn’t really grown up, and Jen tells him so. Which serves at the catalyst for him to start making changes to his life.

Which, I guess, is supposed to be romantic?

But, from another perspective, what we have here is a book about a woman who has to wait over twenty years for a bloke to get his shit together.

And … I dunno. That feels less a lot less romantic and more kind of … incredibly depressing? And is one of those glimpses into heterosexuality that make me legit worried. Like, are you guys okay?

I think I might also just be personally resistant to the whole “love of life meant to be together” wossname. Because while I get, in abstract, that it’s a thing, in practice it just seems to invalidate every other relationship someone has. There are three other men in Jen’s life besides Nick: there’s an actively abusive academic, a sweet-tempered Black artist who gets all resentful when his career doesn’t take off, and a steady, supportive older man who wants Jen to move to the country and make babies with him. And, obviously, I knew I was reading a romance and Nick was the hero, but it never felt for a moment possible to suspend my disbelief over these other relationships, almost as if Jen herself wasn’t able to.

And maybe that was the point. Jen wavers constantly between “some part of her would always be in love with Nick as a form of nostalgia for her adolescence” and “she loved Nick, and would always love Nick” and, while I’m sure you could interpret the former as a necessary self-deception that allowed her to live with the latter, I did sometimes find myself thinking uncharitably, “well come on, lady, which is it?” And it doesn’t help that each of Jen’s other relationships follow the same pattern, which is that they seem initially to be an antidote to Nick (even abusive guy) which leads Jen to conclude that she’s in love with them. Whereupon Nick re-enters the story and it turns out the relationships had deep-seated flaws all along—usually with the men turning out to be selfish or unsupportive in some way. And, again, it was hard to see if this was Jen specifically torpedoing her relationships because she secretly, or not so secretly wanted to be with Nick, that the relationships fell apart naturally becomes sometimes relationships do (and Nick’s proximity was irrelevant) or the narrative was abruptly conspiring to present the other relationships as inherently flawed so the reader continued to root for Jen and Nick getting together.

Although, frankly, this particular reader was not rooting. This particular reader really seriously felt someone should have told Jen to move the fuck on with her life instead of clinging to the fantasy of this man it takes twenty years to decide he wants to be with her. Or at least be with her in the fully heteronormativity-embracing way she seems to see as mandatory for the relationship to be valid: like they spend at least twelve years taking turns to be the one who rejects the sexual advances of the other, then Nick is like “we should be together, we just work” and that isn’t what Jen is looking for, until he pops up again later being all “I have a pension plan now” and then she’s like “OKAY I LOVE YOU.” Personally, I was less concerned about the pension plan and more concerned about the twenty years of dicking around?

Like, if it took someone twenty years to figure out they wanted me, I think by that stage I wouldn’t want them? And, yes, yes, I’ve seen When Harry Met Sally (there’s even a section in the book where Jen in NYC and visits the café) but, firstly, that’s 12 years, not 20, and for at least half that time they’re not even sure they want to be friends.

This is twenty years. Twenty years of watching a cishet man doing the emotional equivalent of picking his teeth.

I’m sorry, but that just doesn’t sweep me away on swoonsome clouds.

Also, and I’ve kind of written about this before, but this is one of those m/f books that just feels indelibly straight to me—a quality that isn’t actually connected to the presence or absence of queerness, so much as some … fundamental view of the world that runs so contrary to how I perceive and experience the same world that it feels actively alienating. Like, for example, Nick’s failure, in the final section, to offer Jen sufficient heteronormativity for her to believe his declaration of love to be sincere: this is termed as her wanting “everything” but the idea that “everything” automatically and unquestioningly translates to a pension and two children is … is, I dunno. It’s weird to me. Maybe because the whole notion that relationship endgame = a pension + two children is not how I think about relationships. Or indeed pensions. Or indeed children, in whatever number they occur.

There is, I should note, a single queer TM in the book itself: his name is George and he starts life as a shy, overweight teenager, morphs into a promiscuous drug-fuelled party queen in silver trousers, then moves to New York where he becomes a successful advertising executive obsessed with Botox. I mean, props I guess for the book manging to evoke three shallow stereotypes of gay men instead of restricting itself to one as is traditional?

Sample of George’s dialogue: “Suck that cigarette down like it’s a juicy cock, that helps,” George said.

Because, you see, the thing about gay men—and you might not know this—is they’re romantically and sexually attracted to other men. And sometimes (though not exclusively) other men have cocks!

Speaking of other men, and the presence or non-presence of their cocks, there’s a fair bit of casual, I suppose I wouldn’t call it transphobia exactly, perhaps casual cissexism? Not in a way that’s unusual for the genre, I hasten to add, but in a way that’s pretty typical for it. I’m talking about phrases like, when two characters are discussing how they couldn’t be lesbians, “We like dick too much” or “the same predilection for little blond things that Nick did. Though George’s little blond things came with a penis as standard.”

And, look, I’m aware these books are set in decades where …y’know, I’d say we were less evolved in how we spoke/thought/talked about trans people but my country is fucking transphobic right now so I can’t. But, yes, there was less awareness and different words were used, and obviously one of these examples is dialogue and that’s a choice about how a character thinks and talks, not a reflection of the author, and no I don’t think every character in every piece of fiction should sound like the latest social justice discourse etc. etc. etc. But, still, choices are choices, you know, and to me choices like this always feel … unnecessary. Like why is romance so committed to centring the penis in both its depictions of masculinity and its expressions of female desire?

And, yes, for all we know George IS one of those gay dudes for whom absence of a penis is a dealbreaker in the men he wants to be with but is it an important facet of his character? No. Because his character is getting high and getting botox i.e. he has no character. And the line about “liking dick too much” – I know it’s a throwaway comment (unless we’re really arguing that unexamined cissexism/transphobia is VITAL to our understanding of this secondary character—which it clearly isn’t), meant to be amusing and subversive/empowering because women are stereotypically supposed to be attracted to eyes and a sense of humour, and here is a woman emphasising she likes men for their dicks! Wow, my mind is blown. And I do recognise that ‘dick’ here is meant to be a shorthand for ‘sex’ but why are we still using that shorthand? Like I’m sure there are people for whom presence of dick is the major pillar of attraction for them but those people aren’t heterosexual. They’re people with a penis fetish? Like if all you care about is a penis, then it shouldn’t matter if the penis is attached to a man, a woman, or a non-binary person, you know?

So, ultimately, what it comes down to for me is that none of those lines are witty, important or characterful enough to pay off the “potentially hurtful to some readers” debt they incur. You could have taken them out of the book and lost nothing—either in terms of representation of the era (I mean, when I think of the 90s, which is when I was mostly growing up, I remember britpop and pedal pushers) or in terms of representing the characters. I think that’s why such moments bug me so much: obviously we all say and write hurtful things occasionally (I do not consider myself exempt from that by any means) and it is absolutely not the case that every piece of prose and dialogue has to be 100% “politically correct” at all times. But when your choice is be hurtful or not be hurtful, and not being hurtful costs nothing, personally or artistically, why not … not be hurtful?

Just? Why not?

And I don’t mean to single out one author here. It’s a question I’m asking the genre in general.

Look, I’m sorry it might be coming across that I’m really dunking on this book. But the other thing I should probably mention—and this is out of my lane, so take what I say under advisement—I wasn’t personally super comfortable with the role POCs played in the book either. There are two. There’s Gethin, the Black Welsh artist, who Jen dates for a while. His whole arc is trying to be an artist, while working at an art supplies shop, sort of in parallel to Jen interning with a terrible agent as she’s trying to break into publishing, and then getting resentful/huffy and fucking off back to Wales. All of which would be fine but intersects, for me, uncomfortably with Gethin’s Blackness? There are references to his “quiet brooding fury” which doesn’t seem like a … completely unproblematic way to describe a Black man. And while Jen notes that she and Gethin sometimes receive harassment on the street for being an interracial couple that’s kind of as far as her understanding (or the book’s interest?) goes in terms of exploring the racial dynamic of both their relationship and the fact that Jen, ultimately, does succeed in breaking into publishing whereas Gethin is not able to access the art world. The book just sort of shrugs about that, but … like. A white person finds success in their chosen field, whereas a Black person does not? I mean, I dunno. Could maybe race be a factor there? Shouldn’t we care that it’s a factor, rather than just blandly accepting as inevitable that this Black guy gets his dreams ground to dust as an afterthought in someone else’s life story?

The other POC is a South Asian school friend of Jen’s – well, I say friend, she ends up treating Jen really badly over a boy. I have of say, I do kind of question the choice of casting the only other POC in the book in what is essentially an antagonist role—and a very narrow mean girl antagonist role, at that. We do meet this character—Priya—again later when she has moved to New York, found love, happiness and a successful career. She apologises to Jen and the two commit to meeting up again—which, okay fine. One of the things I enjoyed about the book was the way relationships develop, and old conflicts fade into irrelevance, when explored over a long timeframe.

Because, yes, I’m in my thirties now and I can’t be arsed to hold grudges against people I went to school with.

Except then 9/11 happens and Priya, like, literally dies. The chapter after she has been redeemed into the eyes of a white girl, she is KILLED. I mean I … I don’t know what to say. I don’t have standing to talk about this but … like. That doesn’t seem … okay? Like the South Asian fulfils her narrative function and is promptly wiped out in an act of global terrorism? And then never mentioned again.

Speaking of the, um, 9/11 bit … I honestly don’t know what it was doing in a book called London with Love. I know 9/11 had a big impact on the world at large, but it felt like a weird and uncomfortable stretch for this random British woman to just happen to be in NYC and in the South Tower when it happens. I don’t know, it just felt a bit crass to me? Especially because she is also present at the London bombings in 2005: at this point I’m starting to think Jen might be some kind of international problem? Since socio-political upheaval seems to be actively following around. I know the book is a sort of whistle-stop-through the last thirty years so, of course, she’d be present at some of the events that happened, but I found the book easiest to connect with when Jen was indirectly experiencing rather than bearing explicit witness to. I guess it just felt more authentic to the way must of us experience the world? Like, one of my favourite sections was when she and her friendship group decide they want to bring in the millennium on Primrose Hill but they mistime it and end up stuck at an out-of-the-way Tube station as the midnight strikes. There was something really endearing about this to me, because it felt recognisable: the reality that life is mostly missing important things.

(I remember when 9/11 happened, I’d just moved into an incredibly shitty student house, and there was no internet yet, or anything, and the electricity was spotty, and we had no hot water—and so there was this plumber round, just doing plumber stuff, while I was just sort of waiting for him to finish, and this was 2001 so mobile phones were rubbish, and I couldn’t afford one anyway. And then the plumber came white-faced out of the bathroom was like, do you have a radio, I think something’s happening. And I was like … uh no. So he had to turn the radio on his van, and leave the door open, and me and this plumber just sat on the front steps of this hovel-I-was-trying-to-live in, listening to these crackly incoherent radio reports)

In terms of the 9/11 stuff in this book, though, don’t get me wrong, I think the role of 9/11 in our global consciousness is a complex one. And the idea of “appropriating” something from a nation with such profound culturally imperialistic tendencies as America seems laughable. But using 9/11 as a catalyst for a Brit to shag a boy she’s had a twenty-year crush on is … well. It didn’t sit right with me. Your mileage may vary.

Ultimately I think “didn’t sit right with me” is probably a fair summary of my response to this book. Obviously I’m not the target audience, and I’m aware of that, but I read books I’m not the target audience for all the time and don’t struggle with this to the degree I struggled with this one. I’m not disputing the book that the excellent qualities, in terms of writing, and characterisation, and I did love—if nothing else—it’s portrayal of London. It just kind of … lost me on pretty much everything else.

PS – why on earth would you name your kid after your emotionally abusive granddad? I don’t get straight people. I just don’t.

I was so excited to get the opportunity to read this as I love Sarra Manning. I really enjoyed this. I found myself getting frustrated with all the near misses for Nick and Jenny's relationship but in post-reading it feels right. The only part I didn't love was the epilogue but I think that's more my determination to avoid reading about Covid!

Big London kiss to NetGalley, Sarra Manning and Hodder & Stoughton for an advanced copy of this book !

The miscommunication plot stresses me the hell out, and that is essentially a very large part of this books plot so I remained stressed throughout this book. The premise is cute and the first part showed real promise to me: two indie pretentious kids falling in love `! PLEASE !!!!! The romance (besides the two main characters being slightly insufferable was cute) Did I want more of the two of them happily ever after ? Yes !! But I was pretty happy with how the book was going, and then...

And then I saw the date 9/9/01 and I went no, and then I texted my friend going I know what this book is going to do and then it did what I thought it was going to do. AND THEN I saw the date 7/7/05 and I went not again and yes again it did happen. When I started reading this book did I expect the protagonists to get caught up in 2 (TWO) terrorist attacks? no. Did I like that they got caught up in 2 (TWO) terrorist attacks? no. Did I feel like it was cheesy and there could have been a better and more enjoyable way for these protagonists to sort out their issues? Yes !!!! A terrorist attack should probably be a big thing in a book especially a romance book. To chuck two in there ultimately serving the same purpose lessens the impact and makes me now refer to this book as 'that one romance book with 2 (TWO) terrorist attacks what the fuck I did not see that coming from the description.)

London. Nine million people. Two hundred and seventy tube stations. Every day, thousands of chance encounters, first dates, goodbyes and happy ever afters.
And for twenty years it's been where one man and one woman can never get their timing right. I truly loved it and want everyone to read this novel! The perfect book to wrap yourself around on a dark night.

This book...I loved it! It's like a love letter to London as well as between the characters, simply wonderful. Sarra has a incredible style of writing that makes you feel like the characters are personal friends of yours and that you are living their lives with them in the book...a book that I will definitely be recommending to others.

London, With Love by Sarra Manning is a series of vignettes about Jen and, sometimes, Nick, north Londoners who meet at college. We see them over the course of thirty five years from the late 1980s which makes them my contemporaries. the action jumps lightly through the decades of Jen's adult life of which Nick is sometimes a part.

I enjoyed the style of the book, finding it very easy to read, but I found the characters quite difficult to get to know. Only Jen and Nick are in any way rounded out; the supporting cast, even those who play a significant part in Jen's life, has a tendency towards the two dimensional. And yet I read on, well into the night to finish the book.