Rick Adams has had enough of being a teen, and if this is what being a young adult is all about then forget it – Rick got ill at university, you see, the dreaded ‘d’ word descended on him and made him miserably unhappy.
But he’s over that now, he’s back at home with his great friends Jimmy, Lucy and Paul, and his wonderfully supportive sister Jenny, all of whom are trying to take his mind off his illness so that he can enjoy the summer with them.
But depression doesn’t lay down that easily, especially when the world of work is beckoning and Rick hasn’t got a clue what he wants to do for a living. It’s alright for his friends, they’ve got plans, but Rick’s only got as far as having a job interview planned for Thursday, and that’s for a discipline in which he’s not even remotely interested anyway.
What Rick really likes is music - his dream is to be a club DJ. He’s grown up with the scene through his teen years, watching and listening to it morph from humble beginnings into a true art form. And he’s matured with it. He’s got the equipment, he’s learnt his craft, he just can’t seem to take that next step from bedroom to, well, the public arena.
You see, Rick can’t stand rejection. He can’t take it. And that’s bad news, because the older he gets the more of it he seems to face. No one said being a young adult would be easy, but this coming of age has been like being dragged through a hedge backwards, and a thorny one at that – depression, career crisis, dream-deprivation, not to mention sex abandonment.
Sex abandonment? For sure, because that’s what depression does, puts you off it, takes the drive away, much less the companionship and deep intimacy involved in the experience with someone you truly love; but wait, romance is in the air, because this isn’t one of those stories which sees the bad times win through, no way, this is Rick Adams, and he’s in love with his best friend’s girlfriend!
Well, not quite. You see, truth is stranger than fiction which means Rick is in love with Lucy, but his best friend Paul is also playing the game in his attempts to woo her. It’s just that Paul thinks he’s already won and, well, he hasn’t. So, the week when they’re all around each other should be interesting and yet, again, this isn’t one of those love triangle novels with plots, duplicity, stratagems and backstabbing.
No, this is Rick With a View, with romance, contemporary romance (as seen in the noughties anyway) so no one’s going to be left out, no one’s going to feel like a gooseberry, because Paul might just end up with Jenny instead!
And Jimmy, well Jimmy couldn’t give a stuff about anything except beer – that’s his one thing after all, the one part of life he simply can’t do without, in the same way that others might choose chocolate, or television, or sex even.
And so, the music plays from Saturday until Friday of one week, just one week in which Rick and his sister watch Paul play in a rugby sevens tournament (he’s fast at running, Jenny’s fast at drinking, Rick’s fast at seeing existential angst in the game!), they pick up Jimmy and Lucy and go clubbing in their local town, Paul and Jimmy end up fighting and falling in the river, and so the young adult, no teen, no completely puerile behaviour continues...
Rick sees his counsellor one day. He’s getting better, they both know it, but then Rick tumbles back into the mire and his friends sling ropes round his waist to extricate him from the sludge and gloop that for some reason seems to target him at uneven opportunity. It’s then he goes to a house party, has a spin on the decks, and is asked if he wants to play out at a club on Friday...
Will Rick make it through his jumble of nerves in order to fulfil his dream? And will Lucy, who may just have let him down earlier in the week see him perform so well on stage that she wants to have him back beside her, for good? All will be penned by our hero in his own coming of age novel
But he’s over that now, he’s back at home with his great friends Jimmy, Lucy and Paul, and his wonderfully supportive sister Jenny, all of whom are trying to take his mind off his illness so that he can enjoy the summer with them.
But depression doesn’t lay down that easily, especially when the world of work is beckoning and Rick hasn’t got a clue what he wants to do for a living. It’s alright for his friends, they’ve got plans, but Rick’s only got as far as having a job interview planned for Thursday, and that’s for a discipline in which he’s not even remotely interested anyway.
What Rick really likes is music - his dream is to be a club DJ. He’s grown up with the scene through his teen years, watching and listening to it morph from humble beginnings into a true art form. And he’s matured with it. He’s got the equipment, he’s learnt his craft, he just can’t seem to take that next step from bedroom to, well, the public arena.
You see, Rick can’t stand rejection. He can’t take it. And that’s bad news, because the older he gets the more of it he seems to face. No one said being a young adult would be easy, but this coming of age has been like being dragged through a hedge backwards, and a thorny one at that – depression, career crisis, dream-deprivation, not to mention sex abandonment.
Sex abandonment? For sure, because that’s what depression does, puts you off it, takes the drive away, much less the companionship and deep intimacy involved in the experience with someone you truly love; but wait, romance is in the air, because this isn’t one of those stories which sees the bad times win through, no way, this is Rick Adams, and he’s in love with his best friend’s girlfriend!
Well, not quite. You see, truth is stranger than fiction which means Rick is in love with Lucy, but his best friend Paul is also playing the game in his attempts to woo her. It’s just that Paul thinks he’s already won and, well, he hasn’t. So, the week when they’re all around each other should be interesting and yet, again, this isn’t one of those love triangle novels with plots, duplicity, stratagems and backstabbing.
No, this is Rick With a View, with romance, contemporary romance (as seen in the noughties anyway) so no one’s going to be left out, no one’s going to feel like a gooseberry, because Paul might just end up with Jenny instead!
And Jimmy, well Jimmy couldn’t give a stuff about anything except beer – that’s his one thing after all, the one part of life he simply can’t do without, in the same way that others might choose chocolate, or television, or sex even.
And so, the music plays from Saturday until Friday of one week, just one week in which Rick and his sister watch Paul play in a rugby sevens tournament (he’s fast at running, Jenny’s fast at drinking, Rick’s fast at seeing existential angst in the game!), they pick up Jimmy and Lucy and go clubbing in their local town, Paul and Jimmy end up fighting and falling in the river, and so the young adult, no teen, no completely puerile behaviour continues...
Rick sees his counsellor one day. He’s getting better, they both know it, but then Rick tumbles back into the mire and his friends sling ropes round his waist to extricate him from the sludge and gloop that for some reason seems to target him at uneven opportunity. It’s then he goes to a house party, has a spin on the decks, and is asked if he wants to play out at a club on Friday...
Will Rick make it through his jumble of nerves in order to fulfil his dream? And will Lucy, who may just have let him down earlier in the week see him perform so well on stage that she wants to have him back beside her, for good? All will be penned by our hero in his own coming of age novel
