Book Review | This Winter by Alice Oseman

An emotional story about Charlie's journey with mental illness, This Winter sheds light on the importance of love and understanding during difficult times.

This Winter is a spin-off novella from the Heartstopper graphic novels and Solitaire. It takes place a few months before Volume Four ends and the month before Solitaire starts, but don't worry if you haven't read those yet because This Winter can still be enjoyed without reading those prior.

I personally read this after reading Heartstopper volumes one to four, and the transition between stories was seamless.

Check out my reviews for Heartstopper volumes one, two, three and four!

About This Winter

This Winter follows the Spring family as they celebrate Christmas. This Spring Christmas, as Mr Spring likes to put it, is especially hard for siblings, Tori, Charlie and Oliver. They are trying to make it as fuss-free as possible but it's proving to be difficult.

With inconsiderate questions surrounding Charlie's eating disorder and prying cousins who are looking for the latest family gossip, will the Spring family unite as one, or will it pull them apart member by member?

This Winter Review

I found This Winter to be an okay read. This Winter discusses difficult topics such as mental illness, and as important as that conversation, I've realised that I don't really enjoy reading about it. I like using books as an outlet to escape real life so it was draining for me to read about these topics.

It also felt a little draggy, what with all the arguments and miscommunication happening. Maybe it was because there was too much angst and shouting happening, but I couldn't connect to this one as well as I did to Oseman's other works.

There were also fewer cutesy Nick and Charlie moments in this one for sure so if you're looking for that, you'll only find crumbs of it in here. However, there are more Spring sibling scenes in this and those were especially heart-warming to read about so I guess that makes up for it.

Even though this is a novel, we still get a lot of drawings of Charlie, his family and Nick!

Compared to Oseman's other works (which if you've read my reviews know that I absolutely rave over them), This Winter wasn't extraordinary.

My Recommendation

★★★☆☆ (3/5)

If you pick this one up, I would highly recommend reading this together with the audiobook. It makes the experience a lot more immersive, and I had a blast when it came to the text message narration.

Huge props to Huw Parmenter, the narrator of the This Winter audiobook (and the Nick and Charlie audiobook!), because his amazing voice paired with his narration is a spectacular combo. I will never get tired of listening to him read. Although, I would die if Joe Locke, who plays Charlie Spring in the Netflix adaptation, ever decides to do a Charlie Spring narration in the future...

This might be a better read after Solitaire (although I highly doubt so since this precedes that) but I don't see myself going back to this one in the future.

Alice Oseman has written better books, in my opinion.