Jackie Pray - USA Today
Nicholls, who has written teleplays for Bravo's Cold Feet and I Saw You and the BBC's Rescue Me, which he also created, has a talent for droll dialogue and a wonderful sense of the ridiculous. He marries the agony of adolescence with ironic humor, producing a union of subtlety and slapstick that's not to be missed.

Publisher's Weekly
This entertaining first novel by an English television writer tells the story of Brian Jackson, an unworldly but affable college freshman whose main ambition in life is to compete on the BBC quiz show University Challenge (a Jeopardy-like game show in which schools compete against each other; in the U.K., the show is a national institution). Between securing one of the four coveted spots on his school's team for the show, Brian chases after two girls: Alice, a beautiful but aloof actress who is also on the squad, and Rebecca, an artsy intellectual who thinks Brian's ambition to be on the show is silly and bourgeois. A visit from Brian's hometown pal Spencer brings the class tensions roiling beneath the novel's surface to the fore, but Nicholls is more interested in comedy than pathos. Some of the humor is very British ("I'm sharing my house with a right pair of bloody Ruperts"), and Nicholls waxes overly nostalgic for his 1980s setting, but the writing is often sharp and funny (number four on Brian's list of New Year's resolutions: "Become lightly muscled"). Unexpected developments at the final University Challenge match bring the novel to a rather unlikely conclusion, but readers will root for hapless, engaging Brian as he struggles his way out of adolescence. Copyright 2004 Reed Business Information.

Library Journal
For Brian Jackson, college holds the key to becoming a truly witty, erudite, and charming fellow. Unfortunately, he is basically a geeky, pimply, and na ve guy who listens to Kate Bush and secretly aspires to TV college quiz fame. He bumbles his way through his first year falling for the absolutely wrong girl, finding himself at odds with his childhood friends, and dealing with his widowed mother's newly revived love life. While he manages to survive an encounter with a friend's naked parents, his appearance on the quizz show University Challenge ends in ignominy, resulting in a transfer and a new start with the right girl. Recounted in the first person with good-natured, self-deprecating humor, this first novel tells a delightful coming-of-age story. Recommended for most public libraries.-Jan Blodgett, Davidson Coll. Lib., NC Copyright 2004 Reed Business Information.

Kirkus Reviews
Fusty, mild-mannered debut from a British TV writer and Nick Hornby wannabe about a bookish boy with a penchant for brainy trivia. Appear on University Challenge? If only dad could see him on the telly, muses 18-year-old Brian, imagining himself smoothly answering questions on the BBC's popular game show and rubbing elbows with Tory intellectuals. Alas, his dear old dad, a scrappy working-class type who sold double-glazing, is dead now (Mum is a Woolworth's cashier), but Brian has fond memories of watching the show and its longhaired host, Bamber Gascoigne, together. He dreams of glory and, this being 1985, also hopes to impress a sulky beauty in punk regalia who hands him political leaflets and an invitation to a Tarts-and-Vicars party. Should he go? Should he dance? Where, exactly, does he fit in the swiftly changing England of the mid-1980s? Are there answers to be found in the pretentious lyrics of alternative rock music? If you know the songs, you're in, mate; if you don't, sod off. Do traditional British class distinctions of ancestry and wealth still mean anything? Yes-and no: on with the story. Brian and his team members brainstorm for their audition, tackling burning questions like "lanugo, vellus, and terminal are all terms used to describe the different developmental stages of which part of the human body?" Will this young genius remember the answer (hair) and get the girl? Not easily comprehensible by anyone unfamiliar with A levels, O levels, and other peculiarities of higher education in England. Film rights to Playtone.