I think it was Netflix that I saw the first season of Heartstopper. I quite liked it, but quit Netflix before the next season started.

I saw the book in a charity shop and picked it up without thinking twice. Illustrated novels are nice because they are just easy to read.

The illustrations in this one are naïve, I think you might say, but good enough to get the feel of the characters and their feelings. It feels like something created by one of the characters in the story.

In brief, fourteen year old Charlie has come out as gay at school. His school has “vertical forms” where kids of mixed ages are grouped together. Nick, a year or so older, is seated at the same desk as Charlie.

Nick is a rugby hero and the school heart-throb.

From there, you can probably guess where the story is heading.

I think the key to the attraction of the story is that the main characters are so relatable. I was Charlie, skinny and nerdy – and bullied. I fancied the bigger, sportier kid. I would fantasise about being friends – boyfriends with them.

In the first book there are no surprises. There’s no point in the story unless it goes a certain way.

SPOILER ALERT – I kind of assumed that it was Charlie’s story until the end of the book when Nick starts to question his own sexuality.

The author, Alice Osemanl is interesting as being open about being aromantic and asexual: clearly she has empathy and insight into romantic and sexual attraction, even though her own experience of attraction is different from that of many readers.

I wish there were books like this around when I was a kid! Not because they would have magically made everything better, but because they would have shown me that people like me could be the heroes of their own stories.