Soft Lad: Coming-of-age Stories

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I loved Nick on Radio 1 from the very first Switch sessions right until he left, so I really enjoyed listening to this audiobook. To calculate the overall star rating and percentage breakdown by star, we don’t use a simple average. View image in fullscreen ‘Work did validate me, because I was allowed, and encouraged, to be myself’: Nick Grimshaw wears shirt by SS Daley and trousers by Acne Studios, both from matchesfashion.

The various chapters focussing on different aspects/moments/people in his life were diverse and intriguing. There was the time, shortly after he’d moved to London to work at MTV, that Amy Winehouse ran up and befriended him in the street. He's from Oldham and was a bit of an accident, meaning that he essentially grew up like an only child with siblings who were much older. I haven’t enjoyed autobiographies or memoirs that much generally but I liked everything about this Soft Boy personal story. From partying with pop stars and chatting breeze on the radio, to drinking too much, to not drinking at all, to growing up, coming out, general nonsense, the journey from self-loathing to self-care and making dreams come true.

It was always Heartbeat that made me feel down that it was the end of the weekend and I still get that feeling today sometimes, although Heartbeat is long gone sadly. These are Grimmy's brilliant, nostalgic coming-of-age tales, covering life's pivotal moments, the loves, the losses, and the fun had with the family and friends that made him. Down from Oldham for a football match with his dad one day, little Nick persuaded him to detour so he could look through the windows of the Radio 1 offices, because when he grew up that was where he wanted to present the breakfast show. However, when I saw that Nick Grimshaw was bringing out 'a collection of stories' about himself, I was intrigued.

All these worries plait themselves into the otherwise extremely starry stories he tells in his book. after listening to him religiously on the radio years back, reading this felt like reuniting with an old friend.

I particularly liked the beginning when he was discussing his procrastination at starting the book, it's a standard autobiography but it isn't chronological, the timeline jumps around covering various points that Nick wishes to discuss such as his experience on Sport Relief, his realisation that he is gay and anecdotes from his radio career. But I realised it was a process – those nights out were helping me feel part of something, and making me feel accepting of gay me. So, instead, he concentrated on work, and mates, and cocktails with flashing straws and light-up fish, and then, one Thursday morning in 2018, he finished his final breakfast show, went out to celebrate, and by Friday he was in love. I'm not really bothered about autobiographies because there's not really any celebrities I'm obsessed with so I just get bored after a while.

And skating over this life of light relief, he realised he’d asked plenty of questions of other people, but hardly a single one of himself.He's "too much" in a world that needs it because at least he's himself - I don't think he'd have lasted so long at Radio 1 if he wasn't. He covers the topic I was hoping to hear about, getting into Radio 1, but there's so much more to this that I wasn't expecting to love as much as I did.