Totally Fine - Nick Spalding - ★★.½

AUTHOR: Nick Spalding

NARRATOR: Laurence Dobiesz

GENRE: Contemporary Fiction

PUBLICATION DATE: October 15, 2025

RATING: 2.5 stars.

In a Nutshell: A contemporary fiction about a young man who claims he's totally fine, but clearly isn't. This could have been either a medical drama or a funny take on men being men. It ended up as neither, with a slightly boring plot, annoying lead character, and forced humour. The ending is decent enough, but I expected far better considering the author's earlier novel.

Plot Preview:

Charlie King has everything he wanted: a successful event-management business, two best friends who are always there for him, and a fabulous girlfriend who might be ‘the one’. He also has panic attacks and insomnia and an earworm that never stops playing in his head, but that's all normal, right? He's totally fine! His loved ones suggest that he visit a doctor, but Charlie knows that a good night's sleep is all that's needed. Is Charlie genuinely fine, or is he in some kind of denial? Does the car crash from a few months ago have anything to do with his problem?

The story comes to us in Charlie's first-person perspective.

In November 2024, I read this author for the first time. 'Grave Talk' ended up as one of my favourite reads of that year with its beautiful yet humorous portrayal of grief and moving on. Even though it went over the top at times, I knew that I would read more books by that author. Unfortunately for me, my second tryst with his writing turned out to have only one thing in common with the earlier experience: it's over the top.

From the blurb, I had hoped that this would be a comedic portrayal of the typical male denial of mental/physical health issues, which it is to some extent. Sadly, the tackling of the issue and the behaviour of the protagonist are mostly annoying.

Charlie appears intent on proving himself an idiot. It's common sense that when you have persistent physical symptoms of a problem, you need to visit a doctor. I could understand his not wanting to go to the doctor immediately; many men are like that. However, Charlie does seek help; just that it’s not from any medical professional. Instead, he chooses some outlandish solutions hoping for improvement. Opting for unconventional techniques once can still be excused. But trying non-medical methods again and again despite their failure? Repetitive, boring, annoying!

Of course, Charlie has a reason for his avoidance of the doctor, which he provides only in the final quarter, but this didn’t seem like a valid reason at all. Moreover, there are certain facts that Charlie conveniently doesn’t tell us despite the story coming in his first-person perspective. Selective communication is never convincing in this POV. Further, Charlie often breaks the fourth wall and addresses us readers directly. I failed to get the significance of this. Why was he talking to us when the story isn't written from some future timeline?

This story has a limited number of characters in prominent roles. Of these, Charlie's girlfriend Annie is the best one. I must hand it to the author. He sketched the only main female character realistically. I love that Annie was a stand-up comedian - how refreshing to see this in fiction! But I didn't understand why she stuck with Charlie even when he was being a jerk; true love is indeed blind, I guess.

Charlie's two besties Leo and Jack were also good characters, though they too were, at times, annoying. The closeness between the three friends is written well. Few books show male friends bonding so well without passing any crass remarks about women.

Some of the scenes in the book were genuinely funny, but a lot of the humour felt forced to me. The scenes showing Charlie’s attempts at healing himself and his friends of their various maladies were very mixed in impact; some were hilarious, some tedious. Then again, humour hits different people differently, and I can see how some readers will find Charlie’s strategies rib-tickling.

The ending redeems the overall experience to some extent, but not enough to turn this into a winner.

🎧 The Audiobook Experience:

The audiobook, clocking at 8 hrs 13 min, is narrated by Laurence Dobiesz. He is outstanding! He voices Charlie to perfection and even makes the other characters sound distinct. I appreciate that he voiced Annie by using a softer pitch instead of going nasal. If you wish to try this book, the audio version is definitely the way to go. The number of characters is limited, and the storyline is mostly linear (except for a couple of flashbacks), so it should be an easy read even for audio newbies.

Overall, I loved the concept of the book but the execution of it was not much to my taste. As a grounded Capricorn, I am anyway the wrong person to read about characters trying wild methods to sort out their problems. If you are the kind of reader who can go with the flow even when the flow is wacky and wonky, and you don’t mind deliberate misleading because of crucial information not being revealed on time, this book might go better for you.

Recommended to readers of contemporary fiction who are okay with random plot inclusions and over-the-top situations.

2.5 stars, rounding up wherever applicable for the audio version.

My thanks to Amazon Publishing UK for the DRC and to Brilliance Audio for the ALC of “Totally Fine” via NetGalley. This review is voluntary and contains my honest opinion about the book.

The digital version of this book is currently available on Kindle Unlimited.