"What a difference two days makes — this screamingly funny YA masterwork sees a 17-year-old career outside his comfort zone during an unforgettable 48 hours in Paris."
July 2025 Book of the Month
With an incredible talent for conjuring voice, Meg Rosoff is an outstanding writer whose work is always 100% authentic, and utterly free from cliché and the clutter of well-trod YA paths. This is joyously apparent in Almost Nothing Happened, which transforms a classic scenario (a life-changing summer) into a fabulously fresh and funny story of a teenager’s unforgettable 48 hours in Paris.
A rash decision to not board his Eurostar back to London after a lonesome summer exchange programme in rural France leads Callum to one hell of an experience in Paris. Callum’s bizarre adventure is largely sparked by a missing oboe, and then a missing Matisse as a result of him meeting Lilou, a free-spirited French activist who scoots him around the streets in pursuit of the thief of the missing items. Namely, Lilou’s stepbrother Arnaud, “an aristocratic violin-playing climate activist, thief and pimp”, as Callum describes him. “This wasn’t the sort of person I’d had much exposure to previously”, he remarks.
Callum’s experiences are as sizzlingly hot as Paris’ August streets, and, as he finds himself compelled to embrace a vive la change philosophy, he winds up enjoying true joie de vivre: “I’d fallen in love with a girl and a painting and my life for the first time, fallen in love with adventure, and with France”.
To paraphrase how Callum sums up his time in Paris, Almost Nothing Happened is thrilling, sexy, astonishing, glorious, unexpected and, quite possibly, life-changing. It’s also delectably funny.
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Paris. August. One long summer of nothing. 48 hours of everything. From the inimitable Meg Rosoff comes a chaotic and irresistible new YA.
17-year-old Callum is facing an unfortunate truth: his summer exchange in rural France was a failure. No epic adventure, no summer fling, and his French is still rubbish. Just as he should be boarding the Eurostar home, without even a hint of a plan, Callum impulsively decides to stay (and doesn't bother telling his parents).
He only knows one person in Paris: his long-lost cousin, Harrison, an oboist. As night falls on the hottest weekend of the year, an adventure begins - involving a motorbike, a curfew, a stolen oboe, a priceless Matisse painting, at least one police chase, a climate protest and the enigmatic, alluring, irresistible Lilou …
A completely delicious, funny, fast-paced summer read from the multi-award-winning author of How I Live Now, The Great Godden and Friends Like These.
The LoveReading4Kids Editorial Team have read and reviewed Almost Nothing Happened and determined it is suitable for children aged 13-18 years old
Almost Nothing Happened features in the following genres: Featured Books for 13+ readers, Featured Books for Young Adults, Books of the Month, Recommendations, Star Books, Adventure Stories, Crime & Mystery, Funny, Children’s / Teenage fiction: General, modern and contemporary fiction, Children's and Young Adult Fiction, Children’s, Teenage and Educational
Almost Nothing Happened is available in Paperback, Hardback
Almost Nothing Happened was written by Meg Rosoff and published by Bloomsbury Young Adult an imprint of Bloomsbury Publishing (UK)
Almost Nothing Happened has 230 pages
£7.19
