Joe-Nathan is 23, lives with his widowed mother and works in a supermarket, which he loves. He has some kind of undiagnosed neurodiverse disorder (maybe autism) - he's intelligent but needs his routine and structure and often struggles with emotions and touch. 

His mother is wonderful and tries to make him as independent as possible, teaching him things and writing them down in two notebooks - a blue one for practical things and a yellow one for emotional ones. She teaches him a lot about preconceptions and it's generally very wise stuff.

On the whole he has great colleagues but Charlie and Owen don't seem to like him and bully him mercilessly, calling him Joe Nuthin', until one day Joe finds something out about Charlie that changes everything. I have to say I found Charlie's story almost too harrowing. 

When the worst happens and his mother dies of a heart attack, Joe has to gather the strength to live independently and embrace change, which is when he finds that colleagues like Chloe, Pip and his boss Hugo (he calls him Hugo Boss) rally around him in a very heartwarming way.

This is a very touching story about friendship, kindness and acceptance. Joe-Nathan is a huge fan of the American sitcom Friends and uses lessons from it to navigate the world. It was fantastic to see him get his own found family at the end.

As an aside, I found Mum Janet's swirly font terribly hard to read and I would have wished for it just to be italics or something.