Doherty won the annual Carnegie Medal from the Library Association, recognising the year's best children's book by a British subject.

The novel is split between two points of view, a first-person narrative presenting the events as Chris recalls them in retrospect, interspersed with a series of letters from Helen to their unborn child (Nobody), telling her side of the story as she experiences it.

In September, Helen learns her mother's greatest secret – that she is illegitimate, a great disgrace when she was growing up – and finally begins to understand her.

Chris finishes reading the letters, realizes the baby is coming and rushes to the hospital, where he meets his newborn daughter, Amy.

[4] Beside English-language editions around the world, Dear Nobody has been translated and published in Bulgaria, Catalonia, Denmark, France, Germany, Greece, Italy, Japan, South Korea,[5] Mexico, the Netherlands, Russia, Slovenia, Spain, Sweden and Wales.

[4] The emotional intensity of the novel is well attested: "I have never read a book that evokes so vividly how it feels to be a teenager in love" Daily Telegraph;[6] "The aunt, parents, grandparents and siblings bring in various strands of subplot that give the book a satisfying complexity while losing nothing of the intensity of Helen and Chris's developing predicament and the building pressures they're under.

"[7] John Murray's essay on the novel's narrative technique focuses on the novel as a literary artefact and discuses how its structure affects the reader.

Doherty is enthusiastic about the productions: "I have seen so many interpretations of Chris and Helen and the other actors that I almost can't remember how I imagined my originals to be!

I am just endlessly fascinated by the different ways of representing them, and always impressed by the actors' ability to bring the characters to life.