The novel is written in alternating perspectives from two middle-aged, divorced, and lonely characters – Marnie Walsh, a 38-year-old copy editor from London, and Michael Bradshaw, a 42-year-old geography teacher from York.

Their mutual friend Cleo organizes a group to go on a long-distance walking trip across northern England, inviting both Marnie and Michael in hopes it will help them engage with the world again after their marriages failed.

[1] Nicholls delves into the lives of two characters who have been bruised by past relationships and are struggling to re-engage with the world around them, examining how people can become trapped in their solitude and the courage it takes to break free from those patterns.

The novel was described as "a well-mapped romance" by Lucy Atkins in The Guardian, who appreciated Nicholls's talent for making "unpromising characters appealing" and his "extraordinary ability to capture the absurdity of modern life in pithy textural details".

[11] Adrienne Wyper of The Week praised the novel's "witty conversation, weather, overnight stops, mild drunken escapades and tugged heartstrings", but noted that it generally "move[d] along with an air of inevitability".

[12] Johanna Thomas-Corr of The Times described You Are Here as "One Day for midlife romantics", praising Nicholls's ability to find the "sweet spot between pathos and bathos" and his "exquisite descriptions of longing".

[13] Allan Massie of The Scotsman described You Are Here as "an intelligent, sympathetic, amusing and humane novel", praising its "ordinariness" and Nicholls's ability to write "of recognizable people and his characters are all individuals rather than types".

[2] Neil Armstrong of the BBC noted that the novel "contains all the elements that have become [Nicholls's] trademark: comedy, piercing social observation, more cultural references than Taylor Swift and, of course, romance".