How to Be Good

Rating:
Summary: I enjoyed it...I think
Review: Well, I loved "About a Boy" and I enjoyed the film of "High Fidelity" (I've yet to read it) so I was excited to find this novel by Nick Hornby. As always, he is surprising and dark, bitter at times, cutting, funny...it's a novel that is difficult to pigeon-hole. I really enjoyed it, I think. It's one of those books that one keeps rolling over their tongue and around their brain for days afterwards. It definitely made an impact and had some very interesting insights into society. Perhaps I get upset too easily but I often wanted to shout some sense into the lead character (whose observations are teribbly funny, but often fatally short-sighted) but I believe that's the point. I have to let this one percolate in my brain for a bit. Parts were wonderful, but as a whole I wasn't crazy about this novel.

Rating:
Summary: How to be Mediocre
Review: This is the first Nick Hornby's book I've read, and even though I'm giving this book 2 stars...it won't be my last Nick Hornby book. I say this because ultimately Hornby's a funny writer (with better material out there) and "How To Be Good" starts off like a charm; a middle age man confronts his selfish consuming vain ways, with the help of bum/guru, and tries to make the world a better place, even if that means making his family miserable. In curious form, the narrator is the man's wife.

Over the course of the book, what starts off like a sure fire concept seems to get muddled and confused. Slowed down by Hornby's love of pop culture references, the book wades though social experiments like Adopt a Bum that arn't funny, end up being too predictable, and go nowhere. In the end, the family grows to appreciate each other but it was too little too late for me.

Rating:
Summary: I'm shocked and amazed this has such a low star rating
Review: I thought this book was fabulous - it was the first Nick Hornby book that I read and I like it just as much, if not more, than his other books. It is cleverly written, hillarious in subtle satire, and interesting. I highly recommend it.

Rating:
Summary: How To Be Bored
Review: I will preface my review of this novel by stating I love Nick Hornby's work. I thoroughly enjoyed About a Boy, Fever Pitch, and High Fidelity. How To Be Good spends most of the time in the mind of Katie Carr. Throughout the book we come to know how unhappy she is about her husband's misadventures. This is Hornby's first novel that is primarily about a female character. Now some may say that this book does not live up to some of his previous works because he does not know how to write a female character, I tend to disagree. It is the story itself that fails to satisfy the reader.

The book is well written and the only shortcomings I have is that the story is not engaging. While I was reading I kept waiting for something to happen that was actually interesting. The odd behavior of her husband in the book is amusing, but from her perspective it takes all of the humor out of it. I still enjoyed Hornby's writing and ultimately How To Be Good fails in one area, it does not stand up to Horby's other works.