How to Be Good

Rating:
Summary: Not very compelling reading
Review: I have read Hornby's other novels and enjoyed them thoroughly; unfortunately, this one wasn't nearly as funny or interesting. I think the author deserves a lot of credit for writing a believable female protagonist, Katie, who is a complicated character and not based on a stereotype of a "woman". Hornby manages to create a few really honest moments, such as when Katie admits that she is irritated with her kids and doesn't think they're extremely cute--maybe at times that she doesn't even like them at all and feels like smacking them, though she never does. It's rare that these sentiments get expressed at all in fiction or film or in real life, let alone from a male author. And Hornby raises a lot of interesting questions about who is "Good" and who is a hypocrite--these are topics for a lengthy discussion, to be sure, but they felt a bit muddled in print.
I found several of the characters annoying (not unlikable, which isn't even a big deal unless the character is boring--annoying is much worse), which made it difficult to read through the entire novel, and often the arguments made about Goodness and selfishness seemed to err on the side of sentimentality. The tone of the book felt too uneven at times--sometimes it was depressingly bleak, other times too preachy. I realize this may have been brought about by the very nature of trying to answer the many questions raised--the characters have several epiphanies and changes from one side to the other, as well as the issues being extremely complex and not cut and dried.....
Essentially, if you are a reader who wants to get into reading Nick Hornby, I wouldn't recommend this. Read High Fidelity or About a Boy instead. And even if you want to read everything Hornby's written, I'm still not sure you'd want to read it. While it definitely has good moments, I personally did not enjoy it much.

Rating:
Summary: Couldn't Stop Putting It Down
Review: I typically finish every book I start, no matter how good or bad it is, hoping to find some redeeming quality or to take something beneficial away from it. "How to Be Good" is one of the handful of exceptions that I've allowed myself.

I really tried to get into this, but I found the characters and the plot not necessarily unlikeable, just totally uninteresting. I have no clue why this book was so acclaimed by so many different sources, and was so bored by everthing about it that I couldn't even bring myself to read more than 1/2 in order to find out.

The characters come off as flat, humorless, and boring. It was impossible to entertain any interest in their well-being or in the plot that painstakingly developed. And after investing so much determination in traversing through the dry realities of the failing marriage of the protagonists, the introduction of the medicine man/faith healer/swami was so fantastical and so inconsistent it was almost insulting. At this point I just became so fed up and worn out that I realized that sometimes, it's just not worth it.

"How to Be Good", despite its title, more appropriately conveys how a novel can just be bad. Period.

Rating:
Summary: More Puzzling Than First Appears
Review: This is a different, and in some ways better, book than Hornby's other work. While his other books are more consistently entertaining, this book strives for, and once in a while hits, a higher mark.

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.