Rating: 
Summary: Meandering, unfocused stream of drivel.
Review: How Not To Write. Full of plot holes, weak characters, idiotic set-pieces, unresolved themes, unexplained events, cod-philosophy and contradictions. Hornby begins by drawing a picture of North London life, as he has in the past, and as usual, the set-up is perfectly pleasant and even a bit interesting. Then he tries to get to the point, and the story gets in the way. Why he writes from a woman's p.o.v. is inexplicable. Why he writes at all is hard enough to explain. This book does not remotely approach any sort of examination of any moral theme. Nor is it funny to this reader. His techniques are repetitive, inaccurate and stale. His stereotypes merely serve to alienate and patronise. The lack of direction is not arrested by constant plot-reprieve contemplation. The absence of a central idea is not disguised by simply providing another vacuous vignette of a higher degree of stupidity on the same unexamined theme. Bringing back a minor character who subsequently disappears because they are in fact, pointless anyway, only reveals the despair of a worn-out author. Setting up "jokes" with a trowel from 50 feet and signposting them in dayglo somehow makes them less "side-splitting". Manipulating witless and irrelevant sequences to culminate in a one-liner you wrote in your notebook when you were 18 in front of a Woody Allen movie PROBABLY doesn't work every time, I'm guessing. And all this cannot be reprieved by some white-bread nihilistic, and frankly inane, final passage. This is a bad book.
Rating: 
Summary: Good characters, poignant without being preachy
Review: Been a few weeks since I finished it, so I won't do it as much justice as it probably deserves (still, it did get an A). Hornby manages to get away with a very tricky subject by giving everyone some room (it's the issue of 1st to 3rd world). There isn't a clear moral, and different readers may sympathise more with one character than another. He exposes double standards, but doesn't stop there (that's too easy and has been done a thousand times anyway). The protagonist could do more, she's totally aware of this, but she doesn't respond by either becoming a saint, or just shutting it out. Or even just with tokenism. What's really wild is that there is a guru and a saint in the story too. And it's all around a believable family.
It's not a powerful and challenging book, although he does give the bleeding hearts some good lines here and there. But it keeps the readers there with the players - it's too easy to lose us by saying the truth about our greed and apathy, we even agree, but we're not about to do 'what we should'. Hornby doesn't stop with 'his' ringing point, he doesn't seem to have one, but he keeps having the conversation, suggesting ideas, kicking things around, not really judging. He allows you to respect different characters who may have opposing ideas - a surprisingly rare thing.
Rating:
Summary: TERRIBLE BOOK
Review: This is one of the worst novels I have ever read. The contrived plot meandered in pointless circles while the stereotyped characters did nothing but annoy. Buy it only for the satisfaction of burning it and putting it out of its misery.
Rating:
Summary: Get the pulping mills ready...
Review: ... because, honestly, this is all that this book deserves. Nick Hornby is one of England's best novelists by far, but it seems that fame has its price. Every other book he has written is engaging, absorbing and masterfully written. This one must have been something he wrote decades ago and left in a drawer somewhere, or he wrote it as a dare to see if anything with his name on would sell. The question of "how to be good," a very interesting premise, is totally wasted by using the most hackneyed and implausible stereotypes, the characters are paper-thin cartoons, and the result both irritates and insults the reader. What a shame - a once great author just threw it all away.
Rating: 
Summary: I Actually Liked It
Review: Granted this book cannot be considered a classic, but I loved the story. I could relate so well to the feelings of the female narrator. I thought it was clever and great book to read if you just want something light and fun.
Rating: 
Summary: Searching for Spiritual Meaning
Review: How To Be Good is one of those books that flirts with an idea strong enough to be a great book, but doesn't execute well enough. As such, it's a marvelous study for novelists of what to do and not to do . . . but is unnecessarily heavy going for the reader. If you want to feel challenged about what kind of a life to lead, you will probably find this book resonates. If you are pretty satisfied with your principles, this book will seem like a lot of ado about very little.In case you haven't heard what the plot is, the protagonist is Dr. Katie Carr, a woman who is proud to be a physician and who wants to be a good wife, mother and citizen. She finds that being a physician uses up her emotional resources, and before the end of the day she's not giving her patients her all. By the time she arrives at home, she's not really there. Her husband, David, is a very angry man . . . who gets attention from others through his anger. Katie has wandered into an uninspiring affair with a man who doesn't please her sexually as much as David does. At the edge of a divorce, David refuses to let her go. One of David's sources of anger is his back pain. Nothing seems to work until he meets a lay healer whose touch warms and removes pain. Presto, the pain is gone! But David also seems to lose his anger, and is compulsively driven to do good. If a homeless person needs money, David gives him all that Katie and he have on them . . . except for Tube fares. The family has three computers . . . surely they should give one to poor children. Many neighbors have extra bedrooms. Why shouldn't homeless people be installed there? The book's opening is a bit hard to take. It's a painful description of a painful marriage. That part could have been greatly shortened up. The meat of the story is in David's attempts to do good, and Katie's less than enthusiastic reactions to those attempts. David's sensibilities open up horizons for doing good that had never occurred to me. On the other hand, the search for spiritual growth was doomed from the start as a story. The healer discovered his abilities through taking too many drugs, rather than through some religious or spiritual activity. That makes the whole search seem inauthentic. Katie and her family seem antireligious, although she does seek out a sort of religious counseling about her marriage. The real subject of the book seems to be the spiritual deadness that many people feel. Personally, I found the questions of our responsibilities to other people to be more interesting. The book was flawed from this moral point of view by overindulging in considering things that don't work . . . rather than in emphasizing what might. For instance, many people around the world respond in constructive ways to the homeless problem by donating time and energy to Habitat for Humanity International. A story about how a spiritual dead marriage was affected by working with that organization would have been intriguing. There are many funny moments in the book, especially when Katie's hypocritical views are tested. One of my favorites is when her clinic is overrun with people who want nonmedical healing after Katie brings in the healer to touch one of her patients. Katie doesn't want to give up her authority as a physician, even if people cannot be helped by her. So she refuses to bring the healer back. If you decide to read this book, I encourage you to consider the Recorded Books version (which is unabridged) and is ably narrated by Jenny Sterlin. She does a fine job of making a painful story seem more real. I was left with the thought of how I might do more to help the homeless in ways that I find spiritual uplifting and will be inspiring for those I love. That's a pretty nice benefit from a novel.
Rating:
Summary: Contender for the title of Worst Novel Ever.
Review: Amazon.com, I understand, have a selection of well over 2 million books. This novel should be at the bottom of the selection list compared to any other book they sell - it's that bad. Hornby, perversely, is one of England's finest writers - usually. But this book is badly written - annoying characters, a story that goes nowhere, unbelievable premise and limp conclusion. It's not worth the paper it was written on. I highly recommend ANY, in fact ALL of his other novels. This one is junk.
Rating: 
Summary: Not Quite as Good
Review: I loved Hornby's previous three novels - this one is not nearly as good. I agree with reviews that point out his inability to write through a female protagonist (his other books were all told through men). Also, the unpretentious, almost hipster, style that he utilized throughout "About a Boy," "High Fidelity," and "Fever Pitch" is missing - and that was a major part of his appeal! I still think he's a great author - and I plan on reading whatever he puts out in the future. Just don't start with this one.
Rating:
Summary: Don't judge Hornby by this book alone
Review: I'd hate to think that this could be someone's first time reading a book by Nick Hornby because I doubt they would give his other much better books a chance. For about 3/4 of the book I just felt annoyed at all of the characters. Do yourself a favor and check out Fever Pitch or High Fidelity instead.
Rating:
Summary: Not Hornby's Best, But....
Review: I'm a big fan of Nick Horby having loved HIGH FIDELITY and ABOUT A BOY. As I began this novel, ten pages in, I have to say shock set in. I was not liking it at all. I mean, it opens with the narrator asking her husband for divorce via cell phone and then sleeping with another man. Did Hornby just have trouble with the female voice or was this just a bad beginning? I continued and have to say, I'm glad I did. The story really picked up and went in some very different, unexpected ways that I really enjoyed. As a whole, the book isn't up to his previous works, but is well worth reading.
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