Rating: 
Summary: Definitely Good, But Not Our Beloved Nick's Greatest
Review: Nick Hornby's third novel is his first foray into a woman's narrative perspective. He does a fine job of making Dr. Katie Carr believable and interesting from the first chapter when she realizes she's the kind of woman who tells her husband she wants a divorce via cell phone while sitting in a parking lot. Her husband David refuses, but unlike many unhappily married folk who promise to change to save the relationship, he really does change. He becomes an annoyingly sincere and gentle person, in fact. Katie notes that he turns into "a sort of happy-clappy right-on Christian version of Barbie's Ken" without Ken's looks and body. Formerly the author of a newspaper column, "The Angriest Man in Holloway," David, with the assistance of a strange guru character (DJ GoodNews) eschews hatred and concocts various plots to make the world a better place.Katie struggles with liking the new David even less than the old one (especially after he gives 80 pounds of their money to a panhandler and invites GoodNews to move in). David's transforms into a sort of liberal person's worst nightmare: he gives away the children's toys to the less fortunate, calls a neighborhood meeting to discuss the housing of runaways and streetkids--he wants to take ACTION. Hornby's believable depiction of certain unbelievable scenes was certainly enough to make this liberal person squirm. After all, what is it that can safely allow anyone to think that she or he is a "good person?" Hornby fans will already have read this book, and rightly so. If you are just now coming to Hornby, however, you should start with the superb HIGH FIDELITY and then move on to the excellent ABOUT A BOY. There's something smooth and understated and invariably insightful about Hornby's prose that no contemporary reader of "good" fiction should miss. Cheers!
Rating: 
Summary: How to be Almost Good
Review: What a promising beginning, a delightful middle, and a disappointing ending! Loved the first 90% of the book, but then it took a nose-dive. Nearing the end, I remember thinking "How is Hornby going to pull off a great ending with only 20 pages to go?" Well, the answer is that he couldn't. Truly had a good time reading it, but it just fell flat at the end.
Rating: 
Summary: Goodie Goodie
Review: I just recently read HOW TO BE GOOD, my first venture into the world of Nick Hornby. It's one of those novels that compels you to turn the pages by making you wonder just how annoying its characters can possibly get. Very well written, though. It's a kind of Woody Allen-style high concept premise: the bitter, flippant husband in the piece goes for a back rub from a new age mystic, and magically gets all of the cynicism rubbed out of him--all of the humor, too. Overnight, he becomes so "good" you can't stand him. Nice use of irony. I like the line in it when the liberal, socially conscious wife is shocked to find herself saying "F--- the homeless!"
Rating:
Summary: SOOOOO Funny!
Review: I love a book that is smart, well written, and laugh-out-loud funny. This is that book.
Rating:
Summary: Laughed Out Loud
Review: It is quite a conundrum - how to be good? The maddening and infuriating feeling of being placed in the position of having to argue with your family on why you really don't want to 'be good.' Katie believes she is a good person. A doctor with a husband and two kids it is only when her husband decides to up the 'how to be good' requirements that she has to defend herself without destroying herself and her family. How can you explain that although you do not want your children to be spoiled bullies, you also don't want them to befriend smelly and annoying children with whom you will have to share a dinner table? Why, ideally, you should take in strays and care for the downtrodden, but what if you just want a little peace in your own home? Katie would like her kids to be nice, but she also thinks they ought to not have to befriend children just because their father said so. ". . . a life without hatred is no life at all, that my children should be allowed to despise whom they like. Now, there's a right worth fighting for." Hornby effectively recreates that vague resentment we all feel inside on having to defend our selfishness against our own ideals. He is able to make you laugh out loud at the perfection of his characters thoughts and feelings about a familiar internal struggle.
Rating:
Summary: Good book, disappointing ending
Review: I can't knock this book too much - I couldn't put it down and flew through it in two days. However, all that time I was looking forward to a meaningful ending that would tie everything together and encapsulate the moral of the book. Unfortunately, it didn't happen. The ending just kind of tapered off, without much denouement. I look forward to reading Hornby's better-reviewed novels, because I liked the quirky writing style and insightful character studies. I hope they have better endings.
Rating:
Summary: Hornby Asks The Big Question
Review: Hornby moves ever closer to "literature" with his third novel. It's not as funny as his earlier two, but it's easy and enjoyable to read. Hornby sets up a situation in which he can look straight at the issue of "being good" in a culture that doesn't seem to value more than an imitation of it. While the situation he creates, the transformation of an "Angry Man" into a "good person", is unlikely, the mayhem that ensues seems totally believable. Unfortunately, in an age where martyrdom is (hopefully) passe, Hornby leaves us with no guidance, beyond the sage advice to keep on learning, and keep on asking the big questions. It's a good book that takes on some deep issues in an enjoyably readable fashion. I hope Hornby has many more books in him!
Rating:
Summary: Sound familiar?
Review: I think "How to Be Good" is a whitty and insightful story. Everyone can place themselves as some form of a character in the the book. How many times have you glorified your own actions and damned anothers? The characters are charming and colorful. I love Hornby's wit and comic subtleness. One of my top ten faves.
Rating: 
Summary: Unfortunate overstretch by an otherwise competent author.
Review: What a shame. Nick Hornby does so well when writing about subjects he knows about. Here, however, he tries to break the formula and write about something different - and it all goes horribly, horribly wrong. The story... well, just isn't a story, simply one idea stretched beyond breaking point. The characters are cartoon-like, and in the end it just doesn't work. Read anything else by this brilliant author, but avoid this stinker.
Rating:
Summary: From a Hornby virgin
Review: Brilliant writing. This book pulled me in completely. Then, in the end, it dropped me. Humorous and insightful, but ultimately disappointing due, not to style, but content.
On the other hand, if you take a Sartrian view of life, you just might love this book (assuming a sense of humor is not incompatible having a Sartrian view of life).
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