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3.44 AVERAGE
3.44 AVERAGE
Nick Hornby is at his best when he writes about music. He has that inexplicable ability to convey what music means in a way that seems incredibly personal to him and yet universal at the same time. He’s so good when he writes about music that it often seems like he’s the first one to express that thought in such a wonderful way. He’s not so good at writing about relationships, which is why Juliet, Naked is about 50% great, 50% total crap, and 100% frustrating.
First of all, if this book were written by Nicolette Hornby it’d have a pink cover and there’d be some shoes and probably a shopping bag featured prominently. This is what I like to call “dick lit” which is really just chick lit written by a man. Instead of being about shopping, fucked up women who want a man, and the men they chase, it’s about rock & roll, fucked up men with commitment problems, and the women who want them despite all that.
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First of all, if this book were written by Nicolette Hornby it’d have a pink cover and there’d be some shoes and probably a shopping bag featured prominently. This is what I like to call “dick lit” which is really just chick lit written by a man. Instead of being about shopping, fucked up women who want a man, and the men they chase, it’s about rock & roll, fucked up men with commitment problems, and the women who want them despite all that.
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I enjoy Nick Hornby's books - being a music dork myself, it's fun to see someone else nerd out over the little details behind the making of some of the greatest albums of all time, or even some of the most mediocre. This book takes a look at the stress that being a hardcore fanboy can put on having to exist in the real world in a relationship. They say there are three sides to every story, his side, her side, and the truth, and that's pretty much what's explored here. There is the rabid fanboy who teaches courses at University on his obsession, his girlfriend of over a decade who has been dragged along for the ride, and the musician himself with the real story of his life. It's a pretty quick read that ping-pongs you between a fan's speculation and scrutiny of the tiniest details of his favorite musician's life and career, and the musician's battle to sort out his own real life in the face of these nuts.
It was very similar to High Fidelity. I'm not sure what I was expecting. I guess I'm not a huge fan despite intriguing titles and being movie material. I guess that's what I get for pursuing an author ten years after that movie I loved as a teenager, and only a teenanger should identify with.
Loveable characters:
No
I love Nick Hornby's fiction and was really excited for Juliet, Naked. It has all the classic Hornby elements - lots of music, relationships, pop culture, humour, search for identity/love etc...Not my favourite - that would still be About a Boy - but definitely much better than the previous few. I quite enjoyed the ending, despite the fact I would have liked a bit more.
Nick Hornby really knows what he's doing. That said, it's not my normal wheelhouse, so I have a hard time giving this book more than three stars.
I really quite enjoyed this book; next to "About a Boy," it's my favorite of his novels thus far. It's as though Hornby has taken his two biggest interests - writing and music - and combined them into a novel. Lord knows that the man knows how to write about music ("Songbook" proves that point) so it's fitting that this tale can ultimately be reduced to a triangle between an English couple, Duncan and Annie, and the musician that comes between them, Tucker Crowe.
It's of course not quite that simple. Tucker is a rival not just for Annie's affections but also for Duncan's, as Duncan is the premiere expert on Crowe, an American singer from the 80s who wrote one great album called "Juliet" before fading into obscurity. Duncan has spent his entire adult life (and the fifteen years that he has spent with Annie) dissecting Crowe's work on a blog, finding in "Juliet's" most random of details brilliant references. When he receives a disc called "Juliet, Naked," a stripped down version of "Juliet," he again becomes obsessed, and it is his manic all-consuming passion for Crowe that leads Annie to write a contrasting review to Duncan's of the album. I appreciated Hornby's writing on the album; he creates Crowe from scratch but gets all the details so precisely correct that he could easily be a musician who actually existed and I just never really paid much attention to.
Out of nowhere, Tucker emerges from his 20-year absence to email Annie about her review, which leads to a correspondence that is both funny and completely believable. It's not a spoiler to say that all the Croweologists are completely wrong on pretty much all of the "facts" they've been espousing for years. Getting to the bottom of what made Tucker recede from the spotlight takes a while, but it's a very real approach and I appreciate that from Hornby.
My only real true qualm with the book is the ending. While I was reading, I couldn't wait to get to the end to see what would happen. It was a 400 page book, and yet at the end I felt like it was maybe missing the last 100 pages to really finish everything up. Maybe this book is in my wheelhouse after all - sounds a little similar to Infinite Jest, though without IJ's purposeful elusion. I could have used just a little more detail, at least from Annie's perspective, and then I might have bumped this up to 4 stars.
I really quite enjoyed this book; next to "About a Boy," it's my favorite of his novels thus far. It's as though Hornby has taken his two biggest interests - writing and music - and combined them into a novel. Lord knows that the man knows how to write about music ("Songbook" proves that point) so it's fitting that this tale can ultimately be reduced to a triangle between an English couple, Duncan and Annie, and the musician that comes between them, Tucker Crowe.
It's of course not quite that simple. Tucker is a rival not just for Annie's affections but also for Duncan's, as Duncan is the premiere expert on Crowe, an American singer from the 80s who wrote one great album called "Juliet" before fading into obscurity. Duncan has spent his entire adult life (and the fifteen years that he has spent with Annie) dissecting Crowe's work on a blog, finding in "Juliet's" most random of details brilliant references. When he receives a disc called "Juliet, Naked," a stripped down version of "Juliet," he again becomes obsessed, and it is his manic all-consuming passion for Crowe that leads Annie to write a contrasting review to Duncan's of the album. I appreciated Hornby's writing on the album; he creates Crowe from scratch but gets all the details so precisely correct that he could easily be a musician who actually existed and I just never really paid much attention to.
Out of nowhere, Tucker emerges from his 20-year absence to email Annie about her review, which leads to a correspondence that is both funny and completely believable. It's not a spoiler to say that all the Croweologists are completely wrong on pretty much all of the "facts" they've been espousing for years. Getting to the bottom of what made Tucker recede from the spotlight takes a while, but it's a very real approach and I appreciate that from Hornby.
My only real true qualm with the book is the ending. While I was reading, I couldn't wait to get to the end to see what would happen. It was a 400 page book, and yet at the end I felt like it was maybe missing the last 100 pages to really finish everything up. Maybe this book is in my wheelhouse after all - sounds a little similar to Infinite Jest, though without IJ's purposeful elusion. I could have used just a little more detail, at least from Annie's perspective, and then I might have bumped this up to 4 stars.
Nick Hornby rocks! What I wouldn't give to write as well, and with such humorous ease, as he. Not as cheerful or hilarious as A Long Way Down or How to Be Good, but more poignant.
Definitely a cute easy read. I was let down by the last hornby I read and really enjoyed this one. I picked it up because of the impending movie but its great for a classic hornby fan who loves romance with a twist of music drama. The elusive Tucker Crowe is the perfect tortured musician type we'd all want to discover unreleased unmastered tracks of. If you're looking for something light you can breeze through I'd recommend before going to see the movie.
I enjoyed this for the most part, and although it ended pretty much the way I think it should have, I wasn't crazy about the turn it took to get there.
Nick Hornby is very hit or miss for me. Some of books are brilliant while others are a bit too whiny. This one falls into the former category.