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3.44 AVERAGE
3.44 AVERAGE
emotional
funny
fast-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Character
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
Yes
Diverse cast of characters:
Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
An enjoyable character study of a lot of very complicated people. Might've hit a few notes I didn't want to examine personally, but can't knock off any points for that.
As with High Fidelity, I saw this movie first and really liked it, so I then went looking for the book. And also like HF, I started off quite enjoying the novel and the music details (that Peter Buck and the Minus Five would have covered a Tucker Crowe song, for example, was a perfect detail). However, the elements that were cut for the movie adaptation ended up feeling extraneous in the novel—Annie’s scenes with her psychologist, for example, seemed too much of a narrative device in the novel. I kind of wish there was a novelization of the film, now, because it seems like a better draft of this novel, one which has worked through the awkward bits more.
I started off really enjoying this book. I thought I was going to like it more now than I did when I first read it, some four years ago.
Annie resonated with me: "What do you do if you think you've wasted fifteen years of your life?" she writes. She's coasting through her life, with an irritating, unknowingly domineering schlub of a partner. If this book were just about Annie's awakening, I would rate this an easy four stars.
But then there's Tucker. There's a long swatch of his narration in the last third of the book, and whatever admiration I had for him for leading Annie away from the schlub (via his music, not through anything he said to her as a person) evaporated with every page I turned. How is it that Hornby can write believable, strong-but-weak female leads, but all his male leads are so indecisive, weak-willed . . . so schlubby? His male characters are nothing without the women (see also High Fidelity).
It's an okay book and a fast read. I don't think I've ever not recommended a Nick Hornby book, but don't judge Nick by this book.
Annie resonated with me: "What do you do if you think you've wasted fifteen years of your life?" she writes. She's coasting through her life, with an irritating, unknowingly domineering schlub of a partner. If this book were just about Annie's awakening, I would rate this an easy four stars.
But then there's Tucker. There's a long swatch of his narration in the last third of the book, and whatever admiration I had for him for leading Annie away from the schlub (via his music, not through anything he said to her as a person) evaporated with every page I turned. How is it that Hornby can write believable, strong-but-weak female leads, but all his male leads are so indecisive, weak-willed . . . so schlubby? His male characters are nothing without the women (see also High Fidelity).
It's an okay book and a fast read. I don't think I've ever not recommended a Nick Hornby book, but don't judge Nick by this book.
A long time ago I read High Fidelity and it never really did anything for me. Same for the film. It probably should have but it didn't. Last week there was a 3 for 2 offer in a local book shop and at a loss for the third book I picked up Juliet, Naked after vaguely recalling good reviews.
I actually ended up liking it a fair bit. Hornby says a lot about music and the fanaticism that can develop especially with the advent of the internet. I could relate to a lot of it and found many parallels between myself and Duncan (sadly) though I tend not to go to his extremes. The pomposity and grandeur and sheet idiocy of the ultimate fan is displayed sympathetically here though not without mocking. Music nutures that feeling in people.
Annie is an interesting character and I liked Tucker's relationship with his son. The depictions of modern loneliness were moving and stark and it evoked the feeling of moving into your next decade, summing up your achievements (or lack of them to date) and the hopeless feeling of how to change when you don't actually want things to alter.
The ending was loose and not totally fulfilling but the end result was a funny and humourous look at a few people who've been run over by life, struggling to find their purpose.
I actually ended up liking it a fair bit. Hornby says a lot about music and the fanaticism that can develop especially with the advent of the internet. I could relate to a lot of it and found many parallels between myself and Duncan (sadly) though I tend not to go to his extremes. The pomposity and grandeur and sheet idiocy of the ultimate fan is displayed sympathetically here though not without mocking. Music nutures that feeling in people.
Annie is an interesting character and I liked Tucker's relationship with his son. The depictions of modern loneliness were moving and stark and it evoked the feeling of moving into your next decade, summing up your achievements (or lack of them to date) and the hopeless feeling of how to change when you don't actually want things to alter.
The ending was loose and not totally fulfilling but the end result was a funny and humourous look at a few people who've been run over by life, struggling to find their purpose.
Overall good- the ending sadly disappoints like so many of nick hornby's other book endings. I was left feeling unsatisfied and cheated.
I did enjoy the cover art in its use of the intertwining headphones to symbolize bringing two people together through music and also to possibly make a baby (the cords appear as a woman's vagina, uterus, and ovaries), though you could argue that the music brought Annie and Duncan together OR Annie and Tucker.
Spoilers present:
ALSO! I did not anticipate or appreciate Annie's attempt at pregnancy at the end of the book. Had she not learned anything from the other wives/women? Additionally, TC's thought that she should get back with Duncan? I'm sorry, that's ludicrous. A Paltry reasoning as well given that her encounter with him will give at least 9 nine years of substance back to Annie and Duncan's relationship. Dumb to say the very simplest and the least.
I did enjoy the cover art in its use of the intertwining headphones to symbolize bringing two people together through music and also to possibly make a baby (the cords appear as a woman's vagina, uterus, and ovaries), though you could argue that the music brought Annie and Duncan together OR Annie and Tucker.
Spoilers present:
ALSO! I did not anticipate or appreciate Annie's attempt at pregnancy at the end of the book. Had she not learned anything from the other wives/women? Additionally, TC's thought that she should get back with Duncan? I'm sorry, that's ludicrous. A Paltry reasoning as well given that her encounter with him will give at least 9 nine years of substance back to Annie and Duncan's relationship. Dumb to say the very simplest and the least.
reflective
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Character
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
Complicated
Diverse cast of characters:
No
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
emotional
funny
hopeful
sad
This one is oddly hard to decide on. The characters were not particularly admirable and yet I liked them. One of the most irksome characters had an unexpectedly heartfelt and insightful conversation. I laughed out loud several times. The ending was nebulous. In the end, I think that everyone was trying to grow, and it was a snail-slow, oft-resisted, not very glamorous, and still hopeful process, which I can relate to. If you watch the movie version, you will most likely want to listen to “Waterloo Sunset” by the Kinks, every day, maybe forever. Or at least a whole lot of the time.
One of the best and most thorough female characters I’ve read written by man