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ericvormelker 's review for:

Juliet, Naked by Nick Hornby
3.0

After reading a number of books before seeing movies that were made out of them, I've leaned toward preferring to see the movie first, because I thought the books were inevitably more dense, more nuanced, and generally more enjoyable than the movies.

But after reading this, I found myself wanting to watch the movie that was made from it. And I'm still trying to work out why.

I think at least part of it is my age. After reading Dune Messiah, I'm starting to feel that all the modern novels I'm reading, while interesting enough (and they do a decent job portraying people as unique and real), are still somehow lacking. There's something insubstantial about them.

I've enjoyed enough of Hornsby's work that I picked this one up (at a Little Free Library). But I have the feeling that, while I have clear memories of his other work, this one may not stick.

That said, it did do one thing for me. Toward the end, I found myself thinking about the songs I wrote after college playing in bands, and the ones I wrote for a musical a decade or so ago, and it helped me appreciate anew some of the songs I wrote. No-one out of my little circle knows of them, but they were, in their own way, good. Good enough that when I think about them, I also remember vividly the experiences that were the inspirations. So, I have no idea how others will experience the book, but I thank him for sparking that little piece of self-revelation.