A review by saroz162
Juliet, Naked by Nick Hornby

3.0

This is my first Nick Hornby novel in several years (the last would have been Slam and A Long Way Down, which I read in relatively close proximity to each other), and while I still enjoy Hornby's work, I'm finding myself spotting the tropes that are starting to become a little too repetitive: grown men in arrested development, women looking for fulfillment, an obsession with a cultural hobby that both fills and reveals a critical void in the lives of its practitioners. In no way is it a bad story, but Juliet, Naked just doesn't seem to bring anything new to the table - except, perhaps, to elucidate Hornby's growing pessimism toward modern culture and the virtual world in which so many of us choose to drift away our lives (says the woman reviewing a book on the internet!). I don't actually disagree with him, but it can get a little wearying trying to care about these washed-up characters, each of whom fundamentally realizes that their lives have not mattered - and that there may not be time or energy left to do much of anything about it. That's certainly a catalyzing message for the reader, but at 8 CDs of narrated audiobook, it's an increasingly tough slog to the (by a certain point, inevitable) conclusion. Hornby treats his characters and situations honestly, which is entirely to his credit, but I do find myself wondering if he only has variations on this story to tell.