Review: Juliet, Naked by Nick Hornby

Throughout their fifteen year relationship, Annie has had to put up with Duncan's obsession with the rock singer Tucker Crowe. It is like having a third person in the relationship. The only thing Duncan ever seems to talk about is Tucker Crowe's music, particularly his most famous album, 'Juliet'. He spends a lot of time on discussion forums with other Crowe fans. The story starts with him dragging Anne on a Crowe-themed sightseeing tour, and sneaking into the San Francisco house owned by the woman who was supposedly the inspiration for 'Juliet'.
Back home, while Duncan is out, a package is delivered and Anne decides to open it. It contains a pre-release copy of 'Juliet, Naked', an album of demo and acoustic versions of the songs from 'Juliet', sent with the intention that Duncan should write a review of it. Anne listens to the album before Duncan does, and whereas Duncan thinks it is an emotionally-charged work of genius, Anne isn't at all impressed by it. She decides, mainly to get at Duncan, to post a scathing review on his fan site. To her surprise, she receives an email from the elusive Tucker Crowe, and the two begin to hit it off through secret online correspondence.
This definitely wasn't my favourite of Hornby's novels. It is very bleak throughout, even more so than 'A Long Way Down'! The ending doesn't really wrap anything up, and it left me feeling depressed about all the characters. In the end, Anne (who has been wanting a baby for a long time but Duncan was never interested) ends up sleeping with Tucker and sneakily 'forgetting' contraception in order to get pregnant. I think this was meant to be seen as a win on her part, but I just found it really creepy and a bit sad.
I also found the story very slow-moving, and from the blurb it sounded like there would be a big cast of weird and wonderful characters, but we actually only meet them briefly before they're gone again and it's back to the boring relationship angst between two very neurotic and irritating people. I don't think books should be allowed to make a big deal about characters in the blurb if they only get a tiny amount of page-time!
I did enjoy the general commentary on how obsessive music fans end up overthinking the music, and how the reality to all their theories is actually very mundane - and how when Tucker finally does release a whole new album, all his fans hate it because they have built him up so much in their minds that it is impossible for him to live up to their standards.

I think my problem with this book is that, while in Hornby's other books the characters are always quite likeable despite their very serious flaws, in Juliet, Naked I didn't really find myself rooting for any of them, because if they weren't downright irritating they were just very dull. I think if you want an enjoyable, funny, music-themed read which doesn't leave you miserable, High Fidelity is the one to go for!

2.5/5 - could have been a lot worse, and I'm sure I just have bad taste in books and it's actually really good...but I just wasn't feeling it with this one.

Review: A Long Way Down by Nick Hornby

A Long Way Down is the story of four very different people who all meet at the top of a building on New Years Eve whilst planning to commit suicide.
First there is Martin, a TV presenter who has recently spent time in jail and been hounded by the tabloids after the scandal of 'accidentally' sleeping with a fifteen-year-old girl. His career is in ruins and his wife and children have left him. His suicide attempt is interrupted by Maureen, a middle-aged mother and full time carer to her severely disabled son, who has been in a vegetative state since his birth nineteen years ago. Then there is Jess, an out-of-control eighteen year old who decided on the spur of the moment to commit suicide after being ignored by her ex boyfriend. As Martin and Maureen are sitting on Jess to prevent her from jumping, along comes JJ, an American pizza delivery man who has recently split from his band and his girlfriend.
Despite its morbid premise, this story is filled with dark humour and is surprisingly uplifting, in the way that these four different people come to develop a dysfunctional yet caring relationship. Each chapter is told from the point of view of each of the four characters, and through this we get to know them intimately, and  despite all of them being very flawed and not entirely likeable, we end up rooting for them and hoping that they all end up getting what they want.
I am a huge fan of Nick Hornby's novels, and this one is no exception. He manages to capture every little awkward detail about the way people interact, which makes his characters very vivid and relatable, and there are loads of little bits that make you go 'Oh! I do that too!' A Long Way Down is filled with ridiculously funny yet somehow totally plausible moments, such as them lying to the tabloid reporter that they saw an angel who looked like Matt Damon, and then getting into an argument about why Martin didn't ask it to appear on his talk show.
I've read that there might be a film of this being made soon, and I hope it is, because this book seems like it would translate very well into a film and (hopefully) wouldn't lose too much of its detail. I always have a soft spot for the film version of About a Boy so I have high hopes for this film!

Anyway, I give this book a 4/5, mainly because I feel like I'm a bit too generous with my book reviews and I have to avoid giving everything I read a 5, because otherwise there's not much point in even having a scale!