About a Boy – by Nick Hornby
Review
We had the choice – between Nick Hornby’s "About a boy", and another book, I didn’t know either of them, but "About a boy" sounded a bit silly, bit shady somehow – I don’t know why I thought this, it just felt like that.
Anyway, the extract from the other book sounded way better. So how come I’m writing down my opinion about THIS book ? That’s due to some girls in my class, who like this shady stuff, and they voted for it - well, bad luck, I thought. A few weeks later I got the book, and as always, I started reading – I always start reading as soon as I get the book, to make up my mind whether it is actually trash or if I was wrong – I have to say, (guess you know this already) that I was wrong. I don’t want to write down what the book’s about, you could read that in the summary, so I’ll just try to explain WHY I liked this book. I think any book is a good one, if you just manage to get ‘into’ it – if you’re able to imagine everything, to feel what the characters feel, to think how the characters think – that’s what a good book does, you’re so much into it that you just read it in one rush – like I did. I started it on Monday, and by Thursday morning I finished.
As it’s written from the point of Marcus and Will, you know their thoughts, and I could really imagine what they feel and think and what they’re going to do in the next chapter – though it’s a little strange I could agree with both of them, because they’re really very different, on the inside and outside. Hornby is so honest in his writing and his characters are so real that it is impossible to not relate to them immediately, so the book is pretty sad one minute and pretty funny and sweet the next, though it’s that British humor. That's right, a British man wrote this book. British people write great books though. Some of the best writers are British... like that shakespeare dude. I think he's from England or something. Shakespeare's not as funny as Nick Hornby though. And this book has Nirvana references - I bet you Shakespeare never even listened to Nirvana.
So, to get to an end, it’s a good, touching book, though it’s sometimes a bit shady, but that’s alright with me. So, if you like touching, funny, sad books, go for this one - or if you are looking for a nice, light "weekend-book", which isn’t to hard to read or understand, then buy it.
But if you expect something really good, something going deeper than this one, buy "Tomorrow, when the war began" – compared to that one, Hornby is just almost not touching any feelings, but everything depends on how much you expect.
by Keno