I've been a naughty little boy (How to be good - Nick Hornby)

Member Name: freediveheaven

Product:	How to be good - Nick Hornby
Date:	03/04/07 (682 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Great characters, engaging story

Disadvantages: May be a bit slow for some people

This is a delightful little book however it must be said that it will not be to everyone’s tastes. This is the second book by Nick Hornby that I have read, the first as Fever Pitch which was based upon his own, quite understandable, obsession with all things Arsenal and how that obsession impacts upon basic human relationships. In How to be Good he is once again on the subject of relationships however this time the story is told from the female point of view.

I always imagine it must be a bit harder for a writer when they write from the perspective of the opposite gender however in this book Hornby makes a pretty good job of it, having said that as I’m male maybe he is just confirming my own perceptions of how the female mind works.

The central premise of the book raises quite a nice theoretical question. Imagine you are in a marriage that is failing horribly, you are married to a man who by his own omission and the newspaper column he writes is “the angriest man in Holloway”, you are having an affair and your children no longer stimulate the maternal feelings they once did. What then happens when you ask for a divorce and your husband refuses, not only that he decides to fundamentally change from being an angry man to being one who does nothing but good deeds and suddenly becomes the attentive husband you wished for. Suddenly you are no longer the good person (forget the affair that was justified), being a doctor is no longer enough when your husband is seeking to wipe out homelessness in London, being the voice of reason when you are unable to overcome the logic of doing good is no longer sustainable as an argument. What if the non angry, good deed doing husband you wished for is not actually the thing of your dreams but potentially the thing that could change you life for the worse.

This is the dilemma facing Katie Carr a doctor in North London, wife of David and mother to two children. The story then charts in an often subtly funny way the events that unfold after she asks David for a divorce and he in turn finds himself visiting the strange faith healer hippie called GoodNews.

This is a pleasant enough book which I did find quite compelling to read. I could relate to the fact that it was based in an area of London that I used to live in and certainly some of the characters were similar to those that I would have mixed with at that time although they would have been the younger versions before kids arrive, but still that professional middle class type of person who chooses to live in a more edgy Islington rather than fleeing to the suburbs of leafy Hertfordshire.

At its most basic level the book is about relationships and how people sometimes just accept the life they lead without really questioning it. It is not meant to be a feel good book, there is a lot of friction within the book however there are also some very funny lines as well which is one of the strengths of Hornby writing, the ability to capture the self defacing humour of the British. The main character Katie goes through a huge amount of soul searching in the book and Hornby is skilled at getting across her confusion and total desolation at times as well as always offering a glimmer of hope that things will turn out fine in the end.
I liked the range of characters in the book and whilst Hornby rarely takes the time to paint stimulating visual pictures of his characters he provides enough detail alongside the dialogue they use for the reader to create a pretty clear picture of how each character looks, GoodNews is easy to picture as is Katie husband and children however even though she is the main character the one person I struggled to get a clear mental image of is Katie herself, this may be to do with the number of contradictions in her character, she is confident enough to have an affair so would appear at least somewhat attractive but then she has such low self esteem at times that I found the mental image I had of her changing the more I read of the book.

There is a nice moral questioning tone to this book, it looks at relationships and people who are far from perfect, it also runs with a theme about the caring out of good acts and the sacrifice that this will make on not only the individual caring out the deed but also potentially those close to them. A lot of David acts of kindness have a direct impact on his two children and they provide polar views on whether the acts are good or not, this mini battle between the two children, one appearing both selfish but sensible whilst the other appears both caring and patronising makes for a nice sub plot as their views are a more extreme clear cut version of their parents thoughts.

I personally enjoyed this book and would definitely recommend it however some people may find it a bit slow moving and frustrating at times, indeed I did find myself wanting to scream out for someone to make a decisive decision at times in the book. It stands up pretty well to Fever Pitch but is not as good in my opinion however I’m bias due to the Arsenal connection making it a more interesting subject matter.

Published by QPD I got my copy in a swap on readitswapit however the rrp is £7.99 but it can be obtained new from Amazon for £6.39 or from a penny in the new and used section.


Thanks for reading and rating my review.

Summary: Delightful take on relationships and a dying marriage.