How To Be Good – Nick Hornby

A change from all that chic-lit. Nick Hornby has been described as the male equivalent – lad lit, or, better, dick lit. I got this from the library because it was the only one of his they had at the time; I was looking for High Fidelity or About a Boy (I love that film). Anyhow.

This story didn’t really work for me. It had some good bits in, particularly the bits about church, but it felt like having come up with a good idea, the author didn’t know where to take it. Which was a shame as I enjoyed reading most of it. The relationship between the main characters was oh too believable, as were the different reactions of the two children. And the constant theme “what does it mean to be good” – although fairly heavily laid on, raised some interesting questions. But without offering any answers, the overall effect felt rather negative and muddled.

On the positive side, I do think that reading this prompted me to be a bit nicer to my wonderful wife, so that’s not a bad thing. And this isn’t going to put me off reading some of his other books.