Nick Hornby is a writer I’m not overly familiar with. I’ve seen About a Boy endless times as well as currently reading the book for the second time and the organisers of a recent university module seemed to be big fans of Fever Pitch due to its creative non-fiction elements (I didn’t read it due to my huge lack of interest in football). Juliet, Naked is a book I just happened to come across during my search for interesting and fun-to-read books in a charity shop recently.
Fun-to-read isn’t a phrase I’d really associate with this novel, but it was a good read, nonetheless. Juliet, Naked is the story of a woman whose 15 year relationship is on the rails due to a lack of passion and her partner’s obsession with blues/rock singer Tucker Crowe who has recently put together a selection of rough recordings which Duncan, the partner, has managed to get hold of.
After Annie writes a sneaky review of this collection of songs, she is contacted by Crowe and a friendship is built between them. Being a rock star, however, Tucker Crowe has quite a history which has left him as not the best boyfriend material in the world.
Having read About a Boy and a lot of good reviews for his other novels I trusted Nick Hornby to have released something worth reading and possibly keeping (I usually get rid of books after one or two reads in order to control my hoarding) as I build a collection of Hornby writings and I was right to do so.
Deadlines had all passed so I had plenty of free time to read this and I found myself sitting and reading it at any available time. The story was different to other things I had recently read yet it was (from what I remembered) very similar to About a Boy in style and humour. The story isn’t exactly gripping, yet it’s not something that makes the reader want to put it down after 20 pages. The fact that it had a rock star as the protagonist was very likely a helper in this also.
Hornby’s humour is strong, for use of a better word, but has a somewhat darkness element to it in that characters are very often feeling down yet he manages to take that feeling and add some well-placed comments and/or jokes to lighten the mood and keep the reader interested. Juliet, Naked is no different with this. I’d also say his humour is very “English” in that it uses jokes and imagery which is very stereotypical to the English lifestyle, the most obvious being that we all drink loads of tea with biscuits and get roaring drunk in pubs with jukeboxes which play the Spice Girls on repeat. This, however, is far from a complaint as it is a style of writing I thoroughly enjoy, likely due to understanding and connection with the characters, something I found this novel had.
Characters are simple yet believable and the reader is able to form opinions and feelings towards each character, some positive, some not. All in all Juliet, Naked is a well-written and constructed novel which could almost pass as a biographical piece and made me a fan of Nick Hornby.
Overall rating: 8/10
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