Nick seems to hate his characters, and it’s making this one almost unreadable… maybe it’s a subtle ploy: a novel about suicide drives readers to leap off the nearest building…
I liked Fever Pitch, High Fidelity, About a Boy… but Nick’s got to go explore some new ground… or maybe he shouldn’t. His sharpest writing, when he seems interested in the book he’s writing, is when he falls back on his old favourites: music and lists. Personally, after High Fidelity and his “33 songs to listen to” or whatever that one was titled, I’m a bit sick of Hornby’s high opinion of his eclectic and… I don’t know what he thinks it is… the word ‘boss’ keeps leaping to mind. Anyway. Not enjoying it much, about halfway through, and my wife says it doesn’t get any better at the end (usually the one bit that lets him down, anyway).
UPDATE: She was right. I recommend sticking to Nick’s earlier stuff. This one has a great idea for the story, it’s a shame he hates every single character in the book, which, I suppose, could be a challenge to exceptionally compassionate people who want to try and like everyone… good luck with that, anyway. Nick, stick to 30-something English males for your characters… you’ve got those down. You just couldn’t pull off an older English breakfast show presenter, an older Irish woman caring for her vegetable son, a rowdy young minister’s daughter, and an American in London.