Goodreads Mobile | see what your friends are reading

Dec 16, 2009

Shaina rated it:

To say I didn't get this book would be a profound understatement. Near as I can tell, it's about all the terrible, mundane ways life can grind you down, how hypocracy gets all of us in the end, and the way what was once beloved can turn into what you hate in the ones you used to love.

I found this book tremendously depressing. Also, it made me never want to get married or have kids. Ever.

I was tremendously disappointed in the ending as well, at the same time as I admire More...

4 comments like (14 people liked it)

Mar 27, 2008

will rated it:

how to be good

As long time readers know (or maybe you don't) Maria and I read to each other. One of the joys of "naked Sunday" is the fact that we don't have to get up, spend the day wandering around the flat in our pyjamas (just 'cos it is called "naked Sunday" doesn't necessarily mean that we spend the day nekkid!), basically just slob about.

This Sunday we spent the whole morning (and a bit of the afternoon) in bed. We ate cereal, we drank cokes and More...

0 comments like (10 people liked it)

Dec 16, 2009

Adrianne rated it:

Well-written, compelling, blah blah blah. I'm sick of books about affairs and divorce.

13 comments like (3 people liked it)

Oct 25, 2008

Ritz rated it:

Mi primer Hornby ¡Hurra! Gracias Kitty, gracias Núria excelente recomendación. Ya tengo 31 Canciones en la repisa.

¿Por dónde comenzar?

Será por mi absoluta identificación con el mundo reflexivo de la Doctora Katie Carr.

En su mente, es decir donde sucede toda la novela, soy ella. No en sus acciones y decisiones, y definitivamente no soy ella en el rumbo que toma su vida ni en su destino final, yo de la primera página en adelante hubiese derrotado por caminos b More...

2 comments like (5 people liked it)

Apr 09, 2009

Libby rated it:

I think "How to be Good" certainly divided fans of Hornby who were used to his musical themes in High Fidelity and 31 Songs and his style in About a Boy. He was given a lot of criticism for writing the book from the perspective of a middle aged female but this did not bother me in the slightest. In fact I thought the book was witty and well written. I found myself identifying with Katie, despite her whiny repetitive moments. I loved her inner voice - I found things written on the page More...

0 comments like (7 people liked it)

Dec 18, 2010

Veronica rated it:

This is the first Hornby book I have read and he did not disappoint. I found it fun and truly original. Katie, the main character, and her quirky, confused thoughts are very entertaining. It makes you realize how our minds can go crazy sometimes specially when put in odd circumstances.

This story is somewhat ridiculous but it also presents very serious issues on family and relationships. It speaks a lot about love and what it really means and gives importance to marriage and commitme More...

0 comments like (3 people liked it)

Oct 05, 2008

Ronny rated it:

Ini buku dikasih Roos krn dia ga suka (1 bintang!), tapi setelah kubaca sesungguhnya aku bingung knp Roos ga suka ya? Oke, terjemahannya memang kaku, tapi masih bisa dibaca meski jadinya nyebelin. Tapi di balik itu, ini buku bagus. Judul Indonesianya Suami Sempurna memang ngaco, krn ga ada hubungannya dg soal suami. How to be Good adalah soal bagaimana bersikap baik (atau apa sih definisi baik itu) di abad ke-21 yang kelewat kompleks ini?

Katie Carr seorang dokter beranak dua, dia yak More...

11 comments like (2 people liked it)

Jul 26, 2008

Nicholas rated it:

This review has been hidden because it contains spoilers. To view it, click here

0 comments like (1 person liked it)

Aug 29, 2008

Sara rated it:

Loved this book! I didn't think I would, actually, because it opens with the decaying of a marriage between two Brits with kids. The subject just doesn't grab me much, I mean, as escapist reading why would I want to read about an unhappy marriage? Before I knew it, though, I was sucked in by the marvelous writing and witty humor of Nick Hornby.

I had no idea where this book was going. There are so many unpredictable twists and turns and just when you think it couldn't get any crazi More...

2 comments like (3 people liked it)

Nov 16, 2011

Phillip rated it:

A book that is about a broken marriage between 2 characters, Katie and David. Throughout this book you see different sides of both characters and you wonder what is really going to happen between them 2. David, who seems to be the one that is destroying the marriage is a very evil person in this book but everything changes throughout the book. You see many different sides of David as he goes through a change in his life.

The changes throughout the book happens after David goes to see a More...

0 comments like

Dec 02, 2008

Antof9 rated it:

This book made me sad. It was really, really depressing. In fact, so much that it actually put me in a bad mood while I was reading it.

Don't get me wrong; there were flashes of humor, clever writing, and certainly it begs a lot of introspection. But it was a real downer. None of the hope of "About a Boy", and although I haven't read "High Fidelity", I've seen that movie, and I think that had hope too.

So here's what I started writing after the first More...

0 comments like (3 people liked it)

Jan 09, 2012

April rated it:

I found the book fun and original. We are let into the mind of Katie, a GP in Britain who hates her sarcastic, skeptical husband. In fact, her whole life, other than her medical practice, is about hating him. And he can't really help it, because it is his job to be angry about common everyday stuff like drivers, bus riders, plays, and restaurants, and then write up a weekly column for the newspaper. But, when he has a semi-spiritual experience and decides to "Be Good," the whole fabric More...

0 comments like

Jan 06, 2012

Jennifer rated it:

The idea of the book sounded so great when I read it. A husband that is angry all the time with a marriage failing because of it turns into a good person. The idea had the potential to be a really good, interesting story. Intead it turned out to be about, not just being a "good" person, but being better than everyone else. Giving money away to the poor, inviting the homeless to live with you. Becoming best friends and eventual roommates with GoodNews. The ideas were rather absurd.
More...

0 comments like

Nov 28, 2011

Marigold rated it:

Funny and interesting. This was my first experience reading Hornby so I had nothing to compare it to, which may have been good, based on other readers' reviews. Because this was a Book & Not Real Life, I found Katie, David & their family hilarious & sometimes moving. There's a British humor here that not everyone is going to get, but I found it spot on. Because it was a Book & Not Real Life, I found myself rooting for Katie to find her happiness (and goodness); I was also rooting for David! This More...

0 comments like

Nov 17, 2011

Julie rated it:

This review has been hidden because it contains spoilers. To view it, click here

0 comments like (1 person liked it)

Nov 16, 2011

Phillip rated it:

A book that is about a broken marriage between 2 characters, Katie and David. Throughout this book you see different sides of both characters and you wonder what is really going to happen between them 2. David, who seems to be the one that is destroying the marriage is a very evil person in this book but everything changes throughout the book. You see many different sides of David as he goes through a change in his life.
The changes throughout the book happens after David goes to see a f More...

0 comments like

Oct 17, 2011

Kater rated it:

This is a novel for people who like novels, a novel for people who are or want to read about middle age.

Katie Carr is a doctor married to the angriest man in Holloway. Even though she's having an affair and doesn't always care as much about her patients as she thinks she ought to, she's secure in the knowledge that she is a good person. Of course she's a good person. She's a doctor.

But when her husband David meets a spiritual healer who takes all his anger away, and David More...

0 comments like

Sep 13, 2011

Elsie87 added it

Sad, thought-provoking, heartbreaking... Quintessentially Hornby-esque. The main character - Katie Carr - is desperately clinging to the fact that she is a good person, because 'I'm a doctor'. At the start of the book, at least, this is all the evidence she needs to prove to herself that she is 'good'. However after her husband experiences some sort of spiritual conversion at the hands of scruffy skater-dude GoodNews and starts trying to rid the world of homelessness, inequality and exploitation More...

0 comments like

Aug 25, 2011

Amy Wilder rated it:

Really intimate first person novel about a woman whose husband suddenly stops being snarky and facetious and becomes really sincere and loving. Basically I completely sympathized with her feeling that this person, while arguably much NICER than her husband, was basically NOT her husband any more, and was also pretty annoying.

It's a great humorous approach to the same kind of material about morality that Jonathan Franzen explores in Freedom. Only, you know, funny and enjoyable rather More...

0 comments like

Jul 19, 2011

Stephanie "Jedigal" rated it:

Shoot. I really keep up on adding books but I got behind here. It's been quite a while since I completed this.

My first Hornby read, I am happy to say I loved it. It's a frustrating story in many ways. The marriage that is the central relationship here is undergoing what some might consider to be a crazy and unlikely stress: the protagonist's husband has suddenly decided he is not a 'good enough' person, and his efforts to become a better human being include inviting homeless p More...

1 comment like

Jul 15, 2011

Jenine rated it:

The voice is pitch perfect. So easy to read, I snapped this up in three days. Funny, canny, with entertaining presentation of some ugly truths about the nuclear family.

::Spoilers start here::
Katie is going to sleep at a friend's apartment and thinking about why she wants to step away, have a time out from being David's wife. "That's all there is left, when you take away working hours and family suppers and family breakfasts: the time I get on my own is the time I would have s More...

1 comment like (1 person liked it)

Jun 03, 2011

Rebecca rated it:

It was kind of odd reading a book written by a man (Nick Hornby) but the protag was a women. That rarely happens, if ever, in the stuff I read.

Katie's marriage is falling apart. Her husband isn't what he used to be. He was always mean and Katie just grew tired of it. Now he is good and she doesn't like the change either. There was a story in this book, but it didn't seem like it went anywhere. Lots of scenarios, but there didn't seem to be an end to any of them. They just all kind of f More...

0 comments like

Feb 16, 2011

Erika rated it:

The first two pages of this book are hilarious, and the narrative stays consistently amusing beyond that point. The characters' limited perspectives are so wonderfully flat and self-centered! Not a single character in this book desires to actually be good, not if it interferes with their self-righteousness or their conception of what, exactly, the term entails. Katie Carr is a wonderful unreliable narrator, funny and sarcastic and a seeming projection of the mind of every guilty liberal stuck on More...

0 comments like

Feb 16, 2011

Danielle rated it:

I recognized the name of this author and so thought I'd give one of his books a go. I can see the appeal he holds for some people (his writing was lively and even minor characters were interesting) but I wasn't satisfied with the story. My perception from the cover blurbs was that this novel would provide entertaining substance, and while the dilemmas faced by the main character (her committment to her marriage, her desire to be a good person while maintaining a degree of sanity, and others) did More...

0 comments like

Dec 22, 2010

Jinky rated it:

A stale marriage of 20 years in Katie's eyes somewhat justified her to commit adultery and consequently asks David for a divorce. David takes it in stride not believing her because we're talking about Katie here, the doctor, the good one. David learns that the affair was true and stumbles into GoodNews, a self-proclaim homeless guru, who miraculously heals David's back pain and gave him a new outlook in life as well. This leads David to develop convictions to help the needy and begins by taki More...

1 comment like (1 person liked it)

Nov 21, 2010

Jeni rated it:

This book made me realise how important it is to read a book's customer reviews before committing to read it. There's so many novels I want to read, and just not enough time to read all of them! If I'd done my research on this book I would have (hopefully) heeded the warnings about the lack of plot, the insufficient ending and the indifference a lot of readers feel towards the characters.

I look for books which completely draw me into their world, where I get so drawn into the charact More...

0 comments like

Nov 16, 2010

Valetta rated it:

Se questo libro fosse una favola per bambini, di quelle che si concludono con una morale, in messaggio sarebbe: state attenti a quello che desiderate, potrebbe avverarsi :)
Ad esempio, se avete un marito incapace di qualunque affermazione che non trabocchi di sarcasmo, sempre pronto a trasformare un banale scambio di opinioni su cosa mangiare a cena in una feroce guerra verbale,potreste avere la tentazione di desiderare che sia una persona diversa. Meglio ancora una persona buona.
E qui sta la fr More...

0 comments like

Oct 04, 2010

Andrew rated it:

This is possibly Hornby's strongest book for characterisation, dialogue and anthropological observation. He has captured the inner thoughts of a middle aged female well, and it is easy to identify with her frustrations and emotions.

But...

It loses at least one star if not more for the poor narrative pacing and then disappointing conclusion. Quite often, an abrupt and inconclusive ending will be in tone with a books unravelling. Not so in this case. Hornby seems genuinely i More...

0 comments like

Jul 17, 2010

Jon rated it:

The last sentence of this book made me feel daft. I think I pretty much comprehended the majority of the book: the mild, slightly frantic despair that the main character feels over a marriage that is mutually dissatisfactory; the duplicitious and hypocritical nature of trying too hard to do good things when your own life is in shambles and you can't have fulfilling relationships with people that you actually know; the ambiguity that someone can feel when no option is without unacceptable costs. More...

0 comments like

May 09, 2010

Pedro rated it:

This review has been hidden because it contains spoilers. To view it, click here

0 comments like