Mark's review
A Long Way Down
by Nick Hornby
Mark's review
A Long Way Down by Nick Hornby
Mark's review
rating:
Boy, is there anyone who has offered up more stinkers than Nick flippin' Hornby. And, was he so great to begin with? Even his better, earlier works were marginally good. Nothing life changing.
Which is kinda the point of why he's so awful: he is intentionally trying to be life changing in every book, essay, magazine column or whatever. He thinks he can somehow find the right prose combination for some idea or mindset to click and for it to change one's life ... much like these things do to characters in his books. The epiphany is Hornby's White Whale. And he didn't catch him in "A Long Way Down."
The problems with "A Long Way Down":
1. There isn't one likable character. It revolves around for seemingly different people all wanting to throw themselves from a building on New Years Eve. And you kinda wish they would've. They don't.
2. Unfocused. My first impressions of the book, before actually reading it, I thought it took place entirely on the roof of...more
Which is kinda the point of why he's so awful: he is intentionally trying to be life changing in every book, essay, magazine column or whatever. He thinks he can somehow find the right prose combination for some idea or mindset to click and for it to change one's life ... much like these things do to characters in his books. The epiphany is Hornby's White Whale. And he didn't catch him in "A Long Way Down."
The problems with "A Long Way Down":
1. There isn't one likable character. It revolves around for seemingly different people all wanting to throw themselves from a building on New Years Eve. And you kinda wish they would've. They don't.
2. Unfocused. My first impressions of the book, before actually reading it, I thought it took place entirely on the roof of...more
